worldwide enterprise social networks and online ... · july 2015, idc #257492 market analysis...

July 2015, IDC #257492

MARKET ANALYSIS

Worldwide Enterprise Social Networks and Online Communities 2015–2019 Forecast and 2014 Vendor Shares

Vanessa Thompson

IDC OPINION

The market for enterprise social networks (ESNs) evolved significantly in 2014. There is an increasing

presence of social workflow capabilities being surfaced inside business applications, but at the same

time, online communities to support customers, employees, partners, and suppliers are growing

rapidly. IDC expects the market for both standalone and embedded ESNs to continue to slow

significantly as many more enterprise applications become social in nature. However, the market for

online communities is growing rapidly. Toward the end of the forecast period, enterprise social

networks may not even be called out as a separate market. In addition:

IDC expects the worldwide enterprise social networks market revenue to grow from $1.46

billion in 2014 to $3.5 billion by 2019, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19.1%.

IDC expects the worldwide online communities market revenue to grow from $392.95 million in 2014 to $1.2 billion by 2019, representing a CAGR of 24.3%.

Connecting to customers, employees, partners, and suppliers has always been a mission-critical activity. Alongside rapidly shifting expectations, communities have become a broker between business networks and will only continue to contribute more value to organizations

trying to develop ongoing relationships.

©2015 IDC #257492 2

IN THIS STUDY

This study examines the enterprise social networks market for the period from 2010 to 2019, with

vendor revenue trends and market growth forecasts. Worldwide market sizing is provided for 2014,

with trends from 2013. A five-year growth forecast for this market is shown for 2015–2019. Revenue

and market share of the leading vendors in both enterprise social networks and online communities

are provided for 2014.

Methodology

See the Methodology in the Learn More section for a description of the forecasting and analysis

methodology employed in this study.

In addition, please note the following:

The information contained in this study was derived from IDC's Worldwide Semiannual Software Tracker database as of June 8, 2015.

All numbers in this document may not be exact due to rounding.

For more information on IDC's software definitions and methodology, see IDC's Software Taxonomy, 2015 (IDC #256767, June 2015).

Enterprise Social Networks Market Definition

Enterprise social networks (ESNs) enable social workflow capabilities to be delivered to users that are

either inside or outside an organization's firewall. Users in non-customer-facing roles are the focus of

these solutions, but customer-facing interactions may also occur. Solution capabilities of enterprise

social networks should include, but are not limited to, activity streams, blogs, wikis, microblogging,

discussion forums, groups (public or private), ideas, profiles, recommendation engines (people,

content, or objects), tagging, bookmarking, and secure communities. An ESN provides a social

workflow or relationship layer in a business that can be an independent or a standalone solution and/or

a set of service-oriented APIs or integrated applications that coexist with other business and

communications applications. Vendors tracked in the enterprise social networks market can offer

discrete solutions supporting one type of social functionality (such as community management,

ideation, or innovation management) or a broad-based platform that encompasses many functionality

traits. A variety of deployment options (on-premises, software as a service [SaaS], hosted application

management, or software appliance) are made available.

Online communities is a subsegment of the enterprise social networks market and includes all online

communities.

Communities enable the collection and incorporation of user-generated feedback (content can include

files and rich media) and may also include capabilities such as blogs, discussion forums, profiles,

tagging, comments, and ratings/ranking. Communities operate on owned digital properties and can be

customer, employee, or partner/supplier based and serve a specific member/community-based

organization. Solutions may also enable aggregation of external social data sources into owned sites

though social log-in, social plug-ins (including proprietary connectors, Web services, or iFrames).

The communities market definition excludes:

©2015 IDC #257492 3

Social analytics functionality included in any of the CRM segments of sales automation,

marketing automation, customer service, or contact center.

Social media publishing capabilities; this also includes social media ad placement.

SITUATION OVERVIEW

The Worldwide Enterprise Social Networks Market in 2014

ESNs continue to become common place in the modern enterprise. Throughout 2014, there was

significant repositioning of the major ESN vendors. IBM continues to focus on IBM Connections as it

supports IBM Verse, the company's new email product. Jive Software has created a focus on

workstyles with a range of new products focused on individual productivity, from calendaring through to

mobile application messaging with Jive Chime. Microsoft is hastily increasing the capabilities and

scope of Office 365 that also includes Yammer, and the focus on Office 365 APIs is encouraging

where other business applications can be connected to the suite. Salesforce.com is aggressively

pushing the Community Cloud, and Chatter is now accounted for as part of the salesforce.com

platform business. Finally, Lithium Technologies is well placed to IPO in the coming year as its

customer base is maturing well.

Performance of Leading Vendors in 2014

Table 1 and Figure 1 display 2012–2014 worldwide revenue and 2014 growth and market share for

enterprise social networks vendors. Year-over-year (YoY) growth for almost all vendors in the market

was in double digits. The continued growth of salesforce.com is on the back of the change in

positioning of Chatter to become a more horizontal support layer to Salesforce1, alongside the addition

of the Community Cloud offerings for sales, marketing, and partner communities.

Table 2 and Figure 2 display 2012–2014 worldwide revenue and 2014 growth and market share for

online communities vendors. Online communities is a subsegment of the enterprise social networks

market and in its most basic form refers to a Web-based destination where people can connect, find

resources, and discuss issues around an industry, an organization, a product, or a set of values.

©2015 IDC #257492 4

TABLE 1

Worldwide Enterprise Social Networks Revenue by Vendor, 2012–2014 ($M)

2012 2013 2014 2014 Share (%)

2013–2014

Growth (%)

IBM 142.7 172.7 185.5 12.7 7.4

Jive Software 102.3 130.5 162.2 11.1 24.3

Salesforce.com 29.6 91.2 161.6 11.1 77.2

Microsoft 44.0 76.0 97.2 6.7 27.9

Lithium 52.5 81.5 92.3 6.3 13.2

Zimbra 39.1 47.9 65.3 4.5 36.4

SAP 10.9 34.1 47.1 3.2 38.2

Socialtext 34.6 34.8 35.2 2.4 1.4

Mindjet 17.6 18.6 23.1 1.6 23.9

Get Satisfaction 14.9 18.5 23.0 1.6 24.4

INgage Networks 15.7 17.5 20.6 1.4 18.2

Google – 10.9 16.6 1.1 52.7

Igloo Software 10.4 13.5 16.0 1.1 18.0

TIBCO 10.0 12.2 14.9 1.0 22.2

Zyncro 5.7 9.5 12.6 0.9 32.9

ATOS 7.9 8.6 8.6 0.6 0.1

VMware 4.7 6.6 8.0 0.5 21.7

Cisco 2.0 1.4 1.6 0.1 18.0

TOTVS – 0.1 0.2 0.0 204.6

Subtotal 544.9 785.8 991.6 67.9 26.2

Other 414.1 491.3 468.1 32.1 -4.7

Total 959.0 1,277.1 1,459.7 100.0 14.3

Source: IDC, June 2015

©2015 IDC #257492 5

FIGURE 1

Worldwide Enterprise Social Networks Revenue Share by Vendor, 2014


TABLE 2

Worldwide Online Communities Revenue by Vendor, 2012–2014 ($M)

2012 2013 2014 2014 Share (%)

2013–2014

Growth (%)

Salesforce.com 29.6 64.8 139.3 35.4 114.8

Lithium 52.5 81.5 92.3 23.5 13.2

Jive Software 26.6 37.8 53.5 13.6 41.5

Zimbra 27.4 33.5 45.7 11.6 36.4

Get Satisfaction 14.9 18.5 23.0 5.9 24.4

Igloo Software 10.4 13.5 16.0 4.1 18.0

TIBCO 10.0 12.2 14.9 3.8 22.2

Google – 5.4 8.3 2.1 52.7

Total 171.4 267.3 393.0 100.0 47.0


©2015 IDC #257492 6

FIGURE 2

Worldwide Online Communities Revenue Share by Vendor, 2014


Performance by Geographic Region in 2014

North America makes up the lion's share of revenue in the enterprise social networks market.

However, EMEA (Western Europe and CEMA) experienced good growth through 2014, in line with the

deployment of cloud-based services in the region. Asia/Pacific (including Japan) (APJ) still represents

a small portion of revenue in enterprise social networks as the market is still immature in relation to

North America (see Figure 3).

FIGURE 3

Worldwide Enterprise Social Networks Revenue Share by Region, 2014


©2015 IDC #257492 7

FUTURE OUTLOOK

Forecast and Assumptions

The following factors are likely to drive revenue growth in enterprise social networks and online

communities during the forecast period:

Communicating with customers rather than just responding has become a business focus.This shift signifies that organizations are wanting to drive more awareness of their brand as well as have an ongoing conversation with customers. This is particularly suited to online

communities where brands can quickly build a trust relationship with customers, employees, partners, and suppliers.

Social workflow is at the core of how companies can create competitive differentiation and advantage, but it is far from simply implementing some new software/hardware and automating processes. It should be inherent in how companies do business, with technology

being the enabler.

The rapidly changing nature of work means that the role of social workflow will become

increasingly important to enable users to get their work done wherever they choose to work. Business decisions will be made via new outputs (likely mobile based) that integrate analytics and data with people and systems.

There is an opportunity for online communities to become marketplaces of their own where partners and suppliers are able to start transacting in the community to help solve other

customer or partner questions.

The following factors are likely to inhibit revenue growth in enterprise social networks during the

forecast period:

The level of deployment of enterprise social networks (the Americas region in particular) indicates that many organizations have already deployed solutions, and the incremental

increase in revenue for standalone solutions will be nominal.

The IT department will be increasingly involved in deployment and integration to ensure social

solutions meet enterprise requirements for security, compliance, and IP protection.

Worldwide Enterprise Social Networks and Online Communities Forecast, 2015–2019

IDC's estimate of growth of the enterprise social networks and online communities markets through

2019 is presented in Table 3. The enterprise social networks market is expected to reach $3.5 billion

by 2019 at a CAGR of 19.1%. The online communities market is expected to reach $1.2 billion by 2019

at a CAGR of 24.3%.

IDC analysts around the globe supplied regional input and insight into the enterprise social networks

forecast. The worldwide forecast is the aggregation of this regional data. The forecast is for the

Americas region to retain a good growth rate throughout the forecast period, although EMEA and APJ

are expected to grow more aggressively. To date, the Americas region represents a disproportionately

high share of revenue, as the EMEA and Asia/Pacific (including Japan) regions can expect a longer

time frame for change with respect to standalone enterprise social networks and may transition directly

to embedded applications as more enterprise applications assume social workflow. Table 4 shows the

regional share breakdown for 2014 and 2019 and revenue forecast for 2014–2019. Figure 4 shows the

regional revenue data for 2014 and 2019 in graphical form.

©2015 IDC #257492 8

TABLE 3

Worldwide Enterprise Social Networks and Online Communities Revenue, 2014–2019 ($M)

2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

2014–2019

CAGR (%)

Enterprise social networks 1,459.7 1,707.2 2,031.7 2,422.3 2,898.4 3,498.7 19.1

Growth (%) 14.3 17.0 19.0 19.2 19.7 20.7

Online communities 393.0 477.7 590.7 736.5 925.5 1,167.2 24.3

Growth (%) 47.0 21.6 23.6 24.7 25.7 26.1

Note: See Table 5 for top 3 assumptions and Table 6 for key forecast assumptions.


TABLE 4

Worldwide Enterprise Social Networks Revenue by Region, 2014–2019 ($M)

2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

2014

Share

(%)

2014–2019

CAGR (%)

2019

Share

(%)

North America 1,046.3 1,138.4 1,245.3 1,347.8 1,452.4 1,550.5 71.7 8.2 44.3

EMEA 346.4 493.9 702.4 979.9 1,339.8 1,829.4 23.7 39.5 52.3

APJ 67.0 74.9 84.0 94.6 106.3 118.7 4.6 12.1 3.4

Total 1,459.7 1,707.2 2,031.7 2,422.3 2,898.4 3,498.7 100.0 19.1 100.0

Note: See Table 5 for top 3 assumptions and Table 6 for key forecast assumptions.


©2015 IDC #257492 9

FIGURE 4

Worldwide Enterprise Social Networks Revenue by Region, 2014 and 2019


Assumptions

Table 5 shows the top 3 assumptions for the enterprise social networks market, and Table 6 shows the

key forecast assumptions underlying this forecast.

©2015 IDC #257492 10

TABLE 5

Top 3 Assumptions for the Worldwide Enterprise Social Networks and Online Communities Market, 2015–2019

Market Force IDC Assumption Significance

Changes to This

Assumption That Could

Affect Current Forecast Comments

Economy Economic

performance has been

mixed in 2015. Low oil

prices have boosted

confidence in energy-

importing countries

like India, and Western

Europe has continued

to show moderate

improvements (despite

continued uncertainty

over Grexit). On the

other hand,

momentum has

slowed in China and

Japan, while the U.S.

economy was weaker

in the first quarter. We

assume that the

United States will

improve in the second

half of the year and

that China will use

policy to stabilize

growth at around 7%.

But with Russia and

Latin America

stuttering, the global

economy will grow by

less than 3%.

A down economy

affects business and

consumer confidence,

the availability of

credit and private

investment, and

internal funding. A

global recession

would cause

businesses to delay

IT upgrades and

some new projects; a

rising economy does

the opposite. A crisis

(perhaps triggered by

more volatility in

emerging markets)

could create a chain

of events that would

drive tech spending

much lower in the

near term.

The forecast assumes

that the benefits of

lower, and stable,

energy prices will assist

growth, and therefore

IT spending, in both

industrialized and

developing economies,

without triggering a

spike in interest rates.

Slower growth in China

is manageable at

present levels but could

drag down global GDP

growth should the

situation worsen.

At present, the fallout

from global hot spots

remains contained. It

would require a

significant and

material geopolitical

crisis to have a

worldwide price

erosion on the overall

ICT market.

©2015 IDC #257492 11

TABLE 5

Top 3 Assumptions for the Worldwide Enterprise Social Networks and Online Communities Market, 2015–2019

Market Force IDC Assumption Significance

Changes to This

Assumption That Could

Affect Current Forecast Comments

Enterprise

decision making

The need to support

ad hoc decisions

becomes increasingly

critical. Companies will

look to native

collaboration

applications and other

lightweight SaaS-

based and mobile

collaboration tools to

support other business

decisions.

Collaboration and

personal productivity

are rapidly changing,

and new features are

being defined and

incorporated to meet

emerging business

needs.

Upside: Over-the-top

mobile application

messaging will become

coupled with ad hoc

decision making.

Downside: Business

processes that are rigid

in nature will require

additional user

interaction. This means

that the information to

decision process will

take longer.

It is no longer good

enough to just offer

APIs to extend existing

business processes.

The user interface and

usability workflow

aspects must also be

streamlined so that

users have the same

experience across any

device.

User centricity Consumerization of

the enterprise

continues with

consumer devices and

Web applications

brought into the

workplace as well as

vendors positioning

products/solutions to

increasingly suit user

needs, not IT.

Initiatives from

vendors to launch

social workflow

features as a

complement to

existing collaboration

applications and

business workflow will

continue. For

instance, content

repositories and

enterprise social

networks will become

accessible from inside

other applications. A

number of enterprise

social software

vendors have

launched mobile OS

SDKs in support of

this trend.

Upside: Increasing

business pressures and

the change in user

workstyles have

created the opportunity

to build and architect

applications and

processes directly from

user behavior rather

than delivering mobile

versions of current

enterprise business

applications.

Downside: Many

organizations do not

yet have clarity around

an enterprise mobility

strategy and are

investing in both mobile

device management

and mobile application

management. This

creates a significant

spending increase to

manage both devices

and applications.

User expectations will

continue to change

rapidly, but often this

is not in step with the

enterprise IT buying

cycle, so organizations

will need to become

more agile and deliver

experiences to users

that they expect

outside of the work

context.


©2015 IDC #257492 12

TABLE 6

Key Forecast Assumptions for the Worldwide Enterprise Social Networks and Online Communities Market, 2015–2019

Market Force IDC Assumption Impact

Accelerator/

Inhibitor/

Neutral

Certainty of

Assumption

Macroeconomics

Economy Economic performance has

been mixed in 2015. Low oil

prices have boosted confidence

in energy-importing countries

like India, and Western Europe

has continued to show

moderate improvements

(despite continued uncertainty

over Grexit). On the other hand,

momentum has slowed in

China and Japan, while the

U.S. economy was weaker in

the first quarter. We assume

that the United States will

improve in the second half of

the year and that China will use

policy to stabilize growth at

around 7%. But with Russia

and Latin America stuttering,

the global economy will grow by

less than 3%.

High. A down economy affects

business and consumer

confidence, the availability of

credit and private investment,

and internal funding. A global

recession would cause

businesses to delay IT

upgrades and some new

projects; a rising economy does

the opposite. A crisis (perhaps

triggered by more volatility in

emerging markets) could create

a chain of events that would

drive tech spending much lower

in the near term.

Crisis duration/

potential relapse

Although there is increased

uncertainty surrounding the

future of Greece in the

eurozone, the overall European

economy appears less likely to

relapse into crisis than a year

ago. A debt crisis is possible in

China as the economy

continues to grapple with the

overhand of its response to the

financial crisis, but we currently

assume that the government

has enough firepower in its

policy arsenal to avert the

worst-case scenarios.

High. A crisis in economic

confidence will shake IT

spending to the core within a

short time frame, as observed

in 2009. With modular IT

spending dominating IT buyer

strategy, businesses stand

ready to delay or postpone

capital spending and new

projects. On the flip side, this

creates pent-up demand,

especially in emerging markets.

©2015 IDC #257492 13

TABLE 6



Accelerator/

Inhibitor/

Neutral

Certainty of

Assumption

Vertical industries The main drag on IT spending

is from the public sector, with

government spending cuts in

the United States and austerity

measures in most of Europe.

Dynamic industries include

healthcare, which continues its

pace of modernization to deal

with aging populations in

mature economies, and the

services sector. Manufacturing

firms are investing to improve

their global competitiveness,

while telecom operators are

engaged in customer retention

efforts. Industry-specific

solutions will be a major driver

for IT spending.

High. A downturn in major

contributors to IT revenue (e.g.,

the financial services sector)

can have a major impact on IT

spending. Momentum in vertical

sectors (e.g., healthcare) can

drive overall IT spending.

Industry-specific solutions are

increasingly a major contributor

to growth.

©2015 IDC #257492 14

TABLE 6



Accelerator/

Inhibitor/

Neutral

Certainty of

Assumption

Global

megatrends

Cloud Cloud is a new paradigm of

computing that will shape IT

spending over the next several

decades — the logical evolution

of what IDC called "dynamic IT"

for years. It entails shared

access to virtualized resources

over the Internet. IDC estimates

that cloud services spending

will continue to grow at double-

digit rates for the next few

years, gradually accounting for

a larger proportion of all IT

spending. In the short term and

the medium term, this will have

a negative impact on IT

spending, enabling end users

to lower their overall spending

on certain solutions. However,

in the long term, we believe that

cloud will have a positive

overall impact on industry

growth as more users adopt

more advanced computing

solutions at a faster rate.

High. The key advantage to

cloud services should be the

ability of IT organizations to

shift IT resources from

maintenance to new initiatives.

This in turn could lead to new

business revenue and

competitiveness as well as

create new opportunities for IT

vendors in SMB and emerging

markets. The benefits will be

offset by cannibalization in the

short term though, resulting in

shorter service engagements,

price model disruption, and

some hardware

commoditization. A stronger

economy would see most

organizations shift resources to

new IT development and

adoption areas in the long term.

We see cloud adoption as an IT

spending driver overall, despite

these cannibalization effects in

the next few years.

©2015 IDC #257492 15

TABLE 6



Accelerator/

Inhibitor/

Neutral

Certainty of

Assumption

The digital

marketplace

The impact of the new digital

marketplace can be seen in

software as a service, the

integration of Internet and

enterprise search and other

functionality, the concept of

"cloud computing," and

competition for ad revenue

among Microsoft, Google, and

other vendors. The digital

marketplace will affect content

delivery, commerce, datacenter

architectures, advertising,

marketing, telecommunications,

and social interactions. It may

also accelerate the

consumption of ICT in

emerging geographies, where

more and more online

populations reside.

Moderate. Look for faster

development of the software-

as-a-service model, more

development of composite

applications, and more directly

competitive products (e.g.,

social network application

platforms). Also look for rapid

growth of Internet advertising

revenue in emerging

geographies.

Internet of Things The Internet of Things refers to

the proliferation of client

devices and end-user or end-

use devices at the network

edge. These other devices

range from smartphones and

networked entertainment

devices to automobiles,

building automation systems,

smart meters and thermostats,

medical electronics, and

industrial controllers, not to

mention RFID tags and

sensors. Communicating client

devices will proliferate at 5–10

times the rate of PCs installed.

Devices will both converge

(smartphones with more

functionality) and diverge

(single-use devices, such as

RFID readers and industry-

specific devices).

High. The addition of billions of

devices to the network edge will

drive the need for more

enterprise systems to deploy,

manage, and make use of

these devices. It will also shift

the prevailing traffic from the

center of the network outward

to edge inward, which will affect

computing and communications

architectures.

©2015 IDC #257492 16

TABLE 6



Accelerator/

Inhibitor/

Neutral

Certainty of

Assumption

Specific market

trends

Converged

modality

Conferencing and messaging

are becoming more of a

multimodal experience and are

being built into social workflow

to meet the needs of the new

enterprise workspace.

Moderate. Convergence will

drive new competitive

dynamics, offer new

applications and functions to

customers. Applications that

have the embedded video

capability enable users to do

different tasks within the same

application.

Enterprise decision

making

The need to support ad hoc

decisions becomes increasingly

critical. Companies will look to

native collaboration

applications and other

lightweight SaaS-based and

mobile collaboration tools to

support other business

decisions.

Moderate. Collaboration and

personal productivity are rapidly

changing, and new features are

being defined and incorporated

to meet emerging business

needs.

User centricity Consumerization of the

enterprise continues with

consumer devices and Web

applications brought into the

workplace as well as vendors

positioning products/solutions

to increasingly suit user needs,

not IT.

High. Initiatives from vendors

to launch social workflow

features as a complement to

existing collaboration

applications and business

workflow will continue. For

instance, content repositories

and enterprise social networks

will become accessible from

inside other applications. A

number of enterprise social

software vendors have

launched mobile OS SDKs in

support of this trend.

©2015 IDC #257492 17

TABLE 6



Accelerator/

Inhibitor/

Neutral

Certainty of

Assumption

Consumption

Buying sentiment Buying sentiment has

fluctuated in recent months, in

line with stock markets and

macroeconomic events/risk

factors. In the past 12 months,

CIOs have consistently

underforecast their own IT

spending, reflecting the

persistent air of caution and risk

aversion. If the economy

remains stable, spending will

likely outpace buyer sentiment

polls. If the economy enters

another downturn, buyer

confidence could plunge

quickly.

High. Buyer sentiment

obviously has a major direct

impact on IT spending.

Confidence can be volatile from

month to month, however, and

CIOs have often misjudged

their own IT spending. The

decentralization of IT budgets

makes it more difficult to rely on

individual polls of buyer intent

in order to accurately judge

sentiment. Underlying

sentiment is usually higher than

surveys indicate.

Legend: very low, low, moderate, high, very high


Market Context

A five-year forecast update (2014–2018) was last published for the enterprise social networks market in

Worldwide Enterprise Social Networks 2014–2018 Forecast and 2013 Vendor Shares (IDC #249846,

July 2014). Table 7 compares the forecast published in the previous document with the current

forecast in terms of regional revenue and worldwide annual growth rates. Historical data (2010–2014)

is also included in Table 7 for comparison purposes. Figure 5 displays the same data in graphical form.

IDC expects revenue of standalone enterprise social networks to slow significantly, particularly in the

Americas region, compared with the previous forecast. This is aligned to the social workflow processes

that are enabled by activity streams and the nature of interactions this generates inside organizations.

As the nature of communications in business changes because of the impact of online social

interactions, these new dynamics create an increased level of automation in decision support systems

through ad hoc workflows and increasing urgency from businesses looking to capture market

opportunities created by these new dynamics. This means that the processes inherent in enterprise

social networks, primarily activity streams, messaging, and document repositories, will become

embedded in other applications rather than being provided by standalone applications and move out

into online communities.

©2015 IDC #257492 18

TABLE 7

Worldwide Enterprise Social Networks Revenue, 2010–2019: Comparison of July 2014 and July 2015 Forecasts ($M)

2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

July 2015 forecast 569.8 806.8 959.0 1,277.1 1,459.7 1,707.2 2,031.7 2,422.3 2,898.4 3,498.7

Growth (%) NA 41.6 18.9 33.2 14.3 17.0 19.0 19.2 19.7 20.7

July 2014 forecast 569.8 806.8 967.9 1,242.0 1,540.9 1,907.0 2,345.4 2,870.4 3,509.4 NA

Growth (%) 33.7 41.6 20.0 28.3 24.1 23.8 23.0 22.4 22.3 NA

Notes:

See Worldwide Enterprise Social Networks 2014–2018 Forecast and 2013 Vendor Shares (IDC #249846, July 2014) for prior

forecast.

Historical market values presented here are as published in prior IDC documents based on the market taxonomies and current

U.S. dollar exchange rates existing at the time the data was originally published. For more details, see the Methodology in the

Learn More section.


FIGURE 5

Worldwide Enterprise Social Networks Revenue, 2010–2019: Comparison of July 2014 and July 2015 Forecasts


©2015 IDC #257492 19

ESSENTIAL GUIDANCE

IDC expects the deployment of standalone enterprise social networks to continue to slow. However,

the uptake in online communities is encouraging. Over time, enterprise social networks will become

part of the business platform, and vendors like salesforce.com already work in this way. Toward the

end of the forecast period, there will be increasing focus on self-service interactions where

communities become a powerful business tool to support existing business interactions with

customers, employees, partners, and suppliers. In addition:

Online communities will become a place of interaction as well as transaction. As businesses

look beyond customer support as a way to engage users in the community, there are many opportunities in delivering a comprehensive business platform that can connect to other business functions. By connecting components of the business and supplier network that may

collaborate through disconnected but shared processes, organizations can start to build an experience that transcends existing business relationships.

Capturing influence, relevance, and expertise across a business or community remains a complex challenge. As organizations look to target future potential touch points of customers and partners, it will be essential to deliver context to these touch points with quick reference to

relevant expertise across all business stakeholders.

To enable the core features of enterprise social networks to be surfaced inside enterprise

workflow, open APIs need to be provided to enable information assets to become productized, syndicated, and distributed as callable IP assets via an API. Streamlined user interface connectivity also needs to be included to deliver seamless user connectivity between apps.

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Methodology

Historical Market Values and Exchange Rates

Historical market values presented here are as published in prior IDC documents based on the market

taxonomies and current U.S. dollar exchange rates existing at the time the data was originally

published. For markets other than the United States, these as-published values are therefore based on

a different exchange rate each year.

Because many individual countries contribute to regional totals, it is difficult to give precise differences

between current and constant currency values in this document. However, the scale of the difference

can be understood from the movement of the U.S. dollar against major regional currencies. Customers

©2015 IDC #257492 20

should consider multiplying regional historical market values for each year by the change in value of

the U.S. dollar against representative currencies in the region as shown in Table 8. This will provide a

better approximation of local market growth. For example, to restate 2012 eurozone values into 2014

dollars, one would adjust the 2012 value upward by 3% (because the dollar weakened slightly against

the euro between 2012 and 2014).

Please refer to IDC's regional research studies containing historical forecasts for multiple countries for

more accurate regional growth in local currencies. Note that this discussion applies only to historical

values prior to 2014. 2014 and all future years are forecast at a constant exchange rate.

TABLE 8

Exchange Rates, 2006–2014 (%)

2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014

Euro 106 97 91 95 100 95 103 100 100

Pound 89 82 90 106 107 103 104 105 100

Yen 110 111 98 88 83 75 75 92 100

Canadian dollar 103 97 97 103 93 90 91 93 100

Mexico peso 82 82 84 102 95 94 99 96 100

Brazilian real 93 83 78 85 75 71 83 92 100

Note: To restate prior-year U.S. dollars, multiply historical market values by the percentage indicated in the table.

Source: IDC, January 2015

Synopsis

This IDC study examines vendor revenue performance in the enterprise social networks market for

2012–2014 and presents a forecast of the market for 2015–2019. It also includes vendor revenue share

and forecast data in the same periods for the online communities segment of the enterprise social

networks market.

"The nature of business interactions is moving toward ongoing communication and building

relationships and away from prescriptive and responsive interactions," says Vanessa Thompson,

research director for IDC's Enterprise Social Networks and Collaborative Technologies. "Organizations

will focus on driving brand awareness as well as having ongoing conversations with customers. This is

particularly suited to online communities where brands can quickly build a trust relationship with

customers, employees, partners, and suppliers."

About IDC

International Data Corporation (IDC) is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory

services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications and consumer technology

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based decisions on technology purchases and business strategy. More than 1,100 IDC analysts

provide global, regional, and local expertise on technology and industry opportunities and trends in

over 110 countries worldwide. For 50 years, IDC has provided strategic insights to help our clients

achieve their key business objectives. IDC is a subsidiary of IDG, the world's leading technology

media, research, and events company.

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