Technoweb at Siemens

The rise of social media has taken the world by storm. Businesses across the globe have captured the capabilities of social media and created a synergistic platform within the workplace. With social media becoming a part of people's everyday lives, its function as a source of interaction and collaboration has provided many benefits for companies willing to implement an internal platform. Top companies like Google, IBM, and GE are embracing the concept, resulting in cost savings, higher employee morale, and numerous other positive business rewards.

Siemens, an engineering company with employees located worldwide, has created TechnoWeb, a social media platform that enables employees to efficiently share and capture knowledge across the company: top to bottom and cross-functionally. As Siemens is one of the world's largest conglomerates, implementation of this system presented many challenges. Therefore, in order to be deemed a success, TechnoWeb would need to provide the company with improved efficiency, cost savings, and proven examples of innovation.

Siemens allowed employees to utilize the platform voluntarily, with the intent of encouraging employees to adopt TechnoWeb as their own. As employees ran into problems in their daily work, they turned to TechnoWeb for solutions. Many of Siemens's employees ultimately found TechnoWeb to be the most efficient avenue for troubleshooting. Eventually, employees across the company took advantage of the many interactive features found on the network. Following its construction, TechnoWeb became a knowledge portal connecting employees and enabling knowledge sharing that would otherwise never occur.

Upon review of TechnoWeb's implementation, it was revealed that the platform generated a positive ROI and further stimulated cross-departmental innovation. Ultimately, TechnoWeb has become ingrained in Siemens's culture and serves as an artifact of the multi-dimensional approach Siemens takes when employees collaborate to engineer new products.