New research from Frost& Sullivan has revealed that Web 2.0 Solutions are being used by companies more and more to cut costs and stay competitive in a recessionary global economy. Significantly these small and medium businesses contribute to more than 99 percent of all enterprises in Europe and generate 75 million jobs.
The research further reveals that SMBs in the recessionary economies of Europe will be able to take advantage of the Web 2.0 solutions to supplement their web and audio-web markets which were estimated to be worth around $190 million in Europe in 2008 and to spawn to about $860 million over the next five years.
Popular platforms based on the Web 2.0 solutions include social networking sites, wikis; blogs are expected to contribute, at least in part, to solving the economic crises faced by most small and medium enterprises in today’s times. Workers are being asked to contribute more and more towards productivity at similar or even less reward structure. With the Web 2.0 employees can be encouraged to interact with each other more cohesively and employees who telecommute can also benefit from the Web 2.0 platform.
Frost & Sullivan (News – Alert) Research Analyst Iwona Petruczynik said, “As an interesting side note, social networking sites are gaining popularity in unexpected places, for instance, popular online virtual reality, Second Life, was used by Sweden to open their ‘embassy’ in the virtual world to promote Sweden’s culture. Second Life is used in the Polish Ministry of Interior Administration, where the Ministry has a room, which a person can visit to find out what the Ministry is doing and even ask the Minister questions.”
Sites such as Twitter, Blogger, Facebook and other Web 2.0 applications such as WordPress which have been thought to be used only for personal networking are now being increasingly used for professional reasons. Experts believe that it is difficult to quantify the extent of the Web 2.0 market because of the difficulty involved in defining what exactly constitutes Web 2.0 as it is merely a set of technologies and ideals driving a set of products and services. However, its relevance in customer service, sales and product development cannot be underestimated.
Some SMBs are clearly apprehensive about full-scale adoption of Web 2.0 solutions because of concerns regarding security and information leaks. Plus, psychologically employees are expected to ‘work’ all the time. It is this conservative mind set which has made the adoption of Web 2.0 in Europe lower than in the United States.
Frost & Sullivan works with clients to drive growth and become industry leaders in growth, innovation and leadership. It has more than 45 years of experience in collaborating with prominent global companies, emerging businesses and the investment community from its offices across the globe.
Source: TMCNET.com
