The Link between Social Media and Business

While the latest advances in technology can provide an organization with efficiency in disseminating information, it also creates new challenges in these unchartered waters for today’s organizations. The option to work from home or telecommuting, can be an ideal situation for both the organization and the right employee interested in flextime. With the features that are widely available on today’s smartphones and the ever-increasing availability of wireless networks, employees are no longer tethered to the confines of their home or their cumbersome computers. These individuals now have the liberty of accessing information from just about anywhere in order to get work done. As in the case of SCAN Health Plan, an advantage to providing this work arrangement for the employer, is that it can provide a company a way to grow without having to incur any additional fixed costs such as office buildings, equipment or parking lot space (Fundamentals of Management pg. 152). Technology has allowed businesses to offer remote work arrangements, the daunting task is finding employees who are of the highest moral character, who have great organizational and time management skills, who are also self-motivated and self-disciplined, in addition to being responsible and trustworthy. From a managerial standpoint, helping the employee to feel connected is vital. It will be necessary for management to put forth the extra effort to develop and maintain a working relationship through constant communications. (Investor’s Business Daily 2013)

As the technological advances in the quality of video conferencing has continued to improve, it has allowed organizations to communicate in real-time even though they are on opposite sides of the world. Unilever, a parent company of numerous household brand names, is one such global company. They have had almost every major innovation project in the past two years conducted via video conferencing. Unilever managers are trained and expected to clarify the goals amongst virtual teams. However, preparing employees to operate in an agile way isn't easy. The major traps are introducing concepts too quickly, not giving it time to develop and introducing changes without sufficient training for managers who still don't trust employees to be self-reliant.

There is new technological territory that is changing how business does business. From the independent food trucks that tweet their current location to Starbucks that cross promotes on several social media sites.