Facebook Inc. rolled out ‘Facebook at Work’ in India and while announcing this in an email, the social media company said: “At Facebook, our mission is to make the world more open and connected, and this is also true in the workplace. In a mobile-first world, we want to help people find simpler ways to collaborate and connect with co-workers. We believe a connected workplace becomes a more productive workplace and this is why we are building Facebook at Work.”
Facebook at Work lets you create a work account that is separate from your personal Facebook account. With a Facebook at Work account, companies can create an account to help co-workers connect and interact. Things you share using your work account will only be visible to other people at your company, across teams and geographies. Several companies in India have already started using Facebook work accounts. “I believe that it has huge business value. It makes a company seem smaller and more human, just like Facebook does for the world in general,” said Nisaba Godrej, executive director, Godrej Consumer Products Ltd.
It’s easy to get started. You just create a new Facebook at Work account where employees can join. It works the way your normal Facebook account works and employees can join groups to collaborate, stay up to date with News Feed, send messages and even arrange team meetings or social get-togethers by creating an event. And when you are on the move, you can use the Work Chat app to message instantly, and use voice and video calling.
Facebook at Work was developed as a mobile-first solution. In India, more than 142 million people are already on Facebook and 90% of these use Facebook on mobile. Additionally, people understand how to use Facebook features like the News Feed, Groups, Messages, and Events. “Rolling out Facebook at Work to companies in India is a significant milestone. As the workplace transforms, businesses want new ways for co-workers to collaborate effectively and be more productive. We are excited at the high rate of adoption globally and I look forward to working with all businesses in India,” stated Julien Codorniou, Director of Facebook at Work.
Many businesses globally across different sectors, from banking to telecommunications to travel, retail and real estate, have successfully deployed Facebook at Work. Several companies in India such as L&T Infotech, YES Bank, Godrej Industries and fast-growing businesses like Delivery and Zomato, have started using Facebook at Work. Codorniou says that India is one of the Facebook at Work’s top countries.
This is borne out by the initial reactions from the companies who have started using this. Facebook at Work was in a testing stage for the last six months until its official launch on Tuesday. For instance, Zomato’s founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal has nicknamed their work account as ‘Dinner Table’, “because it’s where everyone gathers. It serves as a great common space for our teams. At a company-wide level, we use the platform to celebrate achievements and milestones, as well as welcome new Zomans into the fold. It’s also a great place for our teams to post updates, ideas, and inspiration, all in a very familiar and easily usable social habitat.”
E-commerce shopping website Paytm, too, has been using Facebook for Work since March this year and finds it a useful tool for team interaction and brainstorming, thus increasing employee engagement. Today, it has become the company’s primary mode of communication. Says Amit Sinha, vice-president, Paytm: “More than 70% of our employee population is already on it, of which 400 active users interact on over 200 groups daily. We have seen significant participation from our operations team replace their daily internal emails, HR team for inductions and Fix it group for quick problem solving.”
Facebook at Work is in direct competition with business messaging app, Slack. In fact, Nikhil Pahwa, editor, and publisher of MediaNama believes that Facebook at Work is building upon the idea pioneered by Slack, of having a team messaging app as an operating system for co-ordination and planning. Founded in 2013, Slack has a simple, zippy platform that makes it easy for people to communicate and collaborate with each other on projects, besides allowing integration of different apps to facilitate communication within each of them all in one place. On Wednesday, the company unveiled a new feature called “Sign in with Slack”—which will now let Slack users sign in and use other apps using their Slack identities. More than just log in, Sign in with Slack keeps teams connected across the many apps they use for work.
According to Pahwa: “Slack is now valued at almost $4 billion, having been founded only a few years ago. It has a freemium model, and many organizations are today willing to pay to allow such collaboration. Facebook, with an enterprise service like Facebook at Work, is eyeing that market. There’s no doubt that messaging is a significant upgrade over email, and it helps teams communicate and collaborate more effectively than email does. Email is unidimensional.”
Pahwa is surprised to find Indian organizations using Facebook at Work. “It is probably better than Slack for internal marketing functions (with News Feed, Groups, and Messaging), but has a long way to go before it becomes a tool for getting stuff done.”
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