The following article is my view on the best bits from the McKinsey Global Institute fifth annual survey. Full report can be found on my SlideShare.

Companies are realising that social technologies are changing the way clients interact. As a result they no MUST incorporate these to enhance and exploit opportunities. There are both opportunities to improve internal process’s and also to explore new markets.

Seventy two percent of respondents are deploying at least one technology and more than 40  percent are now incorporating blogs and networking tools.

86 percent of companies are in high tech and telecommunications.

Executives at internally networked organisations note the highest improvement in benefits from interactions from employees; those at externally networked organisations from interactions with customer, partners and suppliers.

Another key performance measure, self reported operating-margin improvements, correlated positively with the reported percentage of employees whose use of social technologies was integrated into their day-to-day work.

Looking Ahead

Senior executives should think strategically about how social technologies can support business processes. Integrating social technologies into the workflow and using them to optimise internal processes will provide additional competitive benefits

• Don’t rest on your laurels: competition will increase as the adoption of social tools and
  technologies such as real estate software continues to rise and as progressive companies use them to improve their
  processes. Indeed, many companies we categorized as networked organizations last year
  slipped to a lower rung this year as the benefits their executives reported fell. Integrating
  Web technologies into the daily workflow, our results suggest, is the most effective way
  to maintain competitive position or become more networked.

• Companies should prepare for more substantial disruptions. Since many executives believe that significant changes will occur as (or if) constraints on social tools and technologies are lifted, companies that can create change themselves—instead of reacting to it—are likely to benefit the most.