GENBAND is a major force in terms of connectivity; from its base in Frisco, Texas, it delivers powerful solutions to over 700 customers across a span of 80 countries. Just recently, however, it found itself in need of a new solution itself, and one that it didn’t actually have on hand at the time. This time, GENBAND turned to SAP for help in the form of the SAP Jam system, a system designed to help colleagues stay together in the same workflow, regardless of where said colleagues’ physical location might be.
Perhaps the best way to think of SAP Jam is as a kind of Facebook for business users, a complete enterprise social network that allows for easy collaboration regardless of location. There’s a standard version for desktop users, a mobile version for those on the go, and even some special features in mind for sales reps who have a tendency to work both sides of the mobile / stationary fence.
The introduction of SAP Jam, according to GENBAND’s chief information officer Darrin Whitley, came as a result of GENBAND’s own globally distributed workforce. Keeping all those employees scattered across all those different time zones could make keeping in touch difficult for just about any organization, but rather than develop its own tool to keep users in touch around the globe, it instead turned to a tool that was already in place and capable of handling the load: SAP Jam.
Whitley elaborates, saying “We have a global workforce, and we had no single place for those people to come together and collaborate. If you had software developers in Turkey and U.S.-based resources trying to work together, there was really nowhere to share, and it took a long time. We were looking for a strategic partner, where we would have the ability and the content to bring it all together as a single solution.”
So far, GENBAND has found SAP Jam to be just what was called for, citing its ability to easily disseminate information and allow those with much more experience in the telecom sector to pass on the benefits of that experience to comparative newcomers in the field. Plus, it allows for easy connection from outside of GENBAND as well, with channel partners, outside contractors, and similar entities to easily connect to individuals within GENBAND when such contact is needed.
Communication in business is one of the great universal standards of operation; it’s tough to do much anything without being able to communicate back and forth. Considering how widely spread out GENBAND’s current operations were, it’s not a surprise that it would want something that allows for easy access to such communications, and SAP Jam looks like it would fill the bill nicely. It’s even better that it allows for communications outside the company to take place; after all, when you’ve got channel partners trying to move product and outside contractors and the like contributing to the process accordingly, it becomes clear that allowing these folks access to necessary information only improves the process as well.
SAP Jam may not be for everybody, but for those companies with widely located and highly mobile workforces who want to help keep all of those folks closer to the same page, then SAP Jam might well be a great place to start looking for new alternatives.