Correspondence: Dr Jacques Bughin, McKinsey & Company, Avenue Louise, 480, 21st Floor, Brussels, Belgium. E-mail: Jacques_bughin@mckinsey.com

¹Jacques Bughin is a Director at the Brussels office of McKinsey & Company, mostly servicing clients in media, telecom and technology. He is a frequent speaker at worldwide conferences on media and internet issues and has a master's degree and a PhD in economics with summa cum laude. He has published articles in leading international academic journals such as Management Science, the Review of Economics and Statistics, Journal of Industrial Economics, Electronic Markets and European Economic Review. He has co-authored a book entitled 'Managing Media Companies: Harnessing creativity' (with A. Aris), Wiley. He is also a fellow of the ECORE, a think tank on economic policy in Belgium, is a fellow of the Applied Economics of the KUL University and co-leads the Advisory Board on media management at INSEAD.

Received 15 October 2007.

Abstract

This paper looks at how collaborative technologies are being adapted inside the enterprise, based on global field research involving more than 2,800 executives, and enriched by an online board discussion contrasting motivations of early versus late adopters of 'enterprise 2.0'. It is observed that 'enterprise 2.0' diffusion is relatively rapid and that one key rationale of adoption is to leverage new dimensions of collaborations that can form the basis for a new source of competitive advantage. While there is evidence of large pay-offs from the use of 'enterprise 2.0', the key challenge lies not in the promise of the technology, but more into superb execution — the paper closes with a set of key themes for successful implementation.