Facebook introduces enterprise collaboration platform Workplace

MANILA, Philippines – With 1.71 billion users globally, Facebook has connected roughly one in four people globally to their friends and families. Now it wants people working together to connect and collaborate the same way using an enterprise collaboration platform patterned after the immensely popular social networking site.

After a couple of years in closed beta, Facebook Workplace was launched globally early this month, seeking to recruit organizations willing to test the service.

Ramesh Gopalkrishna, head of Facebook at Work, Asia-Pacific, told the Philippine media in a web conference that this enterprise version of Facebook will have its basic infrastructure and features such as Newsfeed, Groups, Live, Reactions, Search and Trending Posts.

The main difference is that Workplace will be open for registration only to companies. Employees of these registered companies will be able to register, create a profile, and collaborate with their colleagues Facebook-style.

“The platform connects everybody in the workplace, especially those who are mobile. It is completely separate from Facebook and all the data shared in the platform belong to the company. Facebook does not have access to the data,” Gopalkrishna explained.

Because it is an enterprise-class service, it is highly-secure, has no advertisement or games. It can also be integrated easily with existing IT systems. One of the biggest advantages it offers to companies is that it can reduce the email burden on employees and it makes work collaboration easier.

“A company CEO can livestream an announcement on Workplace and it can be seen by the entire company. The same applies to internal events such as opening a new retail outlet, inaugurating a branch or launching a product,” Gopalkrishna said.

The platform can be used by company leaders or supervisors as well to engage with people directly in the frontlines. Electricity repairmen, for example, never had email, but they’ve always needed to communicate with their supervisors or team leaders back at the office or headquarters or somebody also in the field.

The same is true for for people who don’t work at offices or at desks such as retail workers, ship crews, baristas. They, too, can also be connected to the company.

Still another way Workplace may be useful is in employee recognition. People who have done well during a review period can be recognized via post in the Newsfeed for everybody to see.

Early Adopters

Facebook said that among the early adopters of the service globally include Starbucks, Danone, international non-profit organization Oxfam, the YES Bank of India, and the Government Technology Agency of Singapore.

In the Philippines, Gopalkrishna revealed that PLDT and Smart Communications, Meralco, and Seaoil have signed up for the trial service. In Meralco, he said 50 percent of employees signed up within a day, 100 percent signed within a week and the service has close to 100-percent engagement.

PLDT and Smart have 14,000 employees while Seaoil has about 600 staff distributed across the Philippines.

With 54 million Filipinos accessing Facebook monthly or around 99 percent of internet users in the country, it is interesting to see how Facebook will make a difference in the enterprise space. Currently, the top five countries using Workplace are India, Norway, US, UK and France.

Globally, more than 1,000 organizations are using Workplace on every continent except Antarctica, and more than 100,000 groups are already in use. 

Additional Tools

Like most enterprise products, Workplace has something extra for organizations that consumers can’t enjoy in their Facebook accounts.

One is multi-company groups. These are shared groups that allow employees from multiple organizations to work together. All group members must be part of a Workplace community, and members from other companies won’t be able to see any information from your company outside of the multi-company groups they are in with you.

Another one is the Workplace Partner Program, which is a global ecosystem of partners, like Deloitte or Microsoft, to help customers get the most out of their Workplace.

Gopalkrishna said once the trial period is over, companies can opt to continue the service at very competitive prices on per susbcriber basis – $3 per month for the first 1,000 monthy active users, $2 for the next 1,001 to 10,000 monthly active users, and $1 per month for each of the company with over 10,000 monthly active users.