As the name suggests, ESS or enterprise social software is social software designed to be used in the context of commercial, business and enterprise networks. This software includes social collaboration, sharing and services within common shared platforms of businesses. It also provides the companies with additional features like micro-blogging, document sharing, shared spaces, wikis, communities, and various other business applications. Researchers expect the global enterprise social software (ESS) market to maintain impressive growth rate, mainly with the rapid adoption rate and constantly advancing technologies in the industry.
Major Drivers and Restraints
According to the experts, the global enterprise social software market is driven by three crucial factors. These factors include invaluable contribution to the overall business, strong demand from the enterprise employees and easy to use features. The ESS works as the topmost layer of all the conventional collaborative tools used in the enterprises. It enables sharing of content in the easiest manner, along with several of its additional features like space sharing, wikis, document sharing, and such other business applications. These features make the enterprise social software highly suitable for small as well as large businesses.
As per the expert analysis, initial skeptical approach of both enterprises as well as employees is expected to be a crucial hindrance for this market. Apart from that, initial setup costs, lack of integration and profusion of tools are also expected to be some of the key restraining factors for the enterprise social software (ESS) market. Despite these hindrances, the industry is expected to gain sustainable traction from BYOD (bring-your-own-device) ecosystems and multi-vertical focus of the market. Rising demand and positive approach from different industrial verticals are also projected to create growth opportunities.
Market Segmentation and Forecasts
The global enterprise social software market is segmented on the basis of the types of deployment, which include both on-premise and on demand or SaaS services. On the basis of organization sizes, the ESS market is segmented into large enterprises (1000+), enterprises (1000-999), medium businesses (100-999), and small businesses (0-99). Major industrial verticals include academia, government, retail and consumer goods, banking, financial services and insurance, high-tech, telecom, healthcare, life sciences and others. Geographic segments of the global market include Latin America, Asia Pacific, North America, Middle East and Africa and North America.
Analysis of the drivers, segments, trends and restraining factors suggest that the market is expected to maintain healthy growth rate. According to the experts, the global enterprise social software (ESS) market is expected to grow at a CAGR of over 11% from 2014 to 2019. At the projected growth rate, the market is anticipated to become worth more than $4.77 billion in 2014 to $8.14 billion in 2019. As of 2014, the market is poised at $4.77 billion in 2014. North America is expected to dominate the global market. However, emerging regions are also expected to witness hefty growth during the forecasting period.
