Social business apps are a $37 billion market in the making

Social business applications – defined as marketing automation, social media monitoring, web experience management and enterprise collaboration tools – are set to become a $37bn market by 2019, according to 451 Research.

The forecast is based on data generated through analysis of 145 vendors in the social business application space, including 50 marketing automation solutions and 65 enterprise collaboration tools.

The combined market currently produces around $13.9bn in revenue (2014 figures), however 451 Research’s director, Alan Pelz-Sharpe states that the current business trend of adopting marketing applications across multiple departments is set to drive adoption levels forward in the coming four years:

“Business applications are finally, if still slowly, moving from silo and legacy status toward an integrated ‘demand chain’ that can pull together back-end, internal, and customer-facing processes and transactions,” Pelz-Sharpe says.  

“Applications are being built to meet the needs of increasingly dispersed workforces, and in 2015 we expect the number of players, as well as investment, to grow substantially in this market, and further outlying technologies to be drawn inward.”

While marketing automation adoption levels may be on the rise, a recent Email Marketing Industry Census 2015 from Econsultancy and Adestra described the rates as “slow and steady” and found that 39% of companies currently rate their email marketing automation campaigns as ‘not successful’.

In contrast, the 65 enterprise collaboration/ social vendors represent the bulk of total market revenue in 451 Research’s forecast, and it is this market that is expected to continue to flourish in the next four years.

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) ran research last year that found that, while three-quarters (76%) of UK employees use social media personally, only one-quarter (26%) use it professionally.

However, within the same research, the CIPD outlined that many organisations were only just beginning to wake up to the benefits of enterprise collaboration, which ranged from improving employee engagement, shared innovation and learning and development.