Firestring Social Business Case Studies:
Firestring launches Virtual Workspace for Anglo Gold Ashanti
Firestring: Open Innovation in the AngloGold Ashanti Technology & Innovation Consortium
AngloGold Ashanti showcasing their open innovation consortium to mine deeper into the future, including their description of how Firestring's Enterprise Social Network serves their global consortium.
23 days. Firestring didn't have much time to deploy a custom collaboration platform for expert deep mining researchers from companies around the globe.
Robbie Lazare, Executive Vice President for the South Africa Region summarises the project, "The mission of the Technology & Innovation Consortium is to evaluate the end-to-end mining to discover and design the next generation of mining methods, equipment and processes. This technology step change is required within a five to 10 year time frame to enable AngloGold Ashanti to mine safely and profitably down to 5000m and beyond, and to create a significant improvement and life extension of current operations."
AngloGold Ashanti are not afraid to fast-track the process; the second workshop in February is expected to pave the way for scoping, feasibility and the requirements for prototypes where appropriate, probably by the second half of 2011, says AngloGold Ashanti vice-president strategic project design Shaun Newberry.
Supporting AngloGold Ashanti in driving the project are VCI, a global consulting firm focused on the strategic repositioning of major businesses through scenario-based strategy development, organisation redesign and open innovation.
Mining weekly describes the initiative as "probably the world's most comprehensive technology intervention, a worldwide consortium of
some of the globe's best-known technological names are collaborating to introduce automated, blast-free, continuous gold mining at depths 5 km
underground."
(http://www.miningweekly.com/article/blast-free-continuous-automated-mining-on-way-to-unlock-100m-anglogold-oz-2011-01-26)
An Open Innovation project is a bold move and having assembled experts from around the globe AngloGold Ashanti recognized that opportunities to meet face-to-face would be limited. Communication is key to the success of the project and AngloGold Ashanti knew that an innovative and robust solution was essential.
Firestring's Enterprise Social Network was selected to address this challenge.
The collaboration platform, termed a Virtual Workspace by AngloGold Ashanti, provides a platform for experts dispersed across the globe to exchange documentation and collaborate with one another in private groups within a broader network. Using, messaging, threaded conversations, uploaded documents and videos, blogs, wikis and links to existing libraries of content, the Wildfire Network breaks down geographic and other boundaries to collaboration and innovation.
A.C.T. drives employee change and new customer interactions through enterprise social networking
How do you work with a large national team distributed across South Africa tasked with continually selling new products while further developing their innovative solution-selling orientation?
Advanced Channel Technology selected Firestring and puruma Business Communications as its partners on its internal and customer-facing social media journey.
Staff and customer engagement happens through:
- updated online surveys
- electronic mailers
- dynamic portals, and
- Firestring's best-of-breed enterprise social network.
The simple use of electronic platforms, together with the strategic consulting delivered by Firestring and puruma, supports the change behaviour required for A.C.T. to deliver new solutions into a changing marketplace.
Amelia van Rheede, A.C.T.'s Marketing Manager:
"Having embarked, over the last 18 months, on a Social Media (engagement) strategy which included staff and customers, I was looking for a new partner who understood the learning and challenges we had encountered and could add value in reworking our strategy, communication plans and deliver technology to achieve our goals. I needed a partner who understood that cutting-edge technology was required but that focus was also required to take our staff and customers on a change management path - a necessity to ensure we would realise the investment we were making, not just in the technology platform but to facilitate the change in behaviour that would be crucial for our business. Firestring understood our requirement immediately and has added immense value from the first meeting right through to development and implementation of our now improved strategy!"
Social Business
Brainstorm Magazine November 2010
