Facebook is a social networking site for finding old friends and meeting new ones. The company is now extending its services to businesses around the globe through the new collaboration app Workplace.
Recently, there are news about Facebook's interest on giving free internet in U.S. and now, it wants to help small and big businesses grow and be known around the world.
Workplace By Facebook
Facebook is not only offering services for friends. Now, they are also extending help to enterprises through the app called Workplace. It was previously named "Facebook At Work" during the beta test lasting 18 months.
Workplace aims to be the all-in-one solution for businesses. Employees can communicate using a version of Messenger, can form groups for brainstorming and even get broadcasts of important announcements.
A total of one thousand companies have now tried it, according to Fortune. Facebook's Workplace is now being used by high profile businesses, such as Royal Bank of Scotland and Club Med among other international companies. The French fast food chain Danone and Starbucks have also begun using the app.
Facebook is competing with business websites such as Slack, Microsoft Yammer and Jive by Jive Software. Even so, the global prestige of the social networking brand enabled Workplace to rise quickly among the ranks, Forbes reported.
"Workplace will help more companies create the kind of open culture that encourages people to connect and share," Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said. "People do their best work when they have more knowledge of what's going on at their company, and people work together better when they understand their colleagues."
Facebook Needs Convincing That Workplace Is Effective
Director of Workplace by Facebook, Julien Codorniu, said that the company will be giving companies a three-month trial of the site's service to company managers so that its products can be tested.
Also, Facebook has asked help from consultants to spread the news about what Workplace can do for the companies that will join the site.
"The one thing that I really think Facebook has going for them is that the feature set is proven to work on mobile devices really well and proven to work for people without training. The biggest problem is just connecting people. The paradigm of email is not good at that." says Josh Bersin, principal and founder of Bersin by Deloitte.
