McKinsey has been engaged in a multi-year study of how organizations are using Web 2.0 and the resulting impact. They’ve shared some results in a recent write-up, and they’re striking: companies using the Web intensively gain greater market share and higher margins. This is encouraging news for us because we have an enterprise-class web application with a social focus.

McKinsey identifies three types of organizations that have realized significant business benefit from their use of Web 2.0: internally networked organizations, externally networked organizations, and fully networked enterprises.

Here’s there summary of the latter:

… some companies use Web 2.0 in revolutionary ways. This elite group of organizations—3 percent of those in our survey—derives very high levels of benefits from Web 2.0’s widespread use, involving employees, customers, and business partners, according to the survey. Respondents at these organizations reported higher levels of employee benefits than internally networked organizations did and higher levels of customer and partner benefits than did externally networked organizations. In applying Web 2.0 technologies, fully networked enterprises seem to have moved much further along the learning curve than other organizations have. The integration of Web 2.0 into day-to-day activities is high, executives say, and they report that these technologies are promoting higher levels of collaboration by helping to break down organizational barriers that impede information flows.

Our Foresight platform not only contributes to fully networking an organization, but it’s a great fit within an organization that is already moving in this direction, with rich buy-in from stakeholders throughout and on the periphery of the organization. Participation in a prediction market not only increases employee satisfaction, but it improves forecasting accuracy and delivers true ROI. Best of all, it’s a social network in a Web 2.0 framerwork that can be custom integrated into the workflow of an organization of any size.

This is why we were pleased to see this among the final recommendations from the McKinsey report:

Break down the barriers to organizational change. Fully networked organizations appear to have more fluid information flows, deploy talent more flexibly to deal with problems, and allow employees lower in the corporate hierarchy to make decisions. Organizational collaboration is correlated with self-reported market share gains; distributed decision making and work, with increased self-reported profitability.

Leveraging our social predictive analytics solution could be just the thing you need to foster organizational change and collaboration in 2011.

In September 2009, McKinsey & Company revealed the results of a global survey on trends in Web 2.0 in the enterprise. Prediction markets were included among 12 core Enterprise 2.0 technologies. Adoption within global corporations has risen from less than 1% in 2007 to 8% in 2009.

We were delighted that prediction markets were identified as a key Web 2.0 technology. However:

Respondents who report that Web technologies have strengthened their companies’ links to customers also cite blogs and social networks as important. Both allow companies to distribute product information more readily and, perhaps more critically, they invite customer feedback and even participation in the creation of products.

Similarly, among those capturing benefits in their dealings with suppliers and partners, the tools of choice again are blogs, social networks, and video sharing. While respondents tell us that tapping expert knowledge from outside is their top priority, few report deploying prediction markets to harvest collective insights from these external networks.

This disconnect is puzzling to us. Prediction markets offer an efficiency of consensus that is not delivered by enterprise social networks. Platforms like Foresight offer effective leading business indicators that convert straight to actionable decisions.

Respondents, have you considered requesting additional information from us so that we can help you harvest collective insights from your external networks?

According to recent McKinsey Global Survey Results, “The heaviest users of Web 2.0 applications are also enjoying benefits such as increased knowledge sharing and more effective marketing.  These benefits often have a measurable effect on the business.” Prediction markets are one of twelve key components of Enterprise 2.0 technologies.  According to McKinsey & Company, prediction market adoption within corporations has risen from less than 1% in 2007 to 8% in 2009, as large companies are embracing Web 2.0 tools.

To read more about the McKinsey Global Survey findings and the benefits of Web 2.0, visit McKinsey.com - Business and Web 2.0: An interactive feature.  Note: Free registration required to view entire articles, and Premium membership required to access entire study.