How Social Media Reduce Cost
Authentication as a service
Here’s a prophecy: pretty soon Google, Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn will be generating an income from managing an essential part of your customer contact list. Okay, I agree, it’s a bit of a cheap prophecy, because many online services are already allowing users to log in with their Google or Facebook accounts. Although it’s free right now, we predict a change.
So, if a third party supplier, such as LinkedIn, would start requesting a fee for being your authentication provider, it will prove that there is a business case for doing so, and we think they are right. It’s one of those classic win-win situations. Your business partner can log in using an existing LinkedIn account (meaning: no extra user name or password to remember) and eliminating the need to save, manage and protect that authentication information.
We are currently proposing this authentication method with Facebook accounts to a utility company that is interested in issuing a maximum number of electronic invoices in an effort to reduce paper and postage costs. A similar approach is in the pipeline for another test project that is under consideration, by a public authority for local e-government services. In this instance, residents would have the option of using their Microsoft Live ID, Google or Facebook accounts, or the traditional log in name with their personal password.
Talk to marketing
And there is more to it than purely simplifying your IT infrastructure. Have you considered suggesting this social type of media authentication approach to your marketing department to see how they could use this information to foster a better interaction with your customers.