Social networking in semi-government manufacturing sector

Companies are always looking for methods to enhance their business performance, reduce costs, and keep up-to-date with the latest trends in business and technology that makes them successful. Having a Web presence allowed companies to achieve these and other goals. One of the Web tools used currently and growing rapidly is social networking with which companies expanded their businesses and reached more customers while reducing cost. This dissertation attempts to review and analyze the importance of the web presence and social networking in semi-government manufacturing sector in the UAE. The research work investigates how these tools can be adopted as part of a firm´s business strategy, the benefits and the challenges that arise with the adoption of these tools, and the best practices that a company should adopt. Two methods are used to answer the research questions. They consist of an interview with two marketing officers in the semi-government manufacturing sector and a literature review of the latest developments in Web and social networking. The obtained results confirm that social networking should be adopted as a tool to improve business performance and reduce operation costs of firms. However, for successful use of these tools, the research results show that companies need a clear understanding of how to properly use them and how to progressively introduce them to employees and decision makers.