Multi-billion dollar turnover infrastructure giant signs up to Melcrum’s practitioner-only social media benchmarking group
LONDON, June 14th, 2010
The Melcrum Social Media Benchmarking Group has signed Ferrovial S.A, the world’s largest private manager of transportation infrastructure as latest member to join rapidly growing group of internal communicators leading social media initiatives at large organisations.
Ferrovial S.A is one of Spain’s most significant companies with operations in 49 countries and a workforce of more than 100,000 employees.
Members of the Melcrum Social Media Benchmarking Group meet on a quarterly basis to benchmark and discuss challenges and successes in a confidential setting and hear the latest research and analysis of key trends.
Victoria Mellor, Melcrum CEO says, “Social Media is an important new area that internal communicators are very keen to discuss and benchmark. Membership is expanding rapidly because of the increased use of social media within large organisations - existing members include HSBC, Ericsson, SABMiller, Coca-Cola Enterprises and AXA.”
Natalia Jimenez, internal communications director at Ferrovial S.A, is responsible for the development of the business’s Web 2.0 strategy on the corporate intranet. Says Jimenez, “We’re embarking on a huge cultural transformation project across 100,000 employees and we want to learn and benchmark against other large companies to discover what they’re doing to overcome some of the obstacles as well as to learn some of the best practice in Europe.”
Jimenez, who has been at Ferrovial since 2007, is leading one of the business’s largest ever transformation projects that will gradually change all of the business’s IT systems and give every one of Ferrovial S.A’s 100,000 employees the opportunity to have their own customisable intranet page complete with state of the art user and role based social networking tools.
“Fifty percent of our employees are under the age of 35, plus social media is the only way such a large organisation can increase employee collaboration giving them quicker and easier access to their colleagues, projects and interests as well as to manage the huge amount of knowledge that is shared within the company.
“But the tools are the easy part. Now we need to benchmark and do some deeper analysis on the possibilities of social media, and the Social Media Benchmarking Group will be ideal for this,” she said.
Ferrovial S.A owns Amey plc, a British contractor, Texan group Webber and Polish group Budimex, civil engineering infrastructure and housing specialists; Swissport International BAA Limited that owns and operates seven British airports, including London Heathrow Airport; and subsidiary Cintra, one of the largest private developers of transport infrastructure in the world with its assets mainly in toll roads and car parks.
The next Social Media Benchmarking Group meeting will be held on September 23rd with topics driven by feedback from the group.
ENDS
About Melcrum
Melcrum, a privately held research and training business, is the leading authority on best practice, emerging trends and strategy in internal communication.
Melcrum advises internal communication leaders at 69 per cent of the Global Fortune 100 largest organisations and 84 per cent of the FTSE 100. Through independent research and executive education, Melcrum helps internal communicators achieve the rewards and recognition they deserve.
With global networks and offices in the UK, US and Australia, Melcrum researchers and editors spend their time meeting and talking to practitioners to find out where the best work gets done. Melcrum makes these tools, techniques, and case studies available to its members through publications, research, events, forums and web sites.
Editor’s Notes:
- Supporting press release announcing the Social Media Benchmarking Group issued 8th June 2010.
- Membership enquiries to Ray Edun +44 (0)20 8600 4670 or ray.edun@melcrum.com.
For further information visit www.melcrum.com or contact:
Victoria Mellor, CEO, Melcrum
T: +44 (0) 20 8600 4670
E: victoria.mellor@melcrum.com
or
Jacqui Green, JGMpr
M: 07885 270 349
E: jacqui@jgmpr.com
