Corporate Alumni Networks: Leveraging Intangible Assets - Xing

pioneering companies, primarily in the professional services sectors. In recent years a significant
and growing number of corporations have launched concerted efforts to cultivate their alumni
relationships in purposively managed organizations. In answer to the question “Why Now?” it
is necessary to explore the trends and drivers behind this sea change in corporate culture, which
may be reaching a tipping point.
The key factors can be grouped under five subject areas: information technology, the business
environment, the work environment, competitive advantage, and the culture of trust.
1. Information Technology. The basic
underlying or enabling factor in the rise of
interest in alumni networks has been the
revolution in IT, most importantly the
ubiquitous penetration of low-cost and
increasingly robust communications
networks, what has been described as “the death of distance.” Alumni, almost by definition,
constitute a widely dispersed population who no longer come to the office, attend meetings, and
work on common projects. It has always been possible to reach out to alumni, but the degree
of difficulty has been lowered by orders of magnitude. Networks are the norm and have created
an increasingly small world that becomes denser and denser as the webs connecting its
locations proliferate.
In recent years a significant and growing number of
corporations have launched concerted efforts to
cultivate their alumni relationships in purposively
managed organizations.
They have also led to new forms of social behaviour. The explosion of social networking on the
Internet (MySpace, Bebo, Facebook, etribes) has captured headlines and attracted billions of
dollars from media companies, and is now moving into a phase of intense competitive
segmentation. These “communities” are relatively open and unstructured free-for-alls. But they
represent a major trend that has important implications for traditional business corporations. A
number of web service providers now provide more structured communities either for mature
professionals as individuals, or as third-party platforms customized for the programs of specific
corporations.
2. Business Environment. Globalization has been as pervasive as communications technology,
for the two go hand-in-hand, and has lowered barriers of all kinds – regulatory, economic,
national, and even corporate. More open markets for products and services have brought with
them more open markets for labour and talent: outsourcing is just one example. Intense
competition for human resources has caused leading companies to reconsider how they manage
their workforce and the shifting pool of talent available to them.
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