How do you solve a problem like consumer messaging apps being used for enterprise communications?
In many respects, and for many businesses, there isn't a problem. Last year, a Vodafone study found that WhatsApp is quietly the most popular enterprise comms platform in operation, especially among SMEs. It has a simple and intuitive user experience, generally functions well and consistently, is easy to implement as most users already have the app, and, perhaps most notably, it's free. For particularly smaller organisations, like a restaurant or early-stage startup, that's everything you might need from a business communications platform.
However, there are several major perils that need to be considered if you're an SME.
"The main problem I see is that (Meta) will eventually try to monetise their investment to acquire it," Steve Osler, Wildix CEO, told UC Today. "They are not making money, at least not directly."
"So, being a company that lives on advertisement, we can imagine that sooner or later, they will start showing some advertisements while you are chatting. The risk is that it will be targeted advertising, which will be very effective. While I speak with customers about something, while trying to sell my product, the customer receives an advertisement for a competitive product."
Osler also outlined the worry of how deeply platforms might assess users' profiles to inform their targeted ads better. Although WhatsApp can not legally listen to calls or scan message content for targeted advertising as its messages are end-to-end encrypted (E2EE), even in the US where privacy laws are looser, it can potentially introduce targeted ads based on metadata, including the user's contact list, phone number, time and duration of calls, location data and usage patterns.
"So if you tell the customers, 'Look, from tomorrow, I will show you an advertisement based on what you do on my platform,' it's totally legit," Osler suggested.
There is that famous sentence from the 70s about TV: if the product is free, then you are the product, meaning that they are selling you, your attention, and your capability to buy something from the advertisers. There is always somebody paying; no lunch is free in this world. Absolutely not."
The Worry of Consumer Messaging Apps Entering the UC Space
WhatsApp is also certainly becoming more enterprise-friendly in its feature set. For example, it most recently trialled video and voice calls for its web app. However, while its productivity and collaboration features are beginning to catch up with the Microsoft Teams and Zoom Workplaces of the world to a limited extent, the absence of more stringent security, privacy and compliance capabilities and protocols is alarming.
"They will add features to satisfy more enterprise users, especially if they see that it's successful and driving more adoption," Osler said. "But at the moment, business usage is secondary for them. So, it's not the reason why somebody subscribes to WhatsApp. It's the opposite. You have it for personal use, and one day, you decide to use it for the company."
"Their orientation is to keep attracting users, not businesses. What they want is to drive adoption. They are not putting too much effort into making (WhatsApp Business) a real business application," Osler asserted.
Osler highlighted the key issue here: beyond the business model, WhatsApp was never built for work. There’s no central control, no real user authentication, and no way to properly manage access.
"They have billions of users, so there is a security problem. I have several groups for my daughter's school. There are 30 people in one group, and nobody really knows who you are. You have no identity. You see a strange name sometimes. We ask, please, who is this user? And they ask, I am the mom of X or Y. You trust this group, but you don't know."
The scandal that was in the US with Signal: If you use WhatsApp for business, that can happen every day. You misspell the name, and you invite the wrong user. Instead of inviting Steve, you invite Steven, and then you don't see it."
That’s not even touching on what happens when someone leaves the company. Without diligent management processes, former employees can still be sitting in old chat groups, with access to customer conversations and sensitive data. You might not have a way to revoke access or track what’s been shared.
