The results are in from global-consulting firm McKinsey & Company’s survey on how businesses are using Web 2.0 technology. Not surprisingly, the responses are positive. Nearly 70% of the 1,700 respondents said that Web 2.0 technologies have helped their companies to increase collaboration, build better products, and reduce operational costs. This is great news for agencies & startups looking to get into this market. And while executives stated there are some hurdles to user adoption, some companies are finding ways to overcome them. In fact, one Santa-Monica based startup serves as an example of what McKinsey recommends to best incorporate this technology in the workplace.

McKinsey has been studying the Enterprise & Web 2.0 topic for nearly three years now and has released some great studies and interactive charts on the subject along the way. And its an important study too. Forrester Research predicts that “Enterprise 2.0″ will become a $4.6B market by 2013 (more commentary here). We’ve also recently reported on the opportunity that awaits Web 2.0 entrepreneurs who focus their talents on competing in the enterprise space.

And while there have been some valid objections to this study, the study has two clear insights for entrepreneurs & investors:

1. Top executives view Web 2.0 tools in a positive light, even if the evidence is anecdotal
2. There is a desire to further incorporate these technologies, and there’s a clearly-expressed pain point in doing so

This is good news for both agencies and entrepreneurs.

For agencies, this means that any corporate pitch with a Web 2.0 “hook” will likely arouse interest within the c-level suite (you know, the guys who sign the big checks). However, agencies should be mindful of how their phrase their value proposition. Top executives are talking about Web 2.0 in terms of how it increases their productivity, not how it helps with branding or decreases their customer-acquisition costs. Any pitch outside this boundary may earn you an introduction to the CMO or SVP of Marketing, but your pitch will either die on the vine or be met with lots of competition & price pressure (where seven-figure programs will become six-figure campaigns). Agencies with a Fortune 500 clientele and a strong understanding of business process, technology, and social media / web 2.0 could stand to gain here.

For entrepreneurs, this means there is an opportunity to direct your products & services toward the needs of big corporate customers, as long as the value proposition is expressed in a way that helps them gain more productivity from their current resources (i.e. squeezing more juice out of the lemons they have). This could mean creating products that encourage workplace collaboration, eliminate duplicate efforts, or harness the power of informal networks. There’s been a lot of talk this year about Facebook for the Enterprise. Start your research there to get a sense of where this big wave might be heading (see articles below). You may also want to staff some Fortune-500 experience in your product & biz-dev ranks.

And there is one low-hanging fruit that the survey exposed — the ‘adoption hurdle’. Survey respondents found that incorporating Web 2.0 technologies is a little tricky, and traditional financial or performance incentives aren’t working to motivate continued use. What is working, however, are informal incentives of the Web 2.0 culture such as ratings by peers, recognition or “likes” on meaningful contributions. One terrific example comes from Santa-Monica based Rubicon Project, where individual Yammer contributions are openly displayed on plasma screens throughout the office. Let’s see if Google copies that too.

More articles on this topic:
(Ars Technica) McKinsey: businesses reaping benefits from Web 2.0
(TrendSlate) Web 2.0 Entrepreneurs Can Use Design to Make Big Money Elsewhere
(ZDNet) Why social networking tools will go enterprise: All your employees are using them
(NewsGator) Facebook for the Enterprise Explained
(E&P) Facebook for the Enterprise: the oil and gas industry goes social
(msuster) Businesses Must Manage the Twitter Conversation