IBM Business Analytics: 20 Ways Big Blue Rules

by Darryl K. Taft

• During IBM’s 2010 investor briefing, Mark Loughridge, CFO, stated that the company estimates that business analytics will grow to be a $16 billion??íbusiness by??í2015. • Growth in the second quarter of 2010 showed revenue up 14 percent in software and services. • IBM spends approximately $6 billion a year on research and development, with a significant portion focused on driving innovation around business analytics.

• IBM is investing heavily in business analytics, with $11 billion in 19 acquisitions over the last five years alone. • During IBM’s 2010 investor briefing, IBM’s CEO Sam Palmisano said IBM will spend $20 billion on acquisitions through 2015, with analytics being one of the sweet spots.

IBM??íprovides a deep portfolio??íof analytics software, services, hardware and research, with the technologies from strategic acquisitions to help clients transform their organizations and leverage their most critical assets—their business information—in new ways. ??í

IBM’s Business Analytics strategy is supported by: • The opening of eight analytics centers worldwide.??í • 6,000 consultants with deep industry expertise.• 10,000+ technical professionals in 80 research and development labs and 40 innovation centers worldwide.

Over 250,000 clients worldwide use IBM business analytics, IBM officials say.

IBM has the world’s largest research department:• More than 200 mathematicians focus exclusively on business analytics. • To date, IBM has received about 500 analytics patents. • IBM Research is developing a highly advanced Question Answering system, code-named “Watson,” to elevate computer intelligence and human-to-computer communication to unprecedented levels, with enough precision and speed to compete on the TV game show “Jeopardy!”

IBM is leading the charge to making analytics go mainstream—enabling both C-level and everyday business users to manage, capture, integrate, analyze and predict the widest range of information, both within and outside their organizations.

The average online user is three times more likely to trust peer opinions over retailer advertising. Moreover, 70 percent of the first consumer interaction with a product or services starts on the Web. IBM is helping organizations uncover and analyze insights trapped inside social network sources such as emoticons, tweets, text messages, call center notes and survey data.

IBM’s BigSheets, together with Apache Hadoop technology, is pioneering the charge to tackle the Big Data issue, helping clients extract, annotate and visually analyze the more than 1,200 exabytes of digital information that will be created this year alone.

By 2015, there will be 20 times more mobile data and content and 40 times more mobile transaction spending than today. IBM is at the forefront in helping organizations find ways to more accurately gather, share and gain business insights through smart devices. Last year alone, more than 100 million mobile phones shipped included IBM software.??í

IBM streaming analytics allows the ability to analyze and integrate any type of data input continuously and in real time. This gives organizations instant, accurate and predictive insights into current and future behavior that can translate into a competitive advantage in a constantly changing market.??íFor example, a stock trader would have to read the entire works of Shakespeare 10 times in less than 1 second, then identify and execute a stock trade faster than a hummingbird flaps its wings to match the capabilities of streaming analytics.

IBM’s Smart Analytics System helps clients implement analytics systems in days and is three times faster and requires 50 percent less storage than other systems.

IBM includes teams of software, hardware and services experts with dedicated focus across 20 global industries. For instance, IBM industry experts are helping: • Health care companies liberate data from electronic health records to significantly improve patient care.• Government agencies capitalize on stimulus funds to improve citizen-centric services.• Retailers nurture shopper loyalty through targeted promotions.• Energy companies demonstrate energy usage savings of up to 40 percent through active monitoring and control.

• A first-of-its-kind research project uses streaming analytics to help medical staff at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children find new ways to detect potentially life-threatening infections in premature babies up to 24 hours earlier than previously possible.

• The Memphis Police Department is using IBM predictive analytics technology to enhance its crime fighting techniques and has significantly reduced serious crime by 31 percent, including a reduction of 15.4 percent in violent crime. The department is now able to evaluate incident patterns throughout the city and forecast criminal “hot spots” to proactively allocate resources and deploy personnel.

• Analytics helped Alameda County Social Services Agency save $11 million in tax payer dollars through the identification of fraud and elimination of duplicate work. The analytics system gives case workers the ability to spot gaps in services or problems before they happen, helping their 250,000 clients receive the services they need quickly.

• Predictive analytics enables a better understanding of approximately 880,000 customers across Europe through insight extracted from their personal preferences and transactional behavior—to better predict interests, improve customer retention and ultimately increase car rental opportunities while significantly reducing marketing costs by 50 percent.

IBM Research and Shell worked together to extend the life of existing oil and gas fields through predictive analytics. Shell can reduce the educated guesswork and extract natural resources with more certainty and efficiency, and less drilling.

IBM is influencing the academic agenda by partnering with some of the world’s leading educational institutions—including Fordham University, University of Ottawa and DePaul University— to create academic research centers and develop curriculum programs designed to arm students with high-demand analytics skills that support 21st century jobs.

IBM’s new service line, IBM Business Analytics and Optimization Services, will draw on the company’s deep expertise in vertical industries, research, mathematics and information management to help clients both improve the speed and quality of business decisions.