New Resources Focus on Eliminating Complexity from Application Development
IBM (NYSE: IBM) is introducing new offerings to make it easier for business partners and clients to create "patterns of expertise", a new software capability first introduced as part of IBM's PureSystems family of expert integrated systems. These patterns are designed to radically streamline the set-up and management of hardware and software resources.
PureSystems, introduced in April, is the result of $2 billion in research, development and acquisitions over four years, and has been designed to help change the economics of IT so that organizations can reduce their IT costs and complexity and put more resources towards innovation and growth.
Central to enabling and streamlining IT operations through PureSystems are these patterns of expertise. IBM announced today a new Virtual Pattern Kit to enable clients and business partners to convert technology expertise into reusable, downloadable packages of their own. This complements the patterns that are already being created by both IBM and more than 125 Independent Software Vendors (ISVs). Once designed, these patterns are embedded directly into the PureSystems machines to automate a wide range of manual and administrative IT tasks.
As part of this announcement, IBM will also offer clients and business partners access to the PureSystems family to create and test their patterns through the IBM SmartCloud. This will help organizations to radically simplify data center operations, and capitalize on the massive cost savings and efficiency gains PureSystems delivers.
"With almost two-thirds of global IT budget being spent on just maintaining their current infrastructure, it's imperative that companies find ways to reduce the complexity in their data centers," said Marie Wieck, General Manager, IBM Application and Integration Middleware. "The introduction of patterns will revolutionize how applications are being developed and managed, simplifying tasks that organizations once spent months on and allowing them to refocus on innovation."
New Resources Help Ecosystem of Business Partners and Clients to Create Applications and Patterns
By offering clients and business partners the ability to create applications and patterns of expertise of their own for PureSystems, businesses will be able to significantly lower development costs, rapidly create new solutions for clients, and fill regional or topic skill gaps. These resources are based on the expertise and experience of IBM's technical community and the developers and researchers that created PureSystems. They include:
· IBM Virtual Pattern Kit for Developers: This no-charge software development tool kit provides in-depth technical resources for developers interested in creating their own pattern of expertise for IBM PureSystems. The tool kit provides practical tools for developers to test out patterns of expertise by creating applications that run on PureSystems and the ability to begin the development work to create patterns of expertise. The tool kit will help companies move their applications from creation to testing and availability in the IBM PureSystems Centre. For patterns of expertise, the tool kit will help companies begin the development work and prepare to collaborate with IBM to finalize the project. Once partners develop their own optimized patterns of expertise with IBM, their applications can seamlessly be deployed on either the IBM SmartCloud or IBM PureSystems in minutes, enabling their clients to choose their preferred deployment model.
· PureSystems Cloud Trial: A PureSystems development environment is available to developers for 90 days at no charge. The trial can help developers create applications through IBM's SmartCloud that are ready to run on IBM's new expert integrated systems. This cloud sandbox removes the hassle of server provisioning, operating system and middleware set up and the complicated cycles of permissions and procurement associated with software development. Now, if a developer has an idea for a PureSystems application, they can be creating and testing their application in a PureSystems-ready environment in minutes. The cloud trial also includes Collaborative Lifecycle Management software from IBM enabling business partners to work together on a project, or to work directly with a client's developers. This collaborative approach can significantly increase the speed of software development, encourage innovation and empower developers with the tools they need to track the project through its completion.
By removing some of the biggest challenges of software development, IBM is helping businesses empower their technical experts to rapidly create a proof of concept for clients, and test new ideas.
For example, a software developer, working for a bank, has an idea for a mobile application and would like to build a prototype to demonstrate its potential business benefits. Without the PureSystems cloud trial, the developer needs to obtain the necessary financing and permissions for the project. Then they need to secure and provision the hardware, download a base operating system, set up a middleware stack and enlist the expertise of skilled programmers to tune the middleware stack to ensure optimal performance. This can take days to achieve.
With the PureSystems cloud trial, the developer can log into the IBM SmartCloud and immediately begin working on the application in an environment that is already set up. They have 90 days to build a proof of concept without any risk that the hardware will be re-allocated to another priority effort, and without needing the expertise of additional software developers to tune the middleware.
IBM Makes it Easy for Business Partner Ecosystem to Embrace PureSystems
More than 150 solutions have been developed for IBM PureSystems by more than 125 of the world’s leading ISVs. With technical and validation resources from IBM, these companies have the flexibility to optimize their industry-leading applications to run on either the IBM PureFlex or IBM PureApplication systems.
To continue the rapid adoption of PureSystems among leading technology companies, clients can now nominate ISV patterns they would like to see in the PureSystems Centre. Additionally, special enablement events are being hosted at IBM Innovation Centers in 25 cities around the globe. These events are designed for all types of Business Partners and will offer resources and advice on how companies can grow their business with PureSystems. Additionally, developers have access to a wide variety of PureSystems technical resources on IBM developerWorks. There, developers can learn about PureSystems, watch technical demos and hear from others working on the technology.
New Patterns for Business Intelligence and Business Process Management and Social Collaboration
In addition to offering resources to business partners and clients to create their own patterns, IBM is also introducing several new patterns that organizations can leverage based on their needs. These patterns are based off of proven best practices and expertise for complex tasks that IBM has learned from decades of client and partner engagements. Now, they have been captured, lab-tested and built into PureSystems. With the push of a button, an organization can easily pull up a workload-specific pattern, dramatically reducing the time and effort associated with installing, configuring, tuning and managing software on an ongoing basis.
· Business Process Management (BPM): Patterns for deploying business process applications within a private cloud. IBM Business Process Manager provides clients with visibility, management and insight into their business processes. Through PureSystems, IBM intends to provide Business Process Manager Advanced and Business Process Manager Standard patterns, enabling customers to scale the use of BPM throughout their company faster and focus their resources on activities that add value to the business such as improving key processes, instead of installation and configuration.
· Business Intelligence: A pattern that drives deployment of IBM Cognos Business Intelligence applications in 20-minutes. IBM Cognos Business Intelligence equips business users with reporting, analysis, dashboard, and scorecards to help them easily analyze all information to drive better business decisions. Now with PureSystems, clients will be able to focus their efforts getting faster answers to their key business questions, rather than spending time and resources on installing, configuring, tuning and maintaining complex Business Intelligence environments.
· Social Collaboration: A pattern that gives clients the ability to quickly foster collaboration, expertise location and sharing among their employees. A social business recognizes that people do business with people and optimizes how people interact to accomplish organizational goals. The Social Collaboration pattern will provide clients with an integrated set of capabilities that can be rapidly deployed and easily maintained to deliver new levels of social business in a private cloud, empowering people to easily connect with employees, partners, and customers to optimize collaboration.
Pricing and Availability
The first two models of the PureSystems family – PureFlex System and PureApplication System -- start shipping to customers this quarter. PureSystems support POWER processors and Intel processors. Fifty clients are already engaged in the IBM PureExperience program to learn how they are able to put the PureApplication System to work for them.
Saturday, May 19, 2012
Sproxil, Inc. Teams with IBM to Help Consumers, Industry, in the Fight Against Drug Counterfeiting
New Software Enhances Pharmaceutical Companies’ Ability to Analyze and Visualize Drug Counterfeiting Patterns in Emerging Markets
Sproxil is using IBM technology to help the pharmaceutical industry reduce drug counterfeiting and allow consumers to verify the authenticity of prescriptions in seconds with their mobile phones.
Through its collaboration with IBM, Sproxil is extending manufacturers’ ability to view and analyze real time consumer data to detect and prevent drug counterfeiting in developing countries, where 25 to 50 percent of medicines are believed to be counterfeit,1 costing the industry $75 billion a year. 2 With the collaboration, Sproxil also uses IBM’s cloud service to provide clients with secure, reliable data access virtually anywhere.
Sproxil’s pharmaceutical clients, such as Merck and GlaxoSmithKline, have been able to combat counterfeiting by using the company’s Mobile Product Authentication (MPA) solution to affix a scratch-off label with a unique code to each package of medication. Upon purchase, consumers scratch the label to reveal the code, which they then send via a free text message to a telephone number provided on the package. Within seconds, consumers receive a return text message from Sproxil letting them know if the medication is genuine.
As a part of this process, Sproxil’s MPA solution produces a large, rapidly flowing stream of information concerning pharmaceutical sales and suspected incidences of counterfeiting that pharmaceutical manufacturers have access to through Sproxil’s client portal.
To make it easier for its clients to view and analyze this market data, Sproxil turned to IBM’s ILOG Elixir software, which provides rich visuals such as advanced charts and graphics. Using these and other new capabilities, pharmaceutical manufacturers around the world will be able to better manage and analyze petabytes of transaction data in real time. Now, pharmaceutical companies can more easily identify patterns in counterfeiting and deploy their resources accordingly. Sproxil’s new portal featuring ILOG will be launched during the second quarter of 2012.
“Many of our clients are in locations where high-speed Internet connectivity is unreliable or nonexistent,” said Sproxil Chief Executive Officer Dr. Ashifi Gogo. “Through our work with IBM, we can enable our clients to render charts with high-speed, even in low-bandwidth situations. Through IBM’s cloud service, we are also able offer clients secure and reliable application availability no matter where they are located,” he said.
“Sproxil continues to advance its MPA solution to make it easier for us to successfully prevent consumers from being subjected to counterfeit medications,” said Chokri Ahmadi, business director, Merck Group, West Africa Region. “The new dashboard will allow us to make better use of the data we receive through the client portal, which in turn should help our business and our customers.”
Counterfeit medicines have become a critical issue for developing nations, with an impact measured in lives. For example, of the one million malaria deaths that occur worldwide each year, 200,000 are reportedly the result of counterfeit anti-malarial drugs. Additionally, the WHO indicates that 700,000 Africans die annually from consuming fake anti-malarial or tuberculosis drugs.
“Sproxil and IBM share a commitment to using technology to protect the health and safety of people around the world,” said Paul Chang, supply chain solutions leader, IBM. “With the help of IBM, Sproxil and its clients are making prescription drugs safer for millions of people who live in areas where counterfeiting is rampant.”
Sproxil has been working closely with IBM since 2010, when it was named the winner of IBM SmartCamp Boston and then received honorable mention in IBM’s SmartCamp World Finals. SmartCamp is an entrepreneurial contest that introduces start-up companies to venture capitalists, academia, government and industry leaders who can help them grow their businesses. After Sproxil’s strong performances in the SmartCamps, the company received an investment round of funding earlier this year from the Acumen Fund. Sproxil is also a member of IBM’s Global Entrepreneur initiative, which assists start ups with product development and speeds their time-to-market.
Using IBM SmartCloud, Sproxil is benefiting from the cost savings and scalability associated with a cloud environment while preserving the ability to take advantage of the security, existing applications, reliability, management and support services more typical of a private cloud.
IBM has deep expertise in the pharmaceutical industry and works with most of the world's pharmaceutical and life sciences companies in support of their discovery and development processes and providing business analytics to help deliver more personalized treatments.
To combat counterfeiting in the regions where it is most widespread, pharmaceutical manufacturers around the world – including several of the top 10 as well as small firms – are teaming with Sproxil to offer consumers a simple and quick way of making sure their medication is authentic.
About Sproxil, Inc.
Sproxil is a venture-backed, social enterprise that provides world-class brand protection services in emerging markets. Through the company’s Mobile Product Authentication™ (MPA) solution, brand owners can connect with their customers in a way not previously achieved, by helping to ensure the goods they purchase are not stolen or counterfeit. Sproxil’s patent-pending product verification service allows individuals to text message a single-use item-specific code found on products using MPA technology, and receive a rapid response confirming the product’s genuineness or alerting the consumer to report incidents of suspicious activity to the brand owner. Sproxil’s solution is compatible with any tangible item, and it is already widely used by leading pharmaceutical companies to curb the multi-billion dollar counterfeit drug industry. Recognized as innovative and instrumental in the battle against counterfeiting, Sproxil has won the IBM SmartCamp Boston Award and the 2009 Clinton Global Initiative Outstanding Commitment Award, as well as received regulatory endorsements from the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control in Nigeria and the Pharmacy and Poisons Board in Kenya. The company is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States and continues to expand its presence in multiple countries across Asia and Africa.
Sproxil is using IBM technology to help the pharmaceutical industry reduce drug counterfeiting and allow consumers to verify the authenticity of prescriptions in seconds with their mobile phones.
Through its collaboration with IBM, Sproxil is extending manufacturers’ ability to view and analyze real time consumer data to detect and prevent drug counterfeiting in developing countries, where 25 to 50 percent of medicines are believed to be counterfeit,1 costing the industry $75 billion a year. 2 With the collaboration, Sproxil also uses IBM’s cloud service to provide clients with secure, reliable data access virtually anywhere.
Sproxil’s pharmaceutical clients, such as Merck and GlaxoSmithKline, have been able to combat counterfeiting by using the company’s Mobile Product Authentication (MPA) solution to affix a scratch-off label with a unique code to each package of medication. Upon purchase, consumers scratch the label to reveal the code, which they then send via a free text message to a telephone number provided on the package. Within seconds, consumers receive a return text message from Sproxil letting them know if the medication is genuine.
As a part of this process, Sproxil’s MPA solution produces a large, rapidly flowing stream of information concerning pharmaceutical sales and suspected incidences of counterfeiting that pharmaceutical manufacturers have access to through Sproxil’s client portal.
To make it easier for its clients to view and analyze this market data, Sproxil turned to IBM’s ILOG Elixir software, which provides rich visuals such as advanced charts and graphics. Using these and other new capabilities, pharmaceutical manufacturers around the world will be able to better manage and analyze petabytes of transaction data in real time. Now, pharmaceutical companies can more easily identify patterns in counterfeiting and deploy their resources accordingly. Sproxil’s new portal featuring ILOG will be launched during the second quarter of 2012.
“Many of our clients are in locations where high-speed Internet connectivity is unreliable or nonexistent,” said Sproxil Chief Executive Officer Dr. Ashifi Gogo. “Through our work with IBM, we can enable our clients to render charts with high-speed, even in low-bandwidth situations. Through IBM’s cloud service, we are also able offer clients secure and reliable application availability no matter where they are located,” he said.
“Sproxil continues to advance its MPA solution to make it easier for us to successfully prevent consumers from being subjected to counterfeit medications,” said Chokri Ahmadi, business director, Merck Group, West Africa Region. “The new dashboard will allow us to make better use of the data we receive through the client portal, which in turn should help our business and our customers.”
Counterfeit medicines have become a critical issue for developing nations, with an impact measured in lives. For example, of the one million malaria deaths that occur worldwide each year, 200,000 are reportedly the result of counterfeit anti-malarial drugs. Additionally, the WHO indicates that 700,000 Africans die annually from consuming fake anti-malarial or tuberculosis drugs.
“Sproxil and IBM share a commitment to using technology to protect the health and safety of people around the world,” said Paul Chang, supply chain solutions leader, IBM. “With the help of IBM, Sproxil and its clients are making prescription drugs safer for millions of people who live in areas where counterfeiting is rampant.”
Sproxil has been working closely with IBM since 2010, when it was named the winner of IBM SmartCamp Boston and then received honorable mention in IBM’s SmartCamp World Finals. SmartCamp is an entrepreneurial contest that introduces start-up companies to venture capitalists, academia, government and industry leaders who can help them grow their businesses. After Sproxil’s strong performances in the SmartCamps, the company received an investment round of funding earlier this year from the Acumen Fund. Sproxil is also a member of IBM’s Global Entrepreneur initiative, which assists start ups with product development and speeds their time-to-market.
Using IBM SmartCloud, Sproxil is benefiting from the cost savings and scalability associated with a cloud environment while preserving the ability to take advantage of the security, existing applications, reliability, management and support services more typical of a private cloud.
IBM has deep expertise in the pharmaceutical industry and works with most of the world's pharmaceutical and life sciences companies in support of their discovery and development processes and providing business analytics to help deliver more personalized treatments.
To combat counterfeiting in the regions where it is most widespread, pharmaceutical manufacturers around the world – including several of the top 10 as well as small firms – are teaming with Sproxil to offer consumers a simple and quick way of making sure their medication is authentic.
About Sproxil, Inc.
Sproxil is a venture-backed, social enterprise that provides world-class brand protection services in emerging markets. Through the company’s Mobile Product Authentication™ (MPA) solution, brand owners can connect with their customers in a way not previously achieved, by helping to ensure the goods they purchase are not stolen or counterfeit. Sproxil’s patent-pending product verification service allows individuals to text message a single-use item-specific code found on products using MPA technology, and receive a rapid response confirming the product’s genuineness or alerting the consumer to report incidents of suspicious activity to the brand owner. Sproxil’s solution is compatible with any tangible item, and it is already widely used by leading pharmaceutical companies to curb the multi-billion dollar counterfeit drug industry. Recognized as innovative and instrumental in the battle against counterfeiting, Sproxil has won the IBM SmartCamp Boston Award and the 2009 Clinton Global Initiative Outstanding Commitment Award, as well as received regulatory endorsements from the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control in Nigeria and the Pharmacy and Poisons Board in Kenya. The company is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States and continues to expand its presence in multiple countries across Asia and Africa.
New IBM Business Integration Software Helps Enterprises Accelerate Adoption of Social Business, Cloud and Mobile Technologies
The Ottawa Hospital uses IBM technology to help improve patient care
IBM (NYSE:IBM) today unveiled a range of new business integration software capabilities designed to help organizations quickly begin incorporating the collaborative and intelligent capabilities of social media, mobile computing and cloud computing into their enterprise applications.
The cornerstone of enabling enterprises to embrace these critical technologies is the new version of IBM WebSphere Application Server. The fastest application server on the market, WebSphere Application Server now provides clients with new flexibility for embedded deployments and is ready for cloud with built in virtualization. This new offering provides the software platform that today powers more than 100,000 clients worldwide.
Complementing WebSphere Application Server is a range of new integration software offerings including:
· IBM Business Process Manager – Combines new capabilities around social, collaboration, governance and mobile to dramatically improve the way work is done. This allows organizations to gain visibility in the ways they change, manage measure and improve the processes that run their business.
· IBM Operational Decision Management – Speeds and simplifies the way that organizations manage the business rules that control a wide range of decisions across business processes and applications. The new "social media" style user interface provides an intuitive environment for collaboration and simplifies searching, viewing and making rule changes.
· IBM WebSphere Cast Iron Live Web Application Programming Interface (API) Services – Allows companies to extend their services to support the emerging community of developers who are building new social, mobile and cloud applications. This new purpose-built offering provides a comprehensive solution to deliver, socialize and manage business API assets.
The Ottawa Hospital Turns to IBM to Improve Patient Care
One client – The Ottawa Hospital has already begun testing how these new software and services from IBM can dramatically change their business model. Working with IBM, they are building a new system that improves the quality of patient care and helps them to better manage the flow of patients throughout the hospital.
Recently, the hospital had seen a tremendous increase in patients, resulting in higher occupancy rates and ultimately, overcrowding. Additionally, the patients being admitted had complicated and acute symptoms, placing a greater strain on the need for coordinated healthcare delivery. The IBM system provides extensive patient information and hospital resource availability to the clinical staff, via mobile device, at the point of care – speeding both admission and treatment.
“Physicians should be focused on patient care, not be tied up doing lower value activity, like calling for consults or trying to negotiate admission for a patient,” said Dale Potter, Senior Vice President & CIO at The Ottawa Hospital. “The concept behind our new system from IBM is that we are able to help our staff have one consolidated view on important data and processes, getting the right information to physicians at the right time.”
For example, the attending physician can send an electronic request to the patient’s physician for clarification on past diagnosis. The patient’s doctor receives the consultation request immediately on their most accessible device – a tablet, smart phone or a computer. They respond directly to the specific consult questions electronically, so the attending physician can correctly diagnose the patient.
The new system builds upon IBM’s expertise in the area of Business Process Management (BPM), Operational Decision Management and analytics, and is critical to helping the hospital rethink the manner in which it utilizes its IT infrastructure in order to cut across functional silos and better coordinate care.
A Decade of Leadership
IBM has been the overall marketshare leader in middleware software for eleven consecutive years. In fact, IBM now commands 32.1 percent market share and has extended its lead to nearly double that of its closest competitor.
Key to WebSphere's success within the middleware segment is IBM's continued investment in product performance, a commitment that has once again resulted in industry leading benchmarks. In the first test of its recently announced WebSphere Application Server v8.5, IBM was named world leader in middleware performance as measured by SPECjEnterprise 2010 in EjOPS/processor core which measures efficiency of middleware software servers. Based upon the latest industry standard benchmark results, IBM's middleware software is 16 percent faster than any other vendor's middleware software on equivalent hardware.
These new capabilities are on display at this year’s IMPACT conference, which features more than 8,500 attendees and hundreds of client testimonials, presentations, workshops and product demos.
IBM (NYSE:IBM) today unveiled a range of new business integration software capabilities designed to help organizations quickly begin incorporating the collaborative and intelligent capabilities of social media, mobile computing and cloud computing into their enterprise applications.
The cornerstone of enabling enterprises to embrace these critical technologies is the new version of IBM WebSphere Application Server. The fastest application server on the market, WebSphere Application Server now provides clients with new flexibility for embedded deployments and is ready for cloud with built in virtualization. This new offering provides the software platform that today powers more than 100,000 clients worldwide.
Complementing WebSphere Application Server is a range of new integration software offerings including:
· IBM Business Process Manager – Combines new capabilities around social, collaboration, governance and mobile to dramatically improve the way work is done. This allows organizations to gain visibility in the ways they change, manage measure and improve the processes that run their business.
· IBM Operational Decision Management – Speeds and simplifies the way that organizations manage the business rules that control a wide range of decisions across business processes and applications. The new "social media" style user interface provides an intuitive environment for collaboration and simplifies searching, viewing and making rule changes.
· IBM WebSphere Cast Iron Live Web Application Programming Interface (API) Services – Allows companies to extend their services to support the emerging community of developers who are building new social, mobile and cloud applications. This new purpose-built offering provides a comprehensive solution to deliver, socialize and manage business API assets.
The Ottawa Hospital Turns to IBM to Improve Patient Care
One client – The Ottawa Hospital has already begun testing how these new software and services from IBM can dramatically change their business model. Working with IBM, they are building a new system that improves the quality of patient care and helps them to better manage the flow of patients throughout the hospital.
Recently, the hospital had seen a tremendous increase in patients, resulting in higher occupancy rates and ultimately, overcrowding. Additionally, the patients being admitted had complicated and acute symptoms, placing a greater strain on the need for coordinated healthcare delivery. The IBM system provides extensive patient information and hospital resource availability to the clinical staff, via mobile device, at the point of care – speeding both admission and treatment.
“Physicians should be focused on patient care, not be tied up doing lower value activity, like calling for consults or trying to negotiate admission for a patient,” said Dale Potter, Senior Vice President & CIO at The Ottawa Hospital. “The concept behind our new system from IBM is that we are able to help our staff have one consolidated view on important data and processes, getting the right information to physicians at the right time.”
For example, the attending physician can send an electronic request to the patient’s physician for clarification on past diagnosis. The patient’s doctor receives the consultation request immediately on their most accessible device – a tablet, smart phone or a computer. They respond directly to the specific consult questions electronically, so the attending physician can correctly diagnose the patient.
The new system builds upon IBM’s expertise in the area of Business Process Management (BPM), Operational Decision Management and analytics, and is critical to helping the hospital rethink the manner in which it utilizes its IT infrastructure in order to cut across functional silos and better coordinate care.
A Decade of Leadership
IBM has been the overall marketshare leader in middleware software for eleven consecutive years. In fact, IBM now commands 32.1 percent market share and has extended its lead to nearly double that of its closest competitor.
Key to WebSphere's success within the middleware segment is IBM's continued investment in product performance, a commitment that has once again resulted in industry leading benchmarks. In the first test of its recently announced WebSphere Application Server v8.5, IBM was named world leader in middleware performance as measured by SPECjEnterprise 2010 in EjOPS/processor core which measures efficiency of middleware software servers. Based upon the latest industry standard benchmark results, IBM's middleware software is 16 percent faster than any other vendor's middleware software on equivalent hardware.
These new capabilities are on display at this year’s IMPACT conference, which features more than 8,500 attendees and hundreds of client testimonials, presentations, workshops and product demos.
Online and Mobile Buying Trends Continue to Rise in First-Quarter, Reports IBM
Mobile Commerce Nearly Doubles to 13.3 Percent of Online Retail Sales
Rising Consumer Sentiment Driven By Improving Online Experience
The U.S. retail industry saw continued growth in online and mobile buying trends in the first-quarter, driven by today's rising digital consumer marketplace. According to the IBM (NYSE: IBM) retail online economic indicator, a cloud-based analytics report which examines the state of the online retail sector, mobile commerce grew to more than 13 percent, while online buying grew more than 6 percent in March 2012.
This report follows recent news from the U.S. Department of Commerce's Census Bureau which announced its estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for the first-quarter 2012. According to the findings, retail sales increased by 0.8 percent in March compared to February and sales for the month were up 6.5 percent compared to the same time last year. Total sales for the first quarter of 2012 were up 6.4 percent from the same period a year ago.
IBM's retail online economic indicator identified several trends of importance to chief marketing officers, ecommerce leaders and customer service professionals. The most notable development over this first-quarter period was the continued growth of mobile commerce sales which accounted for 13.3 percent of online retail sales, double the number seen in the same time-frame the previous year.
In addition to sales, the economic indicator identified an increase in positive consumer sentiment around key attributes of a successful digital buying experience. The indicator found consumers are increasingly optimistic when it comes to convenience, experience and overall value, each up from this same period last year, based on their online shopping experience. Businesses are also increasingly looking to analyze social media such as Facebook and Twitter to assess the way their customers view them.
Part of IBM's Smarter Commerce initiative, the retail online economic indicator draws data and insights from IBM's big data offerings to provide the industry's most comprehensive look into the pulse of online retail through traditional and social media channels. The indicator analysis for first-quarter 2012 reveals the following trends:
Online Retail Sales for Q1 2012 versus Q1 2011
Consumer Spending: While total online sales were down 1.9 percent over Q1 2011, sales increased 6.3 percent from February to March 2012.Mobile Sales: Sales from mobile devices reached 13.3 percent, up from the 7 percent in Q1 2011.Mobile Traffic: 17.1 percent of all online sessions on a retailer's site were initiated from a mobile device, exceeding the 6.1 percent over this same period in 2011.Mobile Devices: Apple's iPhone continued to rank one for mobile device retail traffic at 6.5 percent with Android taking second at 5.9 percent. iPad came in third at 5.3 percent.Social Traffic: Shoppers referred from Social Networks generated 1.1 percent of all online traffic over Q1 2012, identical to the 1.1 percent seen in 2011.Social Sales: Shoppers referred to retailer sites from Social Networks generated 2.4 percent of all online sales over Q1 2012, an increase from the 1.7 percent seen over this period last year.Online Retail Categories for Q1 2012 versus Q1 2011:
Apparel stores maintained strong momentum with Q1 sales growing 14.9 percentDepartment stores continued to catch the attention of consumers with sales growing 20.4 percentHealth & Beauty sales grew by 28.8 percent as consumers continued to treat themselves this quarterHome goods experienced a 29.3 percent increase in sales in Q1 with consumers continuing to shop for their homes.Jewelry stores continued recent momentum with sales growing by 11.3 percentOffice Supply/Electronics experienced growth in Q1 with online sales increasing by 6.6 percentConsumer Sentiment for Department Stores for Q1 2012 versus Q1 2011
The Buying Experience: While consumers believe the overall "Buying Experience" improved year over year, the digital online experience saw the most positive improvements in sentiment. A leading factor was convenience which had a 65.8 percent positive sentiment rating, more than six times the negative sentiment. This was followed by value which was 51.8 percent, interaction at 36.6 percent and deals at 30.4 percent.The Online Influence: The key elements driving growing positive sentiment have the highest affinity with the online channel, demonstrating the influence it is having on the overall buying experience. These concepts include information quality and availability, in-store integration, convenience, shipping and interaction.Product Availability: On the opposite side of the spectrum, negative sentiment was highest around availability which received a rating of 24.4 percent."Over the first quarter, the digitally empowered consumer continued to demonstrate the momentum of the online channel and specifically mobile commerce, which has established itself as a legitimate channel for shopping," said Craig Hayman, General Manager, IBM Industry Solutions. "Moving ahead, we will help retailers synchronize the demand and supply chains to address issues of product availability and connect to the mobile buyer."
To further discuss the Economic Indicator and field questions, Strategy Director, IBM Digital Marketing Jay Henderson will conduct an online question and answer session on May 2, 2012, 3-4 p.m. ET. To participate in the discussion, register here.
IBM online economic indicator
The IBM retail online economic indicator features data from IBM's analytics offerings including the Benchmark and IBM Cognos Consumer Insight. The IBM Benchmark is the only analytics-based, peer-level benchmarking solution that measures online marketing results, including real-time sales data. All of the data is aggregated and anonymous. Analysis of public social media content came via IBM Cognos Consumer Insight which provides insight into underlying holiday shopping trends, hot topics of discussion and consumer sentiment. Follow the conversation at #bigdata
About IBM Smarter Commerce
IBM's Smarter Commerce initiative delivers software and services to help companies transform their business processes to more quickly respond to shifting customer demands in today's digitally transformed marketplace. The initiative is driven by the demands from organizations who are increasingly looking for ways to bring new levels of automation to marketing, sales and fulfillment to secure greater customer loyalty. The growth of mobile, social and online commerce are key trends within Smarter Commerce.
Rising Consumer Sentiment Driven By Improving Online Experience
The U.S. retail industry saw continued growth in online and mobile buying trends in the first-quarter, driven by today's rising digital consumer marketplace. According to the IBM (NYSE: IBM) retail online economic indicator, a cloud-based analytics report which examines the state of the online retail sector, mobile commerce grew to more than 13 percent, while online buying grew more than 6 percent in March 2012.
IBM's retail online economic indicator identified several trends of importance to chief marketing officers, ecommerce leaders and customer service professionals. The most notable development over this first-quarter period was the continued growth of mobile commerce sales which accounted for 13.3 percent of online retail sales, double the number seen in the same time-frame the previous year.
In addition to sales, the economic indicator identified an increase in positive consumer sentiment around key attributes of a successful digital buying experience. The indicator found consumers are increasingly optimistic when it comes to convenience, experience and overall value, each up from this same period last year, based on their online shopping experience. Businesses are also increasingly looking to analyze social media such as Facebook and Twitter to assess the way their customers view them.
Part of IBM's Smarter Commerce initiative, the retail online economic indicator draws data and insights from IBM's big data offerings to provide the industry's most comprehensive look into the pulse of online retail through traditional and social media channels. The indicator analysis for first-quarter 2012 reveals the following trends:
Online Retail Sales for Q1 2012 versus Q1 2011
Consumer Spending: While total online sales were down 1.9 percent over Q1 2011, sales increased 6.3 percent from February to March 2012.Mobile Sales: Sales from mobile devices reached 13.3 percent, up from the 7 percent in Q1 2011.Mobile Traffic: 17.1 percent of all online sessions on a retailer's site were initiated from a mobile device, exceeding the 6.1 percent over this same period in 2011.Mobile Devices: Apple's iPhone continued to rank one for mobile device retail traffic at 6.5 percent with Android taking second at 5.9 percent. iPad came in third at 5.3 percent.Social Traffic: Shoppers referred from Social Networks generated 1.1 percent of all online traffic over Q1 2012, identical to the 1.1 percent seen in 2011.Social Sales: Shoppers referred to retailer sites from Social Networks generated 2.4 percent of all online sales over Q1 2012, an increase from the 1.7 percent seen over this period last year.Online Retail Categories for Q1 2012 versus Q1 2011:
Apparel stores maintained strong momentum with Q1 sales growing 14.9 percentDepartment stores continued to catch the attention of consumers with sales growing 20.4 percentHealth & Beauty sales grew by 28.8 percent as consumers continued to treat themselves this quarterHome goods experienced a 29.3 percent increase in sales in Q1 with consumers continuing to shop for their homes.Jewelry stores continued recent momentum with sales growing by 11.3 percentOffice Supply/Electronics experienced growth in Q1 with online sales increasing by 6.6 percentConsumer Sentiment for Department Stores for Q1 2012 versus Q1 2011
The Buying Experience: While consumers believe the overall "Buying Experience" improved year over year, the digital online experience saw the most positive improvements in sentiment. A leading factor was convenience which had a 65.8 percent positive sentiment rating, more than six times the negative sentiment. This was followed by value which was 51.8 percent, interaction at 36.6 percent and deals at 30.4 percent.The Online Influence: The key elements driving growing positive sentiment have the highest affinity with the online channel, demonstrating the influence it is having on the overall buying experience. These concepts include information quality and availability, in-store integration, convenience, shipping and interaction.Product Availability: On the opposite side of the spectrum, negative sentiment was highest around availability which received a rating of 24.4 percent."Over the first quarter, the digitally empowered consumer continued to demonstrate the momentum of the online channel and specifically mobile commerce, which has established itself as a legitimate channel for shopping," said Craig Hayman, General Manager, IBM Industry Solutions. "Moving ahead, we will help retailers synchronize the demand and supply chains to address issues of product availability and connect to the mobile buyer."
To further discuss the Economic Indicator and field questions, Strategy Director, IBM Digital Marketing Jay Henderson will conduct an online question and answer session on May 2, 2012, 3-4 p.m. ET. To participate in the discussion, register here.
IBM online economic indicator
The IBM retail online economic indicator features data from IBM's analytics offerings including the Benchmark and IBM Cognos Consumer Insight. The IBM Benchmark is the only analytics-based, peer-level benchmarking solution that measures online marketing results, including real-time sales data. All of the data is aggregated and anonymous. Analysis of public social media content came via IBM Cognos Consumer Insight which provides insight into underlying holiday shopping trends, hot topics of discussion and consumer sentiment. Follow the conversation at #bigdata
About IBM Smarter Commerce
IBM's Smarter Commerce initiative delivers software and services to help companies transform their business processes to more quickly respond to shifting customer demands in today's digitally transformed marketplace. The initiative is driven by the demands from organizations who are increasingly looking for ways to bring new levels of automation to marketing, sales and fulfillment to secure greater customer loyalty. The growth of mobile, social and online commerce are key trends within Smarter Commerce.
IBM to Acquire Tealeaf Technology, Inc. to Help Marketers Deliver Exceptional Digital Experience for Smarter Commerce
IBM (NYSE:IBM) today announced a definitive agreement to acquire Tealeaf Technology, Inc., a leading provider of customer experience analytics software that helps organizations to gain intelligence and react more swiftly to consumer trends in today's digitally transformed marketplace. Financial details were not disclosed.
The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory clearance and is expected to close in the second quarter of 2012.
With this agreement, IBM extends its Smarter Commerce initiative by adding qualitative analytics capabilities that provide chief marketing officers (CMOs), e-commerce and customer service professionals with real-time and automated insights into online customer buying experiences across online and mobile devices. As a result, organizations can gain actionable insight that allows them to improve customer support, transform site usability, tailor marketing campaigns and increase online conversion rates.
The need to deliver a seamless mobile experience has become increasingly critical to CMOs with global online commerce expected to hit $1 trillion by 2014 and mobile commerce $200 billion by 2015.
Tealeaf has over 450 customers worldwide including 30 of the Fortune 100 companies. These customers are predominantly in financial services, travel, retail and communications services. Current clients include: Dell, Wells Fargo, Air Canada, GEICO, Orbitz, Crate & Barrel, Neiman Marcus, Expedia, Zappos, ING Direct, Best Buy, DirecTV, McKesson and StubHub.
Organizations today are struggling to meet the demands created by the rapidly shifting buying patterns of their customers, who increasingly turn to online, social and mobile channels to gather information, make purchases and receive services. This new digital marketplace requires companies to be highly responsive to their customers’ behaviors in order to both compete and grow. The opportunity to better understand a customer’s experience on websites and mobile devices presents a major competitive advantage for businesses.
Tealeaf provides a full suite of customer experience management software, which records and analyzes a customer’s website and mobile interactions. As a result, marketers can spot patterns and address issues in website and mobile application design and provide a more streamlined online customer experience that leads to improved revenue, customer satisfaction, customer service productivity, and profitability.
For example, using Tealeaf software, the CMO of an online retailer can identify weaknesses in a recent mobile marketing campaign by spotting instances and replaying scenarios that triggered customer sessions to end prematurely. As a result, marketers can improve the customer’s experience by addressing usability, site design or ease of use and reach out to consumers to recapture their interest.
In another instance, an online travel agency finds that when visitors misspell a vacation package name and receive zero search results, nearly 100 percent of the visitors leave the site without completing a booking, prompting the website team to address the response and offer other navigation options. By replaying and analyzing each customer’s session, the travel agent can pinpoint the issue and immediately serve those customers and maintain their loyalty.
“Marketers must continuously deliver a better customer experience on both the Web and mobile devices to meet the expectations of today's empowered consumers," said Craig Hayman, General Manager of Industry Solutions at IBM. "With these new capabilities from Tealeaf, we can not only provide chief marketing officers and other marketing leaders the qualitative insights into how customers actually experience their brands, but show them how to react in real time across marketing, sales and service.
“Tealeaf's patented technology can be deployed into a business’s current environment with no needed modifications so they begin capturing customer data and delivering optimal experiences immediately,” said Rebecca Ward, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Tealeaf. “IBM Smarter Commerce is the perfect fit for Tealeaf and further establishes IBM as the leading partner for businesses looking to succeed in today’s fast evolving environment.”
Tealeaf will extend IBM’s leadership in Smarter Commerce by giving companies qualitative web and digital analytics capabilities, allowing them to capture and replay a customer’s web and mobile interactions to provide a more granular and richer view of a customer’s experience. This insightful view helps marketers answer the question of “why” customers interact as they do and thus provide a more optimized online customer experience leading to improved revenue, customer satisfaction, customer service productivity and profitability.
Consistent with IBM's Smarter Commerce strategy and following the closing of the transaction, IBM will continue to support and enhance Tealeaf's technologies and clients while allowing them to take advantage of the broader IBM portfolio. Tealeaf will be integrated into IBM's Enterprise Marketing and Management (EMM) Group, which includes previously acquired assets from Coremetrics, Unica and DemandTec. IBM has invested more than $3 billion in building its Smarter Commerce initiative, a key driver of growth and profitability.
Tealeaf is based in San Francisco, California with additional offices in Europe.
The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory clearance and is expected to close in the second quarter of 2012.
With this agreement, IBM extends its Smarter Commerce initiative by adding qualitative analytics capabilities that provide chief marketing officers (CMOs), e-commerce and customer service professionals with real-time and automated insights into online customer buying experiences across online and mobile devices. As a result, organizations can gain actionable insight that allows them to improve customer support, transform site usability, tailor marketing campaigns and increase online conversion rates.
The need to deliver a seamless mobile experience has become increasingly critical to CMOs with global online commerce expected to hit $1 trillion by 2014 and mobile commerce $200 billion by 2015.
Tealeaf has over 450 customers worldwide including 30 of the Fortune 100 companies. These customers are predominantly in financial services, travel, retail and communications services. Current clients include: Dell, Wells Fargo, Air Canada, GEICO, Orbitz, Crate & Barrel, Neiman Marcus, Expedia, Zappos, ING Direct, Best Buy, DirecTV, McKesson and StubHub.
Organizations today are struggling to meet the demands created by the rapidly shifting buying patterns of their customers, who increasingly turn to online, social and mobile channels to gather information, make purchases and receive services. This new digital marketplace requires companies to be highly responsive to their customers’ behaviors in order to both compete and grow. The opportunity to better understand a customer’s experience on websites and mobile devices presents a major competitive advantage for businesses.
Tealeaf provides a full suite of customer experience management software, which records and analyzes a customer’s website and mobile interactions. As a result, marketers can spot patterns and address issues in website and mobile application design and provide a more streamlined online customer experience that leads to improved revenue, customer satisfaction, customer service productivity, and profitability.
For example, using Tealeaf software, the CMO of an online retailer can identify weaknesses in a recent mobile marketing campaign by spotting instances and replaying scenarios that triggered customer sessions to end prematurely. As a result, marketers can improve the customer’s experience by addressing usability, site design or ease of use and reach out to consumers to recapture their interest.
In another instance, an online travel agency finds that when visitors misspell a vacation package name and receive zero search results, nearly 100 percent of the visitors leave the site without completing a booking, prompting the website team to address the response and offer other navigation options. By replaying and analyzing each customer’s session, the travel agent can pinpoint the issue and immediately serve those customers and maintain their loyalty.
“Marketers must continuously deliver a better customer experience on both the Web and mobile devices to meet the expectations of today's empowered consumers," said Craig Hayman, General Manager of Industry Solutions at IBM. "With these new capabilities from Tealeaf, we can not only provide chief marketing officers and other marketing leaders the qualitative insights into how customers actually experience their brands, but show them how to react in real time across marketing, sales and service.
“Tealeaf's patented technology can be deployed into a business’s current environment with no needed modifications so they begin capturing customer data and delivering optimal experiences immediately,” said Rebecca Ward, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Tealeaf. “IBM Smarter Commerce is the perfect fit for Tealeaf and further establishes IBM as the leading partner for businesses looking to succeed in today’s fast evolving environment.”
Tealeaf will extend IBM’s leadership in Smarter Commerce by giving companies qualitative web and digital analytics capabilities, allowing them to capture and replay a customer’s web and mobile interactions to provide a more granular and richer view of a customer’s experience. This insightful view helps marketers answer the question of “why” customers interact as they do and thus provide a more optimized online customer experience leading to improved revenue, customer satisfaction, customer service productivity and profitability.
Consistent with IBM's Smarter Commerce strategy and following the closing of the transaction, IBM will continue to support and enhance Tealeaf's technologies and clients while allowing them to take advantage of the broader IBM portfolio. Tealeaf will be integrated into IBM's Enterprise Marketing and Management (EMM) Group, which includes previously acquired assets from Coremetrics, Unica and DemandTec. IBM has invested more than $3 billion in building its Smarter Commerce initiative, a key driver of growth and profitability.
Tealeaf is based in San Francisco, California with additional offices in Europe.
IBM and the Philippine Government Partner to Build R&D Lab
IBM (NYSE: IBM) and the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) of the Republic of the Philippines today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to work together to establish the first Philippine Systems & Technology R&D Laboratory to help spur economic growth.
President Benigno Simeon Aquino III (third from left) witnesses the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Science and Technology Secretary Mario Montejo and IBM Philippines President and Country General Manager Mariels Almeda Winhoffer, as Senator Edgardo Angara (second from left) looks on in a ceremony at the President’s Hall, Malacañang Palace Thursday May 03, 2012 (Photo by: Jay Morales / Malacañang Photo Bureau).
The R&D Lab is aligned with Philippines’ strategic growth initiative that calls for greater partnering between industry and government to advance four critical areas for the country: business process outsourcing, governance for anti corruption, talent development, and innovation for a knowledge-based economy. Touching on all four pillars, the new R&D Lab will strive to contribute to the productivity of the Filipino people and improve their quality of life through the generation and promotion of strategic technologies and expertise.
Having established numerous R&D laboratories and co-laboratories in many countries, IBM, the leading global provider of IT and business solutions, has the technical capability, expertise and know-how to collaborate with the DOST in its research efforts and programs.
“2012 marks IBM’s 75th year in the Philippines and this cooperation with the DOST furthers our commitment to, and trust in the region and its people,” said Mariels Almeda Winhoffer, President and Country General Manager, Philippines. “The project is also a great example of an integrated, joint approach to research that combines IBM’s global expertise with the skills and knowledge of the Filipino people to accelerate their preparedness for the global marketplace.”
Secretary Mario Montejo of the DOST was appreciative of IBM’s initiative in establishing the R&D Lab. “By harnessing IBM’s experience and international best practices along with our local scientific talent, this R&D center will go a long way in building domestic capacity to support continued economic growth and global competitiveness.” Secretary Montejo said.
Cooperation with the private sector particularly in the information and communications technology (ICT) industry plays a significant role in the development of the industry. “This cooperation with IBM ensures that Industry and Government initiatives are cohesive and yield long term benefits for the most number of people,” said Executive Director Louis Casambre of the Information and Communications Technology Office of the DOST. “We are looking forward to more of these collaborations with other industry partners.”
In the signed agreement, the projects to be undertaken by the Philippine Systems and Technology R&D Lab shall be in line with the priority projects of the Government based on the National Economic Development Authority’s (NEDA) Medium Term Development Plan. The DOST and IBM may consider the following areas as the initial projects of the R&D Lab, subject to export and other applicable laws:
Project audit system and database;
E-governance services including a dashboard view for government officials;
Landslide predictive analytics;
Weather prediction and flood mapping;
Crime prevention;
Traffic management; and
High-performance computing and business analytics.
About IBM
Since establishing its presence in the Philippines in 1937, IBM has evolved to become the leading information technology partner in the country, providing hardware, software, and IT-enabled business services to domestic and global markets. IBM in the Philippines has grown exponentially in terms of business portfolio, talent growth and geographic reach.
About DOST
The Department of Science and Technology (DOST) is the premiere science and technology body in the country charged with the twin mandate of providing central direction, leadership and coordination of all scientific and technological activities, and of formulating policies, programs and projects to support national development.
The R&D Lab is aligned with Philippines’ strategic growth initiative that calls for greater partnering between industry and government to advance four critical areas for the country: business process outsourcing, governance for anti corruption, talent development, and innovation for a knowledge-based economy. Touching on all four pillars, the new R&D Lab will strive to contribute to the productivity of the Filipino people and improve their quality of life through the generation and promotion of strategic technologies and expertise.
Having established numerous R&D laboratories and co-laboratories in many countries, IBM, the leading global provider of IT and business solutions, has the technical capability, expertise and know-how to collaborate with the DOST in its research efforts and programs.
“2012 marks IBM’s 75th year in the Philippines and this cooperation with the DOST furthers our commitment to, and trust in the region and its people,” said Mariels Almeda Winhoffer, President and Country General Manager, Philippines. “The project is also a great example of an integrated, joint approach to research that combines IBM’s global expertise with the skills and knowledge of the Filipino people to accelerate their preparedness for the global marketplace.”
Secretary Mario Montejo of the DOST was appreciative of IBM’s initiative in establishing the R&D Lab. “By harnessing IBM’s experience and international best practices along with our local scientific talent, this R&D center will go a long way in building domestic capacity to support continued economic growth and global competitiveness.” Secretary Montejo said.
Cooperation with the private sector particularly in the information and communications technology (ICT) industry plays a significant role in the development of the industry. “This cooperation with IBM ensures that Industry and Government initiatives are cohesive and yield long term benefits for the most number of people,” said Executive Director Louis Casambre of the Information and Communications Technology Office of the DOST. “We are looking forward to more of these collaborations with other industry partners.”
In the signed agreement, the projects to be undertaken by the Philippine Systems and Technology R&D Lab shall be in line with the priority projects of the Government based on the National Economic Development Authority’s (NEDA) Medium Term Development Plan. The DOST and IBM may consider the following areas as the initial projects of the R&D Lab, subject to export and other applicable laws:
Project audit system and database;
E-governance services including a dashboard view for government officials;
Landslide predictive analytics;
Weather prediction and flood mapping;
Crime prevention;
Traffic management; and
High-performance computing and business analytics.
About IBM
Since establishing its presence in the Philippines in 1937, IBM has evolved to become the leading information technology partner in the country, providing hardware, software, and IT-enabled business services to domestic and global markets. IBM in the Philippines has grown exponentially in terms of business portfolio, talent growth and geographic reach.
About DOST
The Department of Science and Technology (DOST) is the premiere science and technology body in the country charged with the twin mandate of providing central direction, leadership and coordination of all scientific and technological activities, and of formulating policies, programs and projects to support national development.
IBM Study Reveals Critical Shift in the Role of Chief Information Security Executives Globally
Analysis of 130+ interviews presents a new class of security chiefs; CISO role follows the evolution of CIO and CFO with more strategic organizational responsibilities
A new IBM (NYSE: IBM) study reveals a clear evolution in information security organizations and their leaders with 25 percent of security chiefs surveyed shifting from a technology focus to strategic business leadership role.
Source: Data from the IBM Center for Applied Insights study, “Finding a strategic voice: Insights from the 2012 IBM Chief Information Security Officer Assessment.”
Influencers are much more likely to have elevated information security to a strategic priority, according to the IBM Center for Applied Insights study, “Finding a strategic voice: Insights from the 2012 IBM Chief Information Security Officer Assessment.”
In IBM's first study of senior security executives, its Center for Applied Insights interviewed more than 130 security leaders globally and discovered three types of leaders based on breach preparedness and overall security maturity. Representing about a quarter of those interviewed, the "Influencer" senior security executives typically influenced business strategies of their firms and were more confident and prepared than their peers—the "Protectors" and "Responders."
Overall, all security leaders today are under intense pressure, charged with protecting some of their firm's most valuable assets – money, customer data, intellectual property and brand. Nearly two-thirds of Chief Information Security Executives (CISOs) surveyed say their senior executives are paying more attention to security today than they were two years ago, with a series of high-profile hacking and data breaches convincing them of the key role that security has to play in the modern enterprise. More than half of respondents cited mobile security as a primary technology concern over the next two years. Nearly two-thirds of respondents expect information security spend to increase over the next two years and of those, 87 percent expect double-digit increases.
Rather than just reactively responding to security incidents, the CISO's role is shifting more towards intelligent and holistic risk management– from fire-fighting to anticipating and mitigating fires before they start. Several characteristics emerged as notable features among the mature security practices of "Influencers" in a variety of organizations:
Security seen as a business (versus technology) imperative: One of the chief attributes of a leading organization is having the attention of business leaders and their boards. Security is not an ad hoc topic, but rather a regular part of business discussions and, increasingly, the culture. In fact, 60 percent of the advanced organizations named security as a regular boardroom topic, compared to only 22 percent of the least advanced organizations. These leaders understand the need for more pervasive risk awareness – and are far more focused on enterprise-wide education, collaboration and communications. Forward-thinking security organizations are more likely to establish a security steering committee to encourage systemic approaches to security issues that span legal, business operations, finance, and human resources. Sixty-eight percent of advanced organizations had a risk committee, versus only 26 percent in the least advanced group.Use of data-driven decision making and measurement: Leading organizations are twice as likely to use metrics to monitor progress, the assessment showed (59 percent v. 26 percent). Tracking user awareness, employee education, the ability to deal with future threats, and the integration of new technologies can help create a risk-aware culture. And automated monitoring of standardized metrics allows CISOs to dedicate more time to focusing on broader, more systemic risks.Shared budgetary responsibility with the C-suite: The assessment showed that within most organizations, CIOs typically have control over the information security budget. However, among highly ranked organizations, investment authority lies with business leaders more often. In the most advanced organizations, CEOs were just as likely as CIOs to be steering information security budgets. Lower ranking organizations often lacked a dedicated budget line item altogether, indicating a more tactical, fragmented approach to security. Seventy-one percent of advanced organizations had a dedicated security budget line item compared to 27 percent of the least mature group."This data painted a profile of a new class of CISO leaders who are developing a strategic voice, and paving the way to a more proactive and integrated stance on information security," said David Jarvis, author of the report and senior consultant at the IBM Center for Applied Insights. "We see the path of the CISO is now maturing in a similar pattern to the CFO from the 1970s, the CIO from the 1980s – from a technical one to a strategic business enabler. This demonstrates how integral IT security has become to organizations."
Recommendations to Evolve the Security Role in an Enterprise
To create a more confident and capable security organization, IBM recognizes that security leaders must construct an action plan based on their current capabilities and most pressing needs. The report offers prescriptive advice from its findings on how organizations can move forward based on their current maturity level.
For example, those "Responders" in the earliest stage of security maturity can move beyond their tactical focus by establishing a dedicated security leadership role (like a CISO); assembling a security and risk committee measuring progress; and automating routine security processes to devote more time and resources to security innovation.
"Security in a hyper-connected era presents a new set of challenges, but these can be greatly eased by implementing innovative practices and adopting a more integrated, holistic approach," said Marc van Zadelhoff, an author of the report and vice president of Strategy, IBM Security Systems. "CISOs that prioritize these factors can help their organizations significantly improve business processes and achieve measurable success in their progress toward building a risk-aware culture that is agile and well-equipped to deal with future threats."
About the Assessment
The IBM Center for Applied Insights study, "Finding a strategic voice: Insights from the 2012 IBM Chief Information Security Officer Assessment," included organizations spanning a broad range of industries and seven countries. During the first quarter of 2012, the Center conducted double-blind interviews with 138 senior business and IT executives responsible for information security in their enterprises. Nearly 20 percent of the respondents lead information security in enterprises with more than 10,000 employees; 55 percent are in enterprises with 1,000 to 9,999 employees.
About IBM Security
IBM's security portfolio provides the security intelligence to help organizations holistically protect their people, data, applications and infrastructure. IBM offers solutions for identity and access management, security information and event management, database security, application development, risk management, endpoint management, network security and more. IBM operates the world's broadest security research and development organization and delivery organization. This comprises nine security operations centers, nine IBM Research centers, 11 software security development labs and an Institute for Advanced Security with chapters in the United States, Europe and Asia Pacific. IBM monitors 13 billion security events per day in more than 130 countries and holds more than 3,000 security patents.
A new IBM (NYSE: IBM) study reveals a clear evolution in information security organizations and their leaders with 25 percent of security chiefs surveyed shifting from a technology focus to strategic business leadership role.
In IBM's first study of senior security executives, its Center for Applied Insights interviewed more than 130 security leaders globally and discovered three types of leaders based on breach preparedness and overall security maturity. Representing about a quarter of those interviewed, the "Influencer" senior security executives typically influenced business strategies of their firms and were more confident and prepared than their peers—the "Protectors" and "Responders."
Overall, all security leaders today are under intense pressure, charged with protecting some of their firm's most valuable assets – money, customer data, intellectual property and brand. Nearly two-thirds of Chief Information Security Executives (CISOs) surveyed say their senior executives are paying more attention to security today than they were two years ago, with a series of high-profile hacking and data breaches convincing them of the key role that security has to play in the modern enterprise. More than half of respondents cited mobile security as a primary technology concern over the next two years. Nearly two-thirds of respondents expect information security spend to increase over the next two years and of those, 87 percent expect double-digit increases.
Rather than just reactively responding to security incidents, the CISO's role is shifting more towards intelligent and holistic risk management– from fire-fighting to anticipating and mitigating fires before they start. Several characteristics emerged as notable features among the mature security practices of "Influencers" in a variety of organizations:
Security seen as a business (versus technology) imperative: One of the chief attributes of a leading organization is having the attention of business leaders and their boards. Security is not an ad hoc topic, but rather a regular part of business discussions and, increasingly, the culture. In fact, 60 percent of the advanced organizations named security as a regular boardroom topic, compared to only 22 percent of the least advanced organizations. These leaders understand the need for more pervasive risk awareness – and are far more focused on enterprise-wide education, collaboration and communications. Forward-thinking security organizations are more likely to establish a security steering committee to encourage systemic approaches to security issues that span legal, business operations, finance, and human resources. Sixty-eight percent of advanced organizations had a risk committee, versus only 26 percent in the least advanced group.Use of data-driven decision making and measurement: Leading organizations are twice as likely to use metrics to monitor progress, the assessment showed (59 percent v. 26 percent). Tracking user awareness, employee education, the ability to deal with future threats, and the integration of new technologies can help create a risk-aware culture. And automated monitoring of standardized metrics allows CISOs to dedicate more time to focusing on broader, more systemic risks.Shared budgetary responsibility with the C-suite: The assessment showed that within most organizations, CIOs typically have control over the information security budget. However, among highly ranked organizations, investment authority lies with business leaders more often. In the most advanced organizations, CEOs were just as likely as CIOs to be steering information security budgets. Lower ranking organizations often lacked a dedicated budget line item altogether, indicating a more tactical, fragmented approach to security. Seventy-one percent of advanced organizations had a dedicated security budget line item compared to 27 percent of the least mature group."This data painted a profile of a new class of CISO leaders who are developing a strategic voice, and paving the way to a more proactive and integrated stance on information security," said David Jarvis, author of the report and senior consultant at the IBM Center for Applied Insights. "We see the path of the CISO is now maturing in a similar pattern to the CFO from the 1970s, the CIO from the 1980s – from a technical one to a strategic business enabler. This demonstrates how integral IT security has become to organizations."
Recommendations to Evolve the Security Role in an Enterprise
To create a more confident and capable security organization, IBM recognizes that security leaders must construct an action plan based on their current capabilities and most pressing needs. The report offers prescriptive advice from its findings on how organizations can move forward based on their current maturity level.
For example, those "Responders" in the earliest stage of security maturity can move beyond their tactical focus by establishing a dedicated security leadership role (like a CISO); assembling a security and risk committee measuring progress; and automating routine security processes to devote more time and resources to security innovation.
"Security in a hyper-connected era presents a new set of challenges, but these can be greatly eased by implementing innovative practices and adopting a more integrated, holistic approach," said Marc van Zadelhoff, an author of the report and vice president of Strategy, IBM Security Systems. "CISOs that prioritize these factors can help their organizations significantly improve business processes and achieve measurable success in their progress toward building a risk-aware culture that is agile and well-equipped to deal with future threats."
About the Assessment
The IBM Center for Applied Insights study, "Finding a strategic voice: Insights from the 2012 IBM Chief Information Security Officer Assessment," included organizations spanning a broad range of industries and seven countries. During the first quarter of 2012, the Center conducted double-blind interviews with 138 senior business and IT executives responsible for information security in their enterprises. Nearly 20 percent of the respondents lead information security in enterprises with more than 10,000 employees; 55 percent are in enterprises with 1,000 to 9,999 employees.
About IBM Security
IBM's security portfolio provides the security intelligence to help organizations holistically protect their people, data, applications and infrastructure. IBM offers solutions for identity and access management, security information and event management, database security, application development, risk management, endpoint management, network security and more. IBM operates the world's broadest security research and development organization and delivery organization. This comprises nine security operations centers, nine IBM Research centers, 11 software security development labs and an Institute for Advanced Security with chapters in the United States, Europe and Asia Pacific. IBM monitors 13 billion security events per day in more than 130 countries and holds more than 3,000 security patents.
IBM and Banco de Credito del Peru Announce Strategic IT Services Partnership With Total Contract Value of More than US $100M
BCP to improve the operational efficiency of its end-to-end information technology (IT) infrastructure with IBM services
IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Banco de Credito del Peru (BCP) announced today a five-year agreement for IT outsourcing services. The agreement will enable BCP to optimize its operational expenses, relying on IBM to provide IT infrastructure management services, including support, operation and maintenance of the bank's mainframe, midrange and storage platforms. The total contract value is more than US$100 million.
IBM will manage the transformation of the Bank's IT infrastructure and implement infrastructure management tools and processes, and introduce key performance indicators to effectively manage service levels. The Bank will benefit from improved operational efficiency, and enhanced business continuity capabilities.
Furthermore, BCP will achieve increased flexibility in terms of IT infrastructure costs, aligning its IT spending to its business needs. The improvements will help BCP prepare to scale up and meet expected growth in coming years.
"This announcement is clearly a milestone for IBM, proving BCP's trust in IBM's skills and industry expertise. This year marks IBM's 80th anniversary of uninterrupted presence in Peru, and BCP's decision confirms the value we contribute to this country. At IBM, we are truly committed to developing our relationship with the Bank applying the highest quality standards," said Ricardo Fernandez, general manager, IBM Peru.
IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Banco de Credito del Peru (BCP) announced today a five-year agreement for IT outsourcing services. The agreement will enable BCP to optimize its operational expenses, relying on IBM to provide IT infrastructure management services, including support, operation and maintenance of the bank's mainframe, midrange and storage platforms. The total contract value is more than US$100 million.
IBM will manage the transformation of the Bank's IT infrastructure and implement infrastructure management tools and processes, and introduce key performance indicators to effectively manage service levels. The Bank will benefit from improved operational efficiency, and enhanced business continuity capabilities.
Furthermore, BCP will achieve increased flexibility in terms of IT infrastructure costs, aligning its IT spending to its business needs. The improvements will help BCP prepare to scale up and meet expected growth in coming years.
"This announcement is clearly a milestone for IBM, proving BCP's trust in IBM's skills and industry expertise. This year marks IBM's 80th anniversary of uninterrupted presence in Peru, and BCP's decision confirms the value we contribute to this country. At IBM, we are truly committed to developing our relationship with the Bank applying the highest quality standards," said Ricardo Fernandez, general manager, IBM Peru.
Using IBM Analytics, Santam Saves $2.4 Million in Fraudulent Claims
Analytics Software Enhances Insurer’s Ability to Resolve Claims Faster
IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that Santam, South Africa's leading short term insurance company, has saved $2.4 million on fraudulent claims in the first four months of using IBM business analytics software. The analytics software has enhanced Santam’s fraud detection capabilities and also enabled faster payouts for legitimate claims.
"IBM and OLRAC-SPSolutions have helped us build a solution that has not only transformed our claims processing methodology in terms of speed and efficiency, but also provides new insight which helps us identify false claims more quickly, which protects our business and customers," said Anesh Govender, Head of Finance, Reporting and Salvage at Santam. "The solution has delivered a full return on investment and also helped uncover a motor insurance fraud syndicate in less than 30 days after the system went live.”
The claims division developed a new operating model for processing claims, depending on varying risk levels. IBM's predictive analytics software has enabled Santam to automatically assess if there is any fraud risk associated with incoming claims and allows the insurer to distribute claims to the appropriate processing channel for immediate settlement or further investigation, which optimizes operational efficiency.
With the enhanced claims segmentation, Santam is also able to reduce the number of claims that need to be assessed by mobile operatives visiting the customer or claim site, resulting in further considerable cost savings for the company.
Speed of claims handling is an important differentiator for the company. Before using IBM analytics, it took at least three days to settle claims. Now, Santam is able to settle legitimate claims within an hour allowing the insurer to significantly improve customer service.
"IBM is investing in building business analytics solutions that help organizations to effectively mitigate risk," said Rich Holada, vice president of predictive analytics at IBM. "Santam provides an excellent example of how insurers can put analytics into action in order to reduce fraud and risk, while improving the customer experience by settling claims faster and keeping premiums low."
In the last five years, IBM has invested more than $14 billion in acquisitions. With investments in SPSS, Clarity, OpenPages, i2 and Algorithmics, and others, IBM is building business analytics solutions providing clients with capabilities for managing fraud, risk and threat. In addition, IBM has assembled almost 9,000 dedicated analytics consultants with industry expertise, and created a network of eight global analytics solution centers.
The Santam project illustrates IBM's leadership in analytics in South Africa. IBM is also actively laying the foundations for a major presence throughout the African continent, with offices in more than 20 African countries, where the company is assisting businesses and governments in building strategies, expertise, solutions, frameworks and operating procedures to help improve performance.
The IBM predictive analytics solution at Santam was implemented by IBM Business Partner, OLRAC-SPSolutions.
IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that Santam, South Africa's leading short term insurance company, has saved $2.4 million on fraudulent claims in the first four months of using IBM business analytics software. The analytics software has enhanced Santam’s fraud detection capabilities and also enabled faster payouts for legitimate claims.
"IBM and OLRAC-SPSolutions have helped us build a solution that has not only transformed our claims processing methodology in terms of speed and efficiency, but also provides new insight which helps us identify false claims more quickly, which protects our business and customers," said Anesh Govender, Head of Finance, Reporting and Salvage at Santam. "The solution has delivered a full return on investment and also helped uncover a motor insurance fraud syndicate in less than 30 days after the system went live.”
The claims division developed a new operating model for processing claims, depending on varying risk levels. IBM's predictive analytics software has enabled Santam to automatically assess if there is any fraud risk associated with incoming claims and allows the insurer to distribute claims to the appropriate processing channel for immediate settlement or further investigation, which optimizes operational efficiency.
With the enhanced claims segmentation, Santam is also able to reduce the number of claims that need to be assessed by mobile operatives visiting the customer or claim site, resulting in further considerable cost savings for the company.
Speed of claims handling is an important differentiator for the company. Before using IBM analytics, it took at least three days to settle claims. Now, Santam is able to settle legitimate claims within an hour allowing the insurer to significantly improve customer service.
"IBM is investing in building business analytics solutions that help organizations to effectively mitigate risk," said Rich Holada, vice president of predictive analytics at IBM. "Santam provides an excellent example of how insurers can put analytics into action in order to reduce fraud and risk, while improving the customer experience by settling claims faster and keeping premiums low."
In the last five years, IBM has invested more than $14 billion in acquisitions. With investments in SPSS, Clarity, OpenPages, i2 and Algorithmics, and others, IBM is building business analytics solutions providing clients with capabilities for managing fraud, risk and threat. In addition, IBM has assembled almost 9,000 dedicated analytics consultants with industry expertise, and created a network of eight global analytics solution centers.
The Santam project illustrates IBM's leadership in analytics in South Africa. IBM is also actively laying the foundations for a major presence throughout the African continent, with offices in more than 20 African countries, where the company is assisting businesses and governments in building strategies, expertise, solutions, frameworks and operating procedures to help improve performance.
The IBM predictive analytics solution at Santam was implemented by IBM Business Partner, OLRAC-SPSolutions.
Hospitals in Russia’s Regions Turn to IBM to Transform Healthcare
Healthcare sector growth fuels IBM’s geographic expansion program
IBM (NYSE:IBM) announced that several hospitals and clinics from Russia’s rapidly evolving regions outside of Moscow and St Petersburg are partnering with IBM to modernize infrastructure and improve patient care. A number of healthcare providers such as the Hospital of Murom Railway Station, the Clinic of Novosibirsk Institute of Blood Circulation Pathology in Siberia and the Emergency Hospital of Petrozavodsk have turned to IBM to provide new information management systems giving doctors and medical staff rapid access to medical data and reducing waiting time for patients.
According to research from VCIOM (Russia Public Opinion Research Center), 33 percent of Russians prefer to use self-treatment instead of turning to professional medical care due to insufficient healthcare services especially in some of Russia’s more remote regions where often curable and manageable diseases often go unchecked and untreated. For that reason, the Russian government is running a special program for healthcare modernization across the country.
As part of its geographic expansion initiative, IBM is actively expanding its business operations in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and healthcare is emerging as one of the sectors driving IT growth across the region.
"Technology has a significant role to play in the transformation of healthcare services across Russia especially in Russia’s rapidly evolving regions,” said Kirill Korniliev, Country General Manager, IBM Russia/CIS. “Not only does it improve access to critical medical information and improve decision making, it also helps to increase the efficiency of services and reduce patient waiting time. The digitization of core infrastructure is the first step towards intelligent medicine in Russia. The next step is the use of analytics to better understand information helping to mitigate the risk of medical errors.”
Improving patient care in Siberia
As the largest cardiology hospital in Siberia, the Clinic of Novosibirsk Institute of Blood Circulation Pathology Meshalkina has turned to IT systems from to transform patient care. According to Russian Federal law, medical organizations should store medical records for at least 25 years. Furthermore, with over 15,000 operations performed each year, the clinic needed to effectively manage ever increasing volumes of data
The system based on IBM storage technologies will allow the clinic to store and retrieve up to one petabyte (the equivalent of 2,000 encyclopedias) of valuable medical information including medical history and images.
"The effective management and high availability of medical information are critical requirements of modern healthcare,” said Timur Korovkin, Director of Information Technology of Clinic of Novosibirsk Institute of Blood Circulation Pathology Meshalkina. “The next phase will be to look at analytics technologies to better understand data and possible therapies.”
Digitizing patient data of railway workers in Murom
Located in the Vladimir region of the Russian Federation to the East of Moscow, the Hospital of Murom Railway provides healthcare services to over 30,000 railway workers and their families, the government-owned Russian Railways (RZD).
The hospital previously relied on largely paper-based systems for recoding, storing and accessing medical information. Patient information from different hospital departments was not integrated making it nearly impossible for doctors to gain a complete medical picture of their patients.
The hospital implemented an automated information management solution from Russian business partner KMIS running on IBM social software and IBM System x servers. The new integrated system provides doctors and healthcare professionals with a single view of a patient’s medical history enabling them to better assess and treat disease more effectively. The system includes test results, such as those for tuberculosis, which are automatically screened for anomalies. Should any be found, the system immediately alerts physicians and schedules a priority appointment, enabling doctors to take proactive measures to treat the disease. By consolidating family medical histories, the system allows doctors to identify any propensities for disease such as diabetes, and take preventive measures to reduce future health risks within the family.
Thanks to the new system, the Hospital of Murom Railway has experienced increased process efficiency by 40 percent, decreased patient waiting time by more than 200 percent and reduced diagnosis and treatment errors by 260 percent.
“We now have the ability to provide swift, high-quality healthcare using an analytics-enabled information system that consolidates patient information onto a single record - said Andrey Galkin, Head of the Control System Department at Murom Railway Station Hospital.
Automating healthcare systems in the Republic of Karelia
IBM is also working with KMIS and the Emergency Hospital of Petrozavodsk in the Republic of Karelia in North Western Russia to implement electronic medical records and an automated hospital information management system for its eight therapy and three diagnostic departments.
The new system which is based on IBM Notes and Domino software provides unified access to many types of medical data, allowing doctors and medical staff to share and record information and access tests and lab results instantly to improve decision making.
The new system also helps automate many administrative processes throughout the hospital such as appointment booking, work scheduling for doctors, nurses and staff as well as helping to better manage the hospital’s financial processes and reporting requirements.
“Our doctors now have real-time access a complete archive of a patient’s medical data. As a result we have improved our ability to diagnose medical conditions and make optimum decisions for patients,” said Andrey Myachin, Head of the Control System Department at the Emergency Hospital of Petrozavodsk.
IBM is engaged on similar projects at other public hospitals throughout Russia including those in the regions of Volgograd, Leningrad, Kirov, Pskov, Perm and Vladimir as well as the Republics of Khakassia and Udmurtia.
IBM has 14 offices across the region including Moscow, St. Petersburg, Krasnoyarsk, Novosibirsk, Perm, Ekaterinburg, Samara, Rostov-on-Don, Kazan, Ufa, Kiev and Dnipropetrovsk (Ukraine), Almaty (Kazakhstan) and Tashkent (Uzbekistan).
IBM (NYSE:IBM) announced that several hospitals and clinics from Russia’s rapidly evolving regions outside of Moscow and St Petersburg are partnering with IBM to modernize infrastructure and improve patient care. A number of healthcare providers such as the Hospital of Murom Railway Station, the Clinic of Novosibirsk Institute of Blood Circulation Pathology in Siberia and the Emergency Hospital of Petrozavodsk have turned to IBM to provide new information management systems giving doctors and medical staff rapid access to medical data and reducing waiting time for patients.
According to research from VCIOM (Russia Public Opinion Research Center), 33 percent of Russians prefer to use self-treatment instead of turning to professional medical care due to insufficient healthcare services especially in some of Russia’s more remote regions where often curable and manageable diseases often go unchecked and untreated. For that reason, the Russian government is running a special program for healthcare modernization across the country.
As part of its geographic expansion initiative, IBM is actively expanding its business operations in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and healthcare is emerging as one of the sectors driving IT growth across the region.
"Technology has a significant role to play in the transformation of healthcare services across Russia especially in Russia’s rapidly evolving regions,” said Kirill Korniliev, Country General Manager, IBM Russia/CIS. “Not only does it improve access to critical medical information and improve decision making, it also helps to increase the efficiency of services and reduce patient waiting time. The digitization of core infrastructure is the first step towards intelligent medicine in Russia. The next step is the use of analytics to better understand information helping to mitigate the risk of medical errors.”
Improving patient care in Siberia
As the largest cardiology hospital in Siberia, the Clinic of Novosibirsk Institute of Blood Circulation Pathology Meshalkina has turned to IT systems from to transform patient care. According to Russian Federal law, medical organizations should store medical records for at least 25 years. Furthermore, with over 15,000 operations performed each year, the clinic needed to effectively manage ever increasing volumes of data
The system based on IBM storage technologies will allow the clinic to store and retrieve up to one petabyte (the equivalent of 2,000 encyclopedias) of valuable medical information including medical history and images.
"The effective management and high availability of medical information are critical requirements of modern healthcare,” said Timur Korovkin, Director of Information Technology of Clinic of Novosibirsk Institute of Blood Circulation Pathology Meshalkina. “The next phase will be to look at analytics technologies to better understand data and possible therapies.”
Digitizing patient data of railway workers in Murom
Located in the Vladimir region of the Russian Federation to the East of Moscow, the Hospital of Murom Railway provides healthcare services to over 30,000 railway workers and their families, the government-owned Russian Railways (RZD).
The hospital previously relied on largely paper-based systems for recoding, storing and accessing medical information. Patient information from different hospital departments was not integrated making it nearly impossible for doctors to gain a complete medical picture of their patients.
The hospital implemented an automated information management solution from Russian business partner KMIS running on IBM social software and IBM System x servers. The new integrated system provides doctors and healthcare professionals with a single view of a patient’s medical history enabling them to better assess and treat disease more effectively. The system includes test results, such as those for tuberculosis, which are automatically screened for anomalies. Should any be found, the system immediately alerts physicians and schedules a priority appointment, enabling doctors to take proactive measures to treat the disease. By consolidating family medical histories, the system allows doctors to identify any propensities for disease such as diabetes, and take preventive measures to reduce future health risks within the family.
Thanks to the new system, the Hospital of Murom Railway has experienced increased process efficiency by 40 percent, decreased patient waiting time by more than 200 percent and reduced diagnosis and treatment errors by 260 percent.
“We now have the ability to provide swift, high-quality healthcare using an analytics-enabled information system that consolidates patient information onto a single record - said Andrey Galkin, Head of the Control System Department at Murom Railway Station Hospital.
Automating healthcare systems in the Republic of Karelia
IBM is also working with KMIS and the Emergency Hospital of Petrozavodsk in the Republic of Karelia in North Western Russia to implement electronic medical records and an automated hospital information management system for its eight therapy and three diagnostic departments.
The new system which is based on IBM Notes and Domino software provides unified access to many types of medical data, allowing doctors and medical staff to share and record information and access tests and lab results instantly to improve decision making.
The new system also helps automate many administrative processes throughout the hospital such as appointment booking, work scheduling for doctors, nurses and staff as well as helping to better manage the hospital’s financial processes and reporting requirements.
“Our doctors now have real-time access a complete archive of a patient’s medical data. As a result we have improved our ability to diagnose medical conditions and make optimum decisions for patients,” said Andrey Myachin, Head of the Control System Department at the Emergency Hospital of Petrozavodsk.
IBM is engaged on similar projects at other public hospitals throughout Russia including those in the regions of Volgograd, Leningrad, Kirov, Pskov, Perm and Vladimir as well as the Republics of Khakassia and Udmurtia.
IBM has 14 offices across the region including Moscow, St. Petersburg, Krasnoyarsk, Novosibirsk, Perm, Ekaterinburg, Samara, Rostov-on-Don, Kazan, Ufa, Kiev and Dnipropetrovsk (Ukraine), Almaty (Kazakhstan) and Tashkent (Uzbekistan).
IBM Team Finds Innovative Use of Technology Could Ease Nairobi’s Traffic Jams
Execution of identified projects could help relieve city gridlock within 90 days of implementation
A team of IBM (NYSE:IBM) top experts assigned to Nairobi today provided a cohesive framework and roadmap to the city to improve the flow of road traffic and increase revenues from the transportation sector.
The recommendations complement Nairobi's considerable ongoing investment in underlying roadway infrastructure. They include making traffic information more readily available to citizens, motorists, police, policymakers and planners so that better transportation decisions can be made in the near and far term.
The blueprint presented by the IBM team also includes suggestions for using available technologies, including mobile phones, sensors and closed-circuit television, to more automatically pinpoint traffic issues. In the recommended plan, parking and licensing would also be digitized and automated -- streamlining bureaucratic processes and increasing citizen satisfaction. The plan prescribes enhanced collaboration between various transport bodies.
The IBM team, which performed several months of preparation before spending three weeks in local residence, studied Nairobi’s transportation system as part of an IBM Smarter Cities Challenge grant valued at Sh33 million (US$400,000), announced in March of this year.
“A city is a system of systems. One key finding of the study is that technology could provide a relatively simple way of bringing together existing systems to streamline the city’s transport sector and increase revenues for the government,” said Tony Mwai, Country General Manager, IBM East Africa.
Despite impressive investments in building road networks, inefficiencies within the city's transport sector cost Nairobi an estimated Sh50 million per day, negating revenues and commercial benefits from otherwise significant road infrastructure, and limiting the region’s economic growth.
“The government has made immense investments in infrastructure over the last 10 years but we are challenged by the fact that many departments within government are working in isolation and not collaborating,” said Dr. Bitange Ndemo, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Information and Communications.
“We will review these recommendations made by the IBM team with a view to fast-tracking them to help maintain Nairobi’s position as a key regional economic hub,” Dr. Ndemo said.
Intelligent Transport Solutions
The team of IBM consultants recommended the creation of a cross-departmental Smarter Transportation Authority that would harness initiatives taking place across government agencies under a single unit.
This would allow for faster rollout of decongestion plans, enhancing revenue collection for government agencies and tightening enforcement of traffic rules.
In addition, the IBM consultants advised the development of a Smarter Transportation Platform with an intelligent operations command center, leveraging existing and new closed-circuit television networks that show vehicle, traffic and roadway conditions as events unfold.
Enabling stakeholders such as citizens and police to view these video feeds online would lead to a decrease in traffic congestion by allowing commuters to plan their trips accordingly and police to allocate manpower more efficiently.
Another suggestion was to integrate data from multiple sources, including mobile phone signals generated from citizens stuck in traffic jams, to pin-point traffic hot-spots. Analytics software could then be used to predict future flow issues, pushing the information needed to re-direct traffic to the intelligent operations center.
The team also suggested digitizing parking for the speed and ease of finding parking spaces, to minimize congestion and to reduce environmental impact as well as using mobile devices to empower traffic police to monitor and manage traffic offenders through an intelligent enforcement solution.
The team’s findings follow the recent launch of an IBM research report titled "A Vision of a Smarter City: How Nairobi Can Lead the Way into a Prosperous and Sustainable Future," which highlights transportation, energy and public safety as three critical areas that the city must address in order to boost its economic competitiveness.
Smarter Cites Challenge
Nairobi beat 140 other cities around the world to become one of IBM’s Smarter Cities Challenge winners in March. Launched in 2011, the IBM initiative is a three-year, 100-city US $50 million program and is IBM's single-largest philanthropic outreach.
Along with the deployment of a specialist team of expert consultants who focus on the city’s primary challenge, IBM provides special assistance to each winning city on the use of City Forward (http://www.cityforward.org), a free online site IBM created with public policy experts. Citizens, elected officials and urban planners can use the site to explore trends and statistics in a visual and accessible way, which can be adapted for the examination of any number of urban issues -- leading to better decision making.
“Nairobi demonstrated a desire to set an example for other municipalities, an eagerness to collaborate with multiple stakeholders, and a strong commitment to consider implementing recommendations the city felt would be the most feasible and beneficial to its residents." said Stanley S. Litow, IBM vice president of Corporate Citizenship & Corporate Affairs, and President of IBM's Foundation.
A team of IBM (NYSE:IBM) top experts assigned to Nairobi today provided a cohesive framework and roadmap to the city to improve the flow of road traffic and increase revenues from the transportation sector.
The recommendations complement Nairobi's considerable ongoing investment in underlying roadway infrastructure. They include making traffic information more readily available to citizens, motorists, police, policymakers and planners so that better transportation decisions can be made in the near and far term.
The blueprint presented by the IBM team also includes suggestions for using available technologies, including mobile phones, sensors and closed-circuit television, to more automatically pinpoint traffic issues. In the recommended plan, parking and licensing would also be digitized and automated -- streamlining bureaucratic processes and increasing citizen satisfaction. The plan prescribes enhanced collaboration between various transport bodies.
The IBM team, which performed several months of preparation before spending three weeks in local residence, studied Nairobi’s transportation system as part of an IBM Smarter Cities Challenge grant valued at Sh33 million (US$400,000), announced in March of this year.
“A city is a system of systems. One key finding of the study is that technology could provide a relatively simple way of bringing together existing systems to streamline the city’s transport sector and increase revenues for the government,” said Tony Mwai, Country General Manager, IBM East Africa.
Despite impressive investments in building road networks, inefficiencies within the city's transport sector cost Nairobi an estimated Sh50 million per day, negating revenues and commercial benefits from otherwise significant road infrastructure, and limiting the region’s economic growth.
“The government has made immense investments in infrastructure over the last 10 years but we are challenged by the fact that many departments within government are working in isolation and not collaborating,” said Dr. Bitange Ndemo, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Information and Communications.
“We will review these recommendations made by the IBM team with a view to fast-tracking them to help maintain Nairobi’s position as a key regional economic hub,” Dr. Ndemo said.
Intelligent Transport Solutions
The team of IBM consultants recommended the creation of a cross-departmental Smarter Transportation Authority that would harness initiatives taking place across government agencies under a single unit.
This would allow for faster rollout of decongestion plans, enhancing revenue collection for government agencies and tightening enforcement of traffic rules.
In addition, the IBM consultants advised the development of a Smarter Transportation Platform with an intelligent operations command center, leveraging existing and new closed-circuit television networks that show vehicle, traffic and roadway conditions as events unfold.
Enabling stakeholders such as citizens and police to view these video feeds online would lead to a decrease in traffic congestion by allowing commuters to plan their trips accordingly and police to allocate manpower more efficiently.
Another suggestion was to integrate data from multiple sources, including mobile phone signals generated from citizens stuck in traffic jams, to pin-point traffic hot-spots. Analytics software could then be used to predict future flow issues, pushing the information needed to re-direct traffic to the intelligent operations center.
The team also suggested digitizing parking for the speed and ease of finding parking spaces, to minimize congestion and to reduce environmental impact as well as using mobile devices to empower traffic police to monitor and manage traffic offenders through an intelligent enforcement solution.
The team’s findings follow the recent launch of an IBM research report titled "A Vision of a Smarter City: How Nairobi Can Lead the Way into a Prosperous and Sustainable Future," which highlights transportation, energy and public safety as three critical areas that the city must address in order to boost its economic competitiveness.
Smarter Cites Challenge
Nairobi beat 140 other cities around the world to become one of IBM’s Smarter Cities Challenge winners in March. Launched in 2011, the IBM initiative is a three-year, 100-city US $50 million program and is IBM's single-largest philanthropic outreach.
Along with the deployment of a specialist team of expert consultants who focus on the city’s primary challenge, IBM provides special assistance to each winning city on the use of City Forward (http://www.cityforward.org), a free online site IBM created with public policy experts. Citizens, elected officials and urban planners can use the site to explore trends and statistics in a visual and accessible way, which can be adapted for the examination of any number of urban issues -- leading to better decision making.
“Nairobi demonstrated a desire to set an example for other municipalities, an eagerness to collaborate with multiple stakeholders, and a strong commitment to consider implementing recommendations the city felt would be the most feasible and beneficial to its residents." said Stanley S. Litow, IBM vice president of Corporate Citizenship & Corporate Affairs, and President of IBM's Foundation.
IBM Experts Deliver Recommendations to Ghana Ministry of Health for Increasing Access to More Affordable Health Care
A team of IBM's experts has presented the Ghana Ministry of Health with a forward-looking blueprint to provide all Ghanaians with access to health care, while also improving the availability of medicines and reducing their cost. The blueprint included recommendations for mechanisms to provide more timely and detailed information to decision makers.
Improvements in Africa infrastructure are enabling exciting advances. IBM regularly sends its employees to the continent to provide expertise on a pro bono basis. In May 2012, an IBM Corporate Service Corps team visited Ghana and, in cooperation with USAID, studied local health care. They recommended new approaches for better access to health care, improved medicine availability and lower costs.
The IBM team, comprising 12 individuals drawn from nine countries, was in Ghana as part of IBM's pro-bono Corporate Service Corps program, in which IBM deploys teams of top employees to municipalities and countries to work on projects that intersect business, technology and society. The engagement in Ghana was coordinated with USAID, the government agency that provides U.S. economic and humanitarian assistance worldwide. IBM is also working with USAID to help other companies develop international volunteerism programs.
The Ghanaian health sector has faced various challenges, including weak logistical data, poor visibility and insight into medical data, limited medical product availability and quality, uneven planning and coordination, and occasional misalignment of health objectives and incentives. This is largely a result of a strongly decentralizing sector, leading to fragmented coordination.
An initial review of the health sector in June 2011 prompted the Ministry of Health to develop a five-year master plan aimed at addressing existing supply chain limitations. The plan recommended that the Ministry of Health establish a centralised "Supply Chain Management Unit," an administrative body that could potentially link the public and private health sectors to establish efficiencies within the national health supply chain --- the system of planners, suppliers, deliverers, and providers that ensure the cost effective and timely availability of medicines.
The IBM team of experts arrived in Ghana in mid-April and was tasked with assessing and addressing the factors involved in improving the system that manages this supply chain. The team was also asked to explore the costs and information technology requirements for establishing an automated logistics system, which will ensure the right medicines will be ordered, shipped, delivered, received and available at the right time. Such a system would also enable stakeholders, such as health care administrators, to view the underlying logistics processes so planning and adjustments can be simplified.
Key IBM recommendations were threefold. They included the recommendation of a system for informed decision making based on identifying and managing risks at critical control points. This will enable the Ministry of Health to base decisions on known and qualified risks and minimize surprises and "management by crisis." The team also recommended that a highly accessible and visible cost model be established to enable managers to identify costly medical products and services. This will provide a clear understanding of the total cost of the supply chain in order to build in efficiencies within the system.
Finally, IBM developed a high level blueprint for building an information system supporting the delivery of medicines within the healthcare system.
“With this health sector Supply Chain Management Unit, Ghana hopes to serve as a model for many countries in Africa and other emerging markets faced with similar challenges," said Mr. Samuel Boateng, the Director of Procurement for the Ministry of Health.
“The Supply Chain Management Unit framework suggested by the IBM experts will go far in securing increased access to essential medicines and health care by Ghanaians,” said Joe Mensah, IBM Country General Manager for Ghana. “An enhanced supply chain management system will lead to overall affordable and quality healthcare provided by the Government of Ghana to its citizens.”
IBM's Corporate Service Corps is a global IBM initiative designed to provide small businesses, educational institutions and non-profit organizations in growth markets with sophisticated business consulting and skills development to help improve local conditions and foster job creation. IBM deploys teams of top employees from around the world representing information technology, research, marketing, finance, consulting, human resources, legal and business development to growth markets for a period of one month.
Since the launch of Corporate Service Corps in 2008, nearly 1,500 IBM employees based in 50 countries have been dispatched on more than 150 team assignments in 30 countries. Africa is a focus continent for IBM's volunteerism programs. Since 2008, IBM's Corporate Service Corps has deployed more than 500 IBM employees on approximately 44 teams to South Africa, Tanzania, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, and Egypt.
The IBM team, comprising 12 individuals drawn from nine countries, was in Ghana as part of IBM's pro-bono Corporate Service Corps program, in which IBM deploys teams of top employees to municipalities and countries to work on projects that intersect business, technology and society. The engagement in Ghana was coordinated with USAID, the government agency that provides U.S. economic and humanitarian assistance worldwide. IBM is also working with USAID to help other companies develop international volunteerism programs.
The Ghanaian health sector has faced various challenges, including weak logistical data, poor visibility and insight into medical data, limited medical product availability and quality, uneven planning and coordination, and occasional misalignment of health objectives and incentives. This is largely a result of a strongly decentralizing sector, leading to fragmented coordination.
An initial review of the health sector in June 2011 prompted the Ministry of Health to develop a five-year master plan aimed at addressing existing supply chain limitations. The plan recommended that the Ministry of Health establish a centralised "Supply Chain Management Unit," an administrative body that could potentially link the public and private health sectors to establish efficiencies within the national health supply chain --- the system of planners, suppliers, deliverers, and providers that ensure the cost effective and timely availability of medicines.
The IBM team of experts arrived in Ghana in mid-April and was tasked with assessing and addressing the factors involved in improving the system that manages this supply chain. The team was also asked to explore the costs and information technology requirements for establishing an automated logistics system, which will ensure the right medicines will be ordered, shipped, delivered, received and available at the right time. Such a system would also enable stakeholders, such as health care administrators, to view the underlying logistics processes so planning and adjustments can be simplified.
Key IBM recommendations were threefold. They included the recommendation of a system for informed decision making based on identifying and managing risks at critical control points. This will enable the Ministry of Health to base decisions on known and qualified risks and minimize surprises and "management by crisis." The team also recommended that a highly accessible and visible cost model be established to enable managers to identify costly medical products and services. This will provide a clear understanding of the total cost of the supply chain in order to build in efficiencies within the system.
Finally, IBM developed a high level blueprint for building an information system supporting the delivery of medicines within the healthcare system.
“With this health sector Supply Chain Management Unit, Ghana hopes to serve as a model for many countries in Africa and other emerging markets faced with similar challenges," said Mr. Samuel Boateng, the Director of Procurement for the Ministry of Health.
“The Supply Chain Management Unit framework suggested by the IBM experts will go far in securing increased access to essential medicines and health care by Ghanaians,” said Joe Mensah, IBM Country General Manager for Ghana. “An enhanced supply chain management system will lead to overall affordable and quality healthcare provided by the Government of Ghana to its citizens.”
IBM's Corporate Service Corps is a global IBM initiative designed to provide small businesses, educational institutions and non-profit organizations in growth markets with sophisticated business consulting and skills development to help improve local conditions and foster job creation. IBM deploys teams of top employees from around the world representing information technology, research, marketing, finance, consulting, human resources, legal and business development to growth markets for a period of one month.
Since the launch of Corporate Service Corps in 2008, nearly 1,500 IBM employees based in 50 countries have been dispatched on more than 150 team assignments in 30 countries. Africa is a focus continent for IBM's volunteerism programs. Since 2008, IBM's Corporate Service Corps has deployed more than 500 IBM employees on approximately 44 teams to South Africa, Tanzania, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, and Egypt.
IBM Helps Greece Television Network Tame Big Data with LTO Tape Storage
AlphaTV project coincides with 60th anniversary of IBM tape innovation
IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced today that AlphaTV, a leading television network in Greece, has overhauled its storage infrastructure with IBM high performance, high capacity tape solutions for greater efficiencies, faster access to video and the ability to store more video in dramatically less space.
AlphaTV has been broadcasting since 1996, creating and storing all forms of video entertainment, from soap operas and documentaries, to movies and sporting events, and creating a vast video archive along the way. Initially, AlphaTV archived its programming on Sony Beta SP format video cassettes that stored up to 90 minutes of content. Not long after, in need of storage that offered greater density, it turned to DVCPRO format videos that stored up to 120 minutes. But even that format was not allowing the network to keep pace with its ballooning archive, a storage infrastructure that by 2011 spanned over 1,507 square feet.
To get greater control of this infrastructure, AlphaTV turned to IBM and its Linear Tape File System (LTFS) and IBM Linear Tape Open (LTO) Ultrium 5 tape drives, that can store up to 3TB, with 2:1 compression in a single cartridge. With this solution, AlphaTV has been able to store more content in far less space.
“A Greek TV series stored on 100 DVCPRO tapes took up four shelves in our library, whereas on LTO-5 cartridge now takes up the space of a deck of playing cards,” said Constantinos Colombus, chief technology officer at AlphaTV.
The move has helped the network shrink its archive from 1,507 to just 388 square feet, representing dramatic systems and energy cost savings.
In addition to the sheer capacity gains of the LTO 5 drives, the network’s use of IBM LTFS has enabled it to better manage the content on an on-going basis. IBM LTFS, an intuitive and graphical file system that provides direct access to data on LTO 5 drives, has enabled AlphaTV to manage, move, and share video files much like they can with disk management systems, by simply dragging and dropping. As a result, file management is easier to do and far more efficient, said Colombus.
AlphaTV’s move to IBM’s advanced tape solution underscores the ongoing value and the reverberating impact of the company’s research around magnetic tape that began with a major breakthrough back in 1952. In that year, IBM released the IBM 726 tape storage system, a hulking 935-pound system that stored up to 2.3MB of data on reel-to-reel tape. Up to that point, magnetic tape was deemed unreliable and problematic for data storage because the fast starts and stops of the high-powered drives often snapped the relatively brittle media.
IBM researchers solved this problem by employing a “vacuum column” that gently pulled a portion of tape in between access times to create a buffer, or a loop, of loose tape. With this buffer, the tape could withstand the abrupt starts and stops. The innovation was widely adopted by the industry and ushered in the era of modern computing.
IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced today that AlphaTV, a leading television network in Greece, has overhauled its storage infrastructure with IBM high performance, high capacity tape solutions for greater efficiencies, faster access to video and the ability to store more video in dramatically less space.
AlphaTV has been broadcasting since 1996, creating and storing all forms of video entertainment, from soap operas and documentaries, to movies and sporting events, and creating a vast video archive along the way. Initially, AlphaTV archived its programming on Sony Beta SP format video cassettes that stored up to 90 minutes of content. Not long after, in need of storage that offered greater density, it turned to DVCPRO format videos that stored up to 120 minutes. But even that format was not allowing the network to keep pace with its ballooning archive, a storage infrastructure that by 2011 spanned over 1,507 square feet.
To get greater control of this infrastructure, AlphaTV turned to IBM and its Linear Tape File System (LTFS) and IBM Linear Tape Open (LTO) Ultrium 5 tape drives, that can store up to 3TB, with 2:1 compression in a single cartridge. With this solution, AlphaTV has been able to store more content in far less space.
“A Greek TV series stored on 100 DVCPRO tapes took up four shelves in our library, whereas on LTO-5 cartridge now takes up the space of a deck of playing cards,” said Constantinos Colombus, chief technology officer at AlphaTV.
The move has helped the network shrink its archive from 1,507 to just 388 square feet, representing dramatic systems and energy cost savings.
In addition to the sheer capacity gains of the LTO 5 drives, the network’s use of IBM LTFS has enabled it to better manage the content on an on-going basis. IBM LTFS, an intuitive and graphical file system that provides direct access to data on LTO 5 drives, has enabled AlphaTV to manage, move, and share video files much like they can with disk management systems, by simply dragging and dropping. As a result, file management is easier to do and far more efficient, said Colombus.
AlphaTV’s move to IBM’s advanced tape solution underscores the ongoing value and the reverberating impact of the company’s research around magnetic tape that began with a major breakthrough back in 1952. In that year, IBM released the IBM 726 tape storage system, a hulking 935-pound system that stored up to 2.3MB of data on reel-to-reel tape. Up to that point, magnetic tape was deemed unreliable and problematic for data storage because the fast starts and stops of the high-powered drives often snapped the relatively brittle media.
IBM researchers solved this problem by employing a “vacuum column” that gently pulled a portion of tape in between access times to create a buffer, or a loop, of loose tape. With this buffer, the tape could withstand the abrupt starts and stops. The innovation was widely adopted by the industry and ushered in the era of modern computing.
IBM Teams up with Thai Red Cross AIDS Research Center to Reduce New HIV Infections to Zero
IBM business analytics enable more efficient strategic planning and enhance HIV prevention
IBM is collaborating with the Thai Red Cross AIDS Research Center (TRCARC) to strengthen efforts to prevent HIV and to make Bangkok the world’s first city to achieve "Zero New HIV Infections" by 2015. As part of this initiative, IBM is donating technology expertise and business analytics software to enable the center to design more effective intervention strategies to help end the spread of HIV/AIDS.
The initiative is in response to “Getting to Zero,” a global campaign initiated by UNAIDS to stop new HIV infections, reduce discrimination against people living with HIV/AIDS, and to reduce HIV/AIDS related deaths by 2015. The campaign was endorsed the Thai government in February 2011. Leveraging IBM business analytics, TRCARC can tap into all types of related information and share outputs with its alliance gencies such as the Department of Disease Control, Ministry of Public Health.
Professor Emeritus Praphan Phanuphak, M.D., Ph.D., Director of the Thai Red Cross AIDS Research Center said, “HIV infection is one of the most serious public health threats Thailand is facing. The country currently has about 500,000 people infected with HIV. It is estimated that there are 16,000 new HIV infection cases per year. Unfortunately, only 40 per cent of the HIV infected population knows they are living with HIV/AIDS and gets access to antiretroviral treatment services. This situation results in the continuing spread of the life-threatening virus and new infections are rising every year.”
Operating under the Thai Red Cross Society, TRCARC is a leading healthcare entity with a mission to provide people affected by HIV with access to comprehensive HIV/AIDS treatment, care and support. Another of its roles is to initiate and execute high-quality HIV prevention programs, cultivate social responsibility and community awareness of HIV/AIDS, as well as conduct preventive and curative research in the field.
Prof. Praphan said, “We are excited to work with IBM and to adopt the company’s advanced technology and expertise. The IBM team helped develop a database and provided directions to manage behavioral records of people with high risk of HIV infection. IBM's business analytics capabilities also enable our researchers to make better decisions on more proactive and preventive measures against the transmission of HIV. This collaboration also helps foster a comprehensive platform for technical knowledge transfer and skills development among our staff.”
Previously, TRCARC launched many HIV prevention campaigns targeting epidemic hot spots to create greater awareness of HIV/AIDS and provide voluntary counseling and testing services free of charge. However, the center found that such activities had limited effect because information used to design campaign strategies was insufficient, inaccurate and outdated.
“This collaboration clearly represents IBM’s vision to build a Smarter Planet,” said Parnsiree Amatayakul, Managing Director of IBM Thailand Company Limited. “By adopting IBM technology, organizations are able to transform the way they work and improve the quality of life. We are thrilled to contribute our expertise and technologies to Bangkok’s initiative to fight against the transmission of HIV while empowering TRCARC’s research capabilities. This is our commitment to building a sustainable society.”
IBM donated software licenses and a technical team of highly experienced professionals to:
Develop an advanced, fully automated information management system using IBM COGNOS software to better analyze and report behavioral trends associated with people with a high risk of infection. The software also helps researchers to manage information relevant to the prevention of sexual transmission of HIV. This information can be presented in the form of tables and maps enabling TRCARC to make better decisions and efficiently identify the best possible strategies to fight against HIV transmission.
Create an online behavioral survey that can be applied among people with a high risk of HIV infection. To answer questions, respondents can access this survey via www.adamslove.org - and at TRCARC’s Anonymous Clinic.Design and develop a database that systematically stores data from the online behavioral survey. By using IBM DB2 database software, data retrieval time is significantly reduced from two months to five minutes.
IBM is also instrumental in giving scientists the computer resources necessary to research drugs that treat HIV, the disease which causes AIDS. For instance, IBM's World Community Grid -- a network that provides researchers the spare computing power of two million PCs owned by 600,000 individuals and organizations -- has enabled the Scripps Research Institute to discover two new compounds that could lead to medicines for those infected with HIV.
IBM is collaborating with the Thai Red Cross AIDS Research Center (TRCARC) to strengthen efforts to prevent HIV and to make Bangkok the world’s first city to achieve "Zero New HIV Infections" by 2015. As part of this initiative, IBM is donating technology expertise and business analytics software to enable the center to design more effective intervention strategies to help end the spread of HIV/AIDS.
The initiative is in response to “Getting to Zero,” a global campaign initiated by UNAIDS to stop new HIV infections, reduce discrimination against people living with HIV/AIDS, and to reduce HIV/AIDS related deaths by 2015. The campaign was endorsed the Thai government in February 2011. Leveraging IBM business analytics, TRCARC can tap into all types of related information and share outputs with its alliance gencies such as the Department of Disease Control, Ministry of Public Health.
Professor Emeritus Praphan Phanuphak, M.D., Ph.D., Director of the Thai Red Cross AIDS Research Center said, “HIV infection is one of the most serious public health threats Thailand is facing. The country currently has about 500,000 people infected with HIV. It is estimated that there are 16,000 new HIV infection cases per year. Unfortunately, only 40 per cent of the HIV infected population knows they are living with HIV/AIDS and gets access to antiretroviral treatment services. This situation results in the continuing spread of the life-threatening virus and new infections are rising every year.”
Operating under the Thai Red Cross Society, TRCARC is a leading healthcare entity with a mission to provide people affected by HIV with access to comprehensive HIV/AIDS treatment, care and support. Another of its roles is to initiate and execute high-quality HIV prevention programs, cultivate social responsibility and community awareness of HIV/AIDS, as well as conduct preventive and curative research in the field.
Prof. Praphan said, “We are excited to work with IBM and to adopt the company’s advanced technology and expertise. The IBM team helped develop a database and provided directions to manage behavioral records of people with high risk of HIV infection. IBM's business analytics capabilities also enable our researchers to make better decisions on more proactive and preventive measures against the transmission of HIV. This collaboration also helps foster a comprehensive platform for technical knowledge transfer and skills development among our staff.”
Previously, TRCARC launched many HIV prevention campaigns targeting epidemic hot spots to create greater awareness of HIV/AIDS and provide voluntary counseling and testing services free of charge. However, the center found that such activities had limited effect because information used to design campaign strategies was insufficient, inaccurate and outdated.
“This collaboration clearly represents IBM’s vision to build a Smarter Planet,” said Parnsiree Amatayakul, Managing Director of IBM Thailand Company Limited. “By adopting IBM technology, organizations are able to transform the way they work and improve the quality of life. We are thrilled to contribute our expertise and technologies to Bangkok’s initiative to fight against the transmission of HIV while empowering TRCARC’s research capabilities. This is our commitment to building a sustainable society.”
IBM donated software licenses and a technical team of highly experienced professionals to:
Develop an advanced, fully automated information management system using IBM COGNOS software to better analyze and report behavioral trends associated with people with a high risk of infection. The software also helps researchers to manage information relevant to the prevention of sexual transmission of HIV. This information can be presented in the form of tables and maps enabling TRCARC to make better decisions and efficiently identify the best possible strategies to fight against HIV transmission.
Create an online behavioral survey that can be applied among people with a high risk of HIV infection. To answer questions, respondents can access this survey via www.adamslove.org - and at TRCARC’s Anonymous Clinic.Design and develop a database that systematically stores data from the online behavioral survey. By using IBM DB2 database software, data retrieval time is significantly reduced from two months to five minutes.
IBM is also instrumental in giving scientists the computer resources necessary to research drugs that treat HIV, the disease which causes AIDS. For instance, IBM's World Community Grid -- a network that provides researchers the spare computing power of two million PCs owned by 600,000 individuals and organizations -- has enabled the Scripps Research Institute to discover two new compounds that could lead to medicines for those infected with HIV.
IBM Expands Global Cloud Capabilities with Advanced SmartCloud Services and New Customer Adoption
Cloud Services Focus on Choice, Security and Control for Enterprise computing
As businesses embrace the transformative power of cloud computing to gain a significant advantage, IBM (NYSE: IBM) today unveiled advancements to its SmartCloud Services and announced new customers and partners that demonstrate IBM SmartCloud is a leading enterprise cloud platform for business.
IBM has seen rapid adoption of its SmartCloud portfolio as customers and partners move to the cloud. IBM manages massive amounts of data and client transactions in its cloud environments, including:
· 1 million enterprise application users working on the IBM Cloud
· More than $100 billion in commerce transactions a year in the cloud
· 4.5 million daily client transactions conducted through the IBM Cloud
Customers and partners are increasingly choosing IBM SmartCloud services, software and hardware to expand into new markets, enable their mobile workforces and develop enterprise applications more efficiently.
“Companies are starting to understand that cloud is more than just about gaining efficiencies and cost savings, it’s about driving the kind of fundamental innovation that provides lasting marketplace advantage,” said Paul Loftus, general manager, IBM Global Technology Services. “We are helping all kinds of clients manage enterprise applications and processes in the cloud as well as leverage new cloud centric applications while meeting their unique requirements for governance, security and portability.”
Open Innovation in the Cloud
TopCoder®, Inc., the world’s largest Open Innovation Community of digital creators, is moving its global community of more than 400,000 developers - the largest community of its kind – to IBM SmartCloud Enterprise. These developers help organizations succeed by efficiently and effectively supporting their entire innovation process—from ideation, software engineering and analytics to implementation, testing and support.
TopCoder provides high quality application development, mobile development, user experience and graphic design, and big data project work through this competitive, multi-disciplinary, global community of developers.
SmartCloud for SAP Applications
Ogilvy & Mather, an international advertising, marketing and public relations agency, also turned to IBM to solve its critical business need to upgrade their IT environment. The IBM team is in the process of migrating Ogilvy from its current hosted environment to the SmartCloud for SAP Applications hosted in IBM's state-of-the-art, green Smarter Data Center in Raleigh North Carolina.
The Ogilvy solution includes the latest infrastructure technology, full SAP service and is pre-built, pre-configured, requiring minimal client resources to maintain their entire production SAP landscape. IBM’s SAP Cloud solution also offers Ogilvy the benefits of solution scalability, and the ability to add resources for development projects with a short term commitment.
“Given the attention to cloud-based solutions, it's easy to be overwhelmed with comparisons and multiple options. However, when it comes to critical applications like SAP, we were looking for a mature model that could scale and cater to our unique prerequisites,” said Yuri Aguiar, Senior Partner and CIO, Ogilvy & Mather. “The SCE+ offering fit this need very well and had the backing of a reliable global partner.”
Smarter Marketing in the Cloud
OTRUM, a leading provider of interactive TV solutions and content to the hospitality industry, utilizes the Cognos analytics tool from IBM to handle marketing campaigns and highlight repeat behavior patterns associated with guest interaction and purchasing. This solution leverages Cognos on SmartCloud Enterprise to deliver custom analytics to over 500 hotels.
OTRUM has now fully migrated all digital signage clients to the IBM SmartCloud Enterprise, a move that eliminates the need for hundreds of physical servers at customer sites. As well as reducing hardware, the cloud increases efficiency by allowing for central management and distribution of data.
Expanding IBM Platform-as-a-Service
Launched as a platform-as-a-service beta program in October 2011, IBM’s SmartCloud Application Services (SCAS) is expanding to a full pilot with new customers such as CLD Partners, a leading provider of IT consulting services with a particular focus on cloud computing.
“We share IBM’s vision for how enterprise customers can achieve huge productivity gains by embracing cloud technologies. SCAS allowed us to utilize world class software in a managed environment that greatly reduced the complexity of the deployment while also providing for future scalability that our customers only pay for when they need it,” said Steve Clune, Founder and CEO of CLD Partners. “Ultimately, traditional infrastructure planning and configuration that would have required weeks was literally reduced to hours. And future flexibility as infrastructure needs change is virtually limitless.”
Connected Healthcare in the Cloud
IBM is helping improve healthcare delivery in Haiti through its collaboration with ‘Colleagues in Care’ Global Healthcare Network. Colleagues in Care is using the IBM SmartCloud for Social Business to virtually connect medical workers and volunteers from around the globe. Using the IBM SmartCloud, the volunteers and those on the front lines taking care of patients are armed with an online medical knowledge system that includes treatment options, clinical pathways, and best practices specific to the situation in Haiti.
The network consists of approximately 200 doctors, nurses, and business professionals coming together virtually from all around the globe including Canada, China, Haiti, France, Ireland, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Additional new clients, including RICOH Company, Ltd., Neiman Marcus, University of Texas El Paso, Hindustan Motors, Bonduelle and Apave have chosen IBM's SmartCloud to help drive social business adoption across the enterprise. Using IBM social networking tools in the cloud, these organizations are seamlessly collaborating and sharing information and ideas, resulting in increased efficiency and productivity in a security-rich and cost-effective environment.
For these social businesses, IBM is also introducing IBM SmartCloud Archive Essentials, a cost-effective email archiving solution. IBM SmartCloud Archive Essentials provides customers with the confidence of knowing their email is archived continuously and securely, while making the data accessible for compliance and e-discovery requirements in the IBM SmartCloud.
Ready for IBM SmartCloud Services
Launched in February, IBM’s Ready for IBM SmartCloud Services validation continues to grow with over 30 new Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) and partners, making it easier for clients to quickly find technology from Business Partners that are validated for IBM SmartCloud Services. In the new online directory, certified Business Partner technologies are divided into categories such as business applications, collaboration, development and test tools, infrastructure services, and security and monitoring.
New ISVs and partners include AppZero, Cloud Prime, Cohesive FT, Convertigo, Corent, Jaspersoft, NViso, SOASTA, Sproxil, SugarCRM, Vacava, Vision Solutions, Zementis, among many others.
Additionally, IBM is announcing new and expanded capabilities to its SmartCloud portfolio, including:
SmartCloud Enterprise 2.1
· Offering new and enhanced functionality in a simple to deploy, robust infrastructure-as-a-service (IAAS) for building and deploying innovative applications that can optionally integrate with private cloud and traditional IT elements.
· New service level agreement (SLA) of 99.9% SmartCloud Enterprise gives clients confidence in factoring cloud-centric applications for a broad array of workloads.
· Two new Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating systems; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.8 will add new and improved functionality for enhanced performance, flexibility and security while Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.2 delivers improvements in virtualization, resource management and high availability, and offers new features in storage, file system performance and identity management.
· Upgrades to the persistent storage system, enabling increased speed and performance, and upgrades to embedded KVM hypervisors providing greater security and performance improvements.
SmartCloud Enterprise
· Now available in North America and Europe with plans for additional global roll-out in 3rd quarter 2012.
· Unprecedented support for both x86 and P-Series - running operating systems including Windows, Linux and AIX on top of either VMWare or PowerVM hypervisors, and delivered with the proven expertise of IBM services.
· Migration Services for SmartCloud Enterprise+ with patented tools and methods to help clients speed up transition from traditional outsourcing to cloud is projected to be available in 3rd quarter 2012.
· SCE+ is designed to support different workloads and associated technology platforms including a new System z shared environment that will be available in the U.S. and U.K. later this year.
SmartCloud Application Services
· IBM’s platform-as-a-service (PaaS) will now be more widely available to select customers moving from beta to pilot stage. Customers will be able to take advantage of both Application Workload Service as well as Collaborative Lifecycle Management Service to develop and deploy applications on top of SmartCloud Enterprise to jump-start their SmartCloud Application Services (SCAS) projects.
· While in the pilot phase, customers will be able to use SmartCloud Application Services at no charge, except for the underlying IBM SmartCloud Enterprise infrastructure used by the SCAS pilot services.
· Available in English around the world, the SmartCloud Application Services pilot will run from May 15th until general availability projected for 3rd quarter 2012.
· As part of the broader IBM SmartCloud family, SmartCloud Application Services are compatible with the newly announced IBM PureSystems family. For example, through SmartCloud Application Services clients can rapidly design, develop, and test their dynamic applications on IBM's public cloud and deploy those same applications on a private cloud built with PureApplication Systems, or vice versa.
Across both IBM SmartCloud Enterprise and Enterprise+, IBM now supports Microsoft License Mobility program. Offering new flexible options for deploying Microsoft applications, such as Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft SharePoint Server, and Microsoft SQL Server on IBM's SmartCloud Enterprise, customers can choose between deploying Microsoft applications on premises or on IBM's SmartCloud leveraging the value of volume licenses with Microsoft's Software Assurance. This option can help customers lower operating costs using IBM's SmartCloud shared infrastructure.
Financing provided by IBM Global Financing, the lending and leasing arm of IBM, helps credit-qualified clients make the transition to cloud computing with low-rate financing for cloud solutions and zero percent loans for IBM software. Financing helps clients accelerates their cloud project’s cash flow break-even point by spreading upfront costs over time, enabling them to utilizing cash reserves for other strategic investments.
About IBM Cloud Computing
IBM has helped thousands of clients adopt cloud models and manages millions of cloud based transactions every day. IBM assists clients in areas as diverse as banking, communications, healthcare and government to build their own clouds or securely tap into IBM cloud-based business and infrastructure services. IBM is unique in bringing together key cloud technologies, deep process knowledge, a broad portfolio of cloud solutions, and a network of global delivery centers.
As businesses embrace the transformative power of cloud computing to gain a significant advantage, IBM (NYSE: IBM) today unveiled advancements to its SmartCloud Services and announced new customers and partners that demonstrate IBM SmartCloud is a leading enterprise cloud platform for business.
IBM has seen rapid adoption of its SmartCloud portfolio as customers and partners move to the cloud. IBM manages massive amounts of data and client transactions in its cloud environments, including:
· 1 million enterprise application users working on the IBM Cloud
· More than $100 billion in commerce transactions a year in the cloud
· 4.5 million daily client transactions conducted through the IBM Cloud
Customers and partners are increasingly choosing IBM SmartCloud services, software and hardware to expand into new markets, enable their mobile workforces and develop enterprise applications more efficiently.
“Companies are starting to understand that cloud is more than just about gaining efficiencies and cost savings, it’s about driving the kind of fundamental innovation that provides lasting marketplace advantage,” said Paul Loftus, general manager, IBM Global Technology Services. “We are helping all kinds of clients manage enterprise applications and processes in the cloud as well as leverage new cloud centric applications while meeting their unique requirements for governance, security and portability.”
Open Innovation in the Cloud
TopCoder®, Inc., the world’s largest Open Innovation Community of digital creators, is moving its global community of more than 400,000 developers - the largest community of its kind – to IBM SmartCloud Enterprise. These developers help organizations succeed by efficiently and effectively supporting their entire innovation process—from ideation, software engineering and analytics to implementation, testing and support.
TopCoder provides high quality application development, mobile development, user experience and graphic design, and big data project work through this competitive, multi-disciplinary, global community of developers.
SmartCloud for SAP Applications
Ogilvy & Mather, an international advertising, marketing and public relations agency, also turned to IBM to solve its critical business need to upgrade their IT environment. The IBM team is in the process of migrating Ogilvy from its current hosted environment to the SmartCloud for SAP Applications hosted in IBM's state-of-the-art, green Smarter Data Center in Raleigh North Carolina.
The Ogilvy solution includes the latest infrastructure technology, full SAP service and is pre-built, pre-configured, requiring minimal client resources to maintain their entire production SAP landscape. IBM’s SAP Cloud solution also offers Ogilvy the benefits of solution scalability, and the ability to add resources for development projects with a short term commitment.
“Given the attention to cloud-based solutions, it's easy to be overwhelmed with comparisons and multiple options. However, when it comes to critical applications like SAP, we were looking for a mature model that could scale and cater to our unique prerequisites,” said Yuri Aguiar, Senior Partner and CIO, Ogilvy & Mather. “The SCE+ offering fit this need very well and had the backing of a reliable global partner.”
Smarter Marketing in the Cloud
OTRUM, a leading provider of interactive TV solutions and content to the hospitality industry, utilizes the Cognos analytics tool from IBM to handle marketing campaigns and highlight repeat behavior patterns associated with guest interaction and purchasing. This solution leverages Cognos on SmartCloud Enterprise to deliver custom analytics to over 500 hotels.
OTRUM has now fully migrated all digital signage clients to the IBM SmartCloud Enterprise, a move that eliminates the need for hundreds of physical servers at customer sites. As well as reducing hardware, the cloud increases efficiency by allowing for central management and distribution of data.
Expanding IBM Platform-as-a-Service
Launched as a platform-as-a-service beta program in October 2011, IBM’s SmartCloud Application Services (SCAS) is expanding to a full pilot with new customers such as CLD Partners, a leading provider of IT consulting services with a particular focus on cloud computing.
“We share IBM’s vision for how enterprise customers can achieve huge productivity gains by embracing cloud technologies. SCAS allowed us to utilize world class software in a managed environment that greatly reduced the complexity of the deployment while also providing for future scalability that our customers only pay for when they need it,” said Steve Clune, Founder and CEO of CLD Partners. “Ultimately, traditional infrastructure planning and configuration that would have required weeks was literally reduced to hours. And future flexibility as infrastructure needs change is virtually limitless.”
Connected Healthcare in the Cloud
IBM is helping improve healthcare delivery in Haiti through its collaboration with ‘Colleagues in Care’ Global Healthcare Network. Colleagues in Care is using the IBM SmartCloud for Social Business to virtually connect medical workers and volunteers from around the globe. Using the IBM SmartCloud, the volunteers and those on the front lines taking care of patients are armed with an online medical knowledge system that includes treatment options, clinical pathways, and best practices specific to the situation in Haiti.
The network consists of approximately 200 doctors, nurses, and business professionals coming together virtually from all around the globe including Canada, China, Haiti, France, Ireland, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Additional new clients, including RICOH Company, Ltd., Neiman Marcus, University of Texas El Paso, Hindustan Motors, Bonduelle and Apave have chosen IBM's SmartCloud to help drive social business adoption across the enterprise. Using IBM social networking tools in the cloud, these organizations are seamlessly collaborating and sharing information and ideas, resulting in increased efficiency and productivity in a security-rich and cost-effective environment.
For these social businesses, IBM is also introducing IBM SmartCloud Archive Essentials, a cost-effective email archiving solution. IBM SmartCloud Archive Essentials provides customers with the confidence of knowing their email is archived continuously and securely, while making the data accessible for compliance and e-discovery requirements in the IBM SmartCloud.
Ready for IBM SmartCloud Services
Launched in February, IBM’s Ready for IBM SmartCloud Services validation continues to grow with over 30 new Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) and partners, making it easier for clients to quickly find technology from Business Partners that are validated for IBM SmartCloud Services. In the new online directory, certified Business Partner technologies are divided into categories such as business applications, collaboration, development and test tools, infrastructure services, and security and monitoring.
New ISVs and partners include AppZero, Cloud Prime, Cohesive FT, Convertigo, Corent, Jaspersoft, NViso, SOASTA, Sproxil, SugarCRM, Vacava, Vision Solutions, Zementis, among many others.
Additionally, IBM is announcing new and expanded capabilities to its SmartCloud portfolio, including:
SmartCloud Enterprise 2.1
· Offering new and enhanced functionality in a simple to deploy, robust infrastructure-as-a-service (IAAS) for building and deploying innovative applications that can optionally integrate with private cloud and traditional IT elements.
· New service level agreement (SLA) of 99.9% SmartCloud Enterprise gives clients confidence in factoring cloud-centric applications for a broad array of workloads.
· Two new Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating systems; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.8 will add new and improved functionality for enhanced performance, flexibility and security while Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.2 delivers improvements in virtualization, resource management and high availability, and offers new features in storage, file system performance and identity management.
· Upgrades to the persistent storage system, enabling increased speed and performance, and upgrades to embedded KVM hypervisors providing greater security and performance improvements.
SmartCloud Enterprise
· Now available in North America and Europe with plans for additional global roll-out in 3rd quarter 2012.
· Unprecedented support for both x86 and P-Series - running operating systems including Windows, Linux and AIX on top of either VMWare or PowerVM hypervisors, and delivered with the proven expertise of IBM services.
· Migration Services for SmartCloud Enterprise+ with patented tools and methods to help clients speed up transition from traditional outsourcing to cloud is projected to be available in 3rd quarter 2012.
· SCE+ is designed to support different workloads and associated technology platforms including a new System z shared environment that will be available in the U.S. and U.K. later this year.
SmartCloud Application Services
· IBM’s platform-as-a-service (PaaS) will now be more widely available to select customers moving from beta to pilot stage. Customers will be able to take advantage of both Application Workload Service as well as Collaborative Lifecycle Management Service to develop and deploy applications on top of SmartCloud Enterprise to jump-start their SmartCloud Application Services (SCAS) projects.
· While in the pilot phase, customers will be able to use SmartCloud Application Services at no charge, except for the underlying IBM SmartCloud Enterprise infrastructure used by the SCAS pilot services.
· Available in English around the world, the SmartCloud Application Services pilot will run from May 15th until general availability projected for 3rd quarter 2012.
· As part of the broader IBM SmartCloud family, SmartCloud Application Services are compatible with the newly announced IBM PureSystems family. For example, through SmartCloud Application Services clients can rapidly design, develop, and test their dynamic applications on IBM's public cloud and deploy those same applications on a private cloud built with PureApplication Systems, or vice versa.
Across both IBM SmartCloud Enterprise and Enterprise+, IBM now supports Microsoft License Mobility program. Offering new flexible options for deploying Microsoft applications, such as Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft SharePoint Server, and Microsoft SQL Server on IBM's SmartCloud Enterprise, customers can choose between deploying Microsoft applications on premises or on IBM's SmartCloud leveraging the value of volume licenses with Microsoft's Software Assurance. This option can help customers lower operating costs using IBM's SmartCloud shared infrastructure.
Financing provided by IBM Global Financing, the lending and leasing arm of IBM, helps credit-qualified clients make the transition to cloud computing with low-rate financing for cloud solutions and zero percent loans for IBM software. Financing helps clients accelerates their cloud project’s cash flow break-even point by spreading upfront costs over time, enabling them to utilizing cash reserves for other strategic investments.
About IBM Cloud Computing
IBM has helped thousands of clients adopt cloud models and manages millions of cloud based transactions every day. IBM assists clients in areas as diverse as banking, communications, healthcare and government to build their own clouds or securely tap into IBM cloud-based business and infrastructure services. IBM is unique in bringing together key cloud technologies, deep process knowledge, a broad portfolio of cloud solutions, and a network of global delivery centers.
IBM Collaborates with Colleagues In Care to Empower Medical Workers in Haiti
IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced it is helping improve healthcare delivery in Haiti through its collaboration with ‘Colleagues In Care’ Global Health Network.
The organization is using IBM cloud-based social analytics and collaboration services to provide the global network of healthcare volunteers with immediate access to critical data and information for the current healthcare needs of the Haitian citizens. The network consists of approximately 200 doctors, nurses, and business professionals coming together virtually from all around the globe including Canada, China, Haiti, France, Ireland, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Prior to the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, the country’s healthcare programs were already poorly staffed with limited resources. According to the 2009 World Health Organization statistics, Haiti had one nurse and three doctors for every 10,000 people. Infant and maternal mortality, hypertension and stroke, and life threatening illnesses were among the highest in the world.
Today, Colleagues In Care is using the IBM SmartCloud for Social Business to virtually connect medical workers and volunteers from around the globe. Using the IBM SmartCloud, the volunteers and those on the front lines taking care of patients are armed with an online medical knowledge system that includes treatment options, clinical pathways, and best practices specific to the situation in Haiti.
For example, doctors on the ground in Haiti now have immediate access to information. Previously, a healthcare worker typically had no access to a specialist to consult about a specific medical condition. Via the IBM SmartCloud, they can now immediately determine how to best care for a patient directly in front of them, at the same time collaborating with colleagues to determine more population-based strategies of effective care.
Medical workers can then develop, post, and share their stories about their experiences, providing this critical background to incoming medical workers. The volunteers are also participating in approximately 70 online communities on topics including “Mother and Baby,” “Hypertension,” “Heart Failure,” “Stroke,” and "Eye Care" to track initiatives from start to finish.
“At Colleagues In Care, we share a deep level of purpose to stand with and support our medical colleagues in Haiti,” said John Kenerson, M.D. and co-founder of Colleagues In Care with his wife Lisbet Hanson, M.D. “Working with IBM, we are helping the citizens of Haiti find relief from the devastations they continue to face daily. Many of our medical volunteers come from highly respected medical institutions, and we’re humbled by the opportunity to share our knowledge with those that need it most.”
Through social networking, file sharing, Web-based meetings, activities, and forums, the volunteers are sharing ideas and information as if they were in the same room.
The medical knowledge system has been so effective that Colleagues In Care is looking to replicate the system in other under-served regions and countries facing low and limited resources.
IBM's partnership with CIC began as the result of an IBM Services Grant, but has evolved to include dozens of IBM employees from around the world who volunteer their expertise to help connect medical colleagues. The long-standing commitment to working with charitable organizations around the world is part of IBM’s On Demand Community, an innovative global program reflecting IBM's strategy to help the world work better, making a wide range of knowledge and expertise available to volunteers.
About Colleagues In Care:
CIC has connected many of the world's leading healthcare organizations and associations' medical specialists focused on a similar cause, mission and passion. The CIC best possible practices technology-based volunteer model can be replicated anywhere. There is no limitation to the potential reach of the Colleagues In Care healthcare collaboration model.
The organization is using IBM cloud-based social analytics and collaboration services to provide the global network of healthcare volunteers with immediate access to critical data and information for the current healthcare needs of the Haitian citizens. The network consists of approximately 200 doctors, nurses, and business professionals coming together virtually from all around the globe including Canada, China, Haiti, France, Ireland, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Prior to the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, the country’s healthcare programs were already poorly staffed with limited resources. According to the 2009 World Health Organization statistics, Haiti had one nurse and three doctors for every 10,000 people. Infant and maternal mortality, hypertension and stroke, and life threatening illnesses were among the highest in the world.
Today, Colleagues In Care is using the IBM SmartCloud for Social Business to virtually connect medical workers and volunteers from around the globe. Using the IBM SmartCloud, the volunteers and those on the front lines taking care of patients are armed with an online medical knowledge system that includes treatment options, clinical pathways, and best practices specific to the situation in Haiti.
For example, doctors on the ground in Haiti now have immediate access to information. Previously, a healthcare worker typically had no access to a specialist to consult about a specific medical condition. Via the IBM SmartCloud, they can now immediately determine how to best care for a patient directly in front of them, at the same time collaborating with colleagues to determine more population-based strategies of effective care.
Medical workers can then develop, post, and share their stories about their experiences, providing this critical background to incoming medical workers. The volunteers are also participating in approximately 70 online communities on topics including “Mother and Baby,” “Hypertension,” “Heart Failure,” “Stroke,” and "Eye Care" to track initiatives from start to finish.
“At Colleagues In Care, we share a deep level of purpose to stand with and support our medical colleagues in Haiti,” said John Kenerson, M.D. and co-founder of Colleagues In Care with his wife Lisbet Hanson, M.D. “Working with IBM, we are helping the citizens of Haiti find relief from the devastations they continue to face daily. Many of our medical volunteers come from highly respected medical institutions, and we’re humbled by the opportunity to share our knowledge with those that need it most.”
Through social networking, file sharing, Web-based meetings, activities, and forums, the volunteers are sharing ideas and information as if they were in the same room.
The medical knowledge system has been so effective that Colleagues In Care is looking to replicate the system in other under-served regions and countries facing low and limited resources.
IBM's partnership with CIC began as the result of an IBM Services Grant, but has evolved to include dozens of IBM employees from around the world who volunteer their expertise to help connect medical colleagues. The long-standing commitment to working with charitable organizations around the world is part of IBM’s On Demand Community, an innovative global program reflecting IBM's strategy to help the world work better, making a wide range of knowledge and expertise available to volunteers.
About Colleagues In Care:
CIC has connected many of the world's leading healthcare organizations and associations' medical specialists focused on a similar cause, mission and passion. The CIC best possible practices technology-based volunteer model can be replicated anywhere. There is no limitation to the potential reach of the Colleagues In Care healthcare collaboration model.
First Academic Case Competition Proposes Novel Ways to Put IBM Watson to Work
University of Rochester Students Offer Game-Changing Ideas, Hone Analytics and Cognitive Computing Skills
In Rochester, New York, Christian Beck (left) and Jamiee Saxton (right), students of the Simon Graduate School of Business at the University of Rochester are winners of the IBM Watson case competition for their proposal on crisis and disaster management. Students from the school submitted new ideas for applying the IBM Watson technology to address complex societal and business challenges in the transportation, energy, retail and public sector industries. The competition is helping students gain new skills in analytics and cognitive computing to prepare for future career opportunities.
Watson, named after IBM founder Thomas J. Watson, was built by a team of scientists to accomplish a grand challenge –a computing system that rivals a human’s ability to answer questions posed in natural language with speed, accuracy and confidence. The Watson technology represents a new class of cognitive systems that can quickly sift through large volumes of Big Data, and apply advanced analytics to improve decision making across a variety of use case and industries.
Twenty-five MBA and master of science students with concentrations ranging from marketing and business consulting to finance and entrepreneurship competed in teams submitting seven proposals outlining how Watson's technology could be applied to solve complex challenges in the transportation, energy, retail and public sector industries.
Three winning ideas were selected by a panel of judges comprised of faculty, regional business leaders and IBM executives. Team evaluations were based on the ability of the students to clearly articulate the business case including market research, tactical planning and feasibility while exhibiting an understanding of how to harness Big Data for strategic outcomes.
The winning case studies included a crisis management capability to better allocate resources during disasters, a mining application to improve the effectiveness of natural gas, petroleum and other natural resources exploration, and streamlining the customs process for airports to reduce wait times.
• First Place: Managing Data in the Eye of a Storm – With capricious weather activity expected to be on the rise, IBM's Watson technology could be put to work combining weather-related data and the latest census numbers to help organizations better prepare for a crisis administration and allocate resources accordingly. The first place student team concluded that Watson's extraordinary ability to look at unstructured and structured information could more accurately identify weather patterns and help improve response times.
• Second Place: Mining for Insights, Literally – Considering profit margin, consumption rates and and opportunities for exploration of oil, gas and mineral reserves, the second place student team recommended that the Watson technology could help energy companies improve the understanding of environmental impacts, and regulatory and safety information to reduce accidents while avoiding the over exploration of natural resources. This team relied on Watson's cognitive reasoning capabilities to deliver precise and accurate results to optimize exploration efforts.
• Third Place: Unpacking Big Data Improves Travel Experience – About 1 million people travel into the United States every day and during the summer months this number peaks resulting in long lines, congestion delays and aggravated travelers. This team devised an approach employing Watson's technology to quickly analyze massive amounts of unstructured information in order to enhance security, reduce wait times and improve the travel experience in airports while taking the guesswork out of the customs process.
"Providing our students access to the most advanced technologies and approaches in business will better prepare them to be future leaders and innovators in the workforce,” said Mark Zupan, dean of the University of Rochester, Simon Graduate School of Business. "We are deeply appreciative of the opportunity to team with IBM in the area of Big Data and see this as a great opportunity to further teach and advance skills in diverse fields like finance, marketing, consulting, operations, and health care management."
Students in the top two winning teams held concentrations in marketing and business, a sign of the growing need and interest for hands-on expertise in analytics, outside of traditional engineering and computer science programs. As companies look to gain faster and more accurate insight into customer opinion and preferences, the ability for graduates to strengthen skills in analytics is making them highly sought after in today's job market.
The Watson case competition supports Simon School's commitment to incorporating analytics and evidence-based reasoning across all areas of business ranging from marketing to economics and brand development to entrepreneurship. The initiative is part of IBM’s ongoing collaboration with educational institutions to strengthen science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) skills.
“The case competition provides a new way for students to bring forward game-changing ideas while providing them with the opportunity to hone their skills in important new areas such as analytics and cognitive computing,” said Manoj Saxena, general manager of IBM Watson Solutions. “Our goal is to inspire the next generation of business leaders to think differently about how technology can be used to transform business and redefine industries."
The case based approach may help shape how IBM applies the Watson technology to client challenges across a variety of industries in the future. Watson is already being put to work in the health care and financial services industries. In a pilot program at WellPoint, the technology is helping medical professionals make more informed decisions around patient treatment options, and Citibank is evaluating new ways the technology can help improve the banking client experience.
The New Era of Cognitive Computing
The IBM and Simon School competition is intended to foster new ideas, drive awareness, and build student skills around transformative business solutions enabled by next generation big data and analytics technology.
Representing a fundamentally different type of technology, Watson is a cognitive system that learns and becomes more accurate over time by applying analytics and evidence-based reasoning to volumes of information. Like the human brain, Watson builds relationships between a variety of data sets and continuously processing and reprocessing information to draw deeper insights for better decision making.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there will be a 24 percent increase in demand for professionals with management analysis skills over the next 8 years. While the McKinsey Global Institute projects a need for approximately 190,000 more workers with analytics expertise and 1.5 million more data-savvy managers in the U.S.
The role and value of data is causing shifts inside organizations and across business cultures driving demand across a broad range of industries in the private and public sectors. These organizations are seeking new ways to tap information in traditional databases and unlock data tucked away in an unstructured format including videos, comments on social media sites and text messages.
IBM's Watson academic case competition is the latest example of how IBM is helping universities to prepare students in new areas of computing and business leadership. The Simon School and IBM Watson case competition is in keeping with IBM's Academic Initiative which delivers coursework, case studies and curricula to more than 6,000 universities and 30,000 faculty members worldwide to help students prepare for high-value future job opportunities. IBM worked closely with academic institutions during the development and introduction of Watson. Eight leading universities around the world participated in the development phase of the system; and more than 10,000 students watched Watson triumph on the Jeopardy! quiz show in February 2011.
In Rochester, New York, Christian Beck (left) and Jamiee Saxton (right), students of the Simon Graduate School of Business at the University of Rochester are winners of the IBM Watson case competition for their proposal on crisis and disaster management. Students from the school submitted new ideas for applying the IBM Watson technology to address complex societal and business challenges in the transportation, energy, retail and public sector industries. The competition is helping students gain new skills in analytics and cognitive computing to prepare for future career opportunities.
Watson, named after IBM founder Thomas J. Watson, was built by a team of scientists to accomplish a grand challenge –a computing system that rivals a human’s ability to answer questions posed in natural language with speed, accuracy and confidence. The Watson technology represents a new class of cognitive systems that can quickly sift through large volumes of Big Data, and apply advanced analytics to improve decision making across a variety of use case and industries.
Twenty-five MBA and master of science students with concentrations ranging from marketing and business consulting to finance and entrepreneurship competed in teams submitting seven proposals outlining how Watson's technology could be applied to solve complex challenges in the transportation, energy, retail and public sector industries.
Three winning ideas were selected by a panel of judges comprised of faculty, regional business leaders and IBM executives. Team evaluations were based on the ability of the students to clearly articulate the business case including market research, tactical planning and feasibility while exhibiting an understanding of how to harness Big Data for strategic outcomes.
The winning case studies included a crisis management capability to better allocate resources during disasters, a mining application to improve the effectiveness of natural gas, petroleum and other natural resources exploration, and streamlining the customs process for airports to reduce wait times.
• First Place: Managing Data in the Eye of a Storm – With capricious weather activity expected to be on the rise, IBM's Watson technology could be put to work combining weather-related data and the latest census numbers to help organizations better prepare for a crisis administration and allocate resources accordingly. The first place student team concluded that Watson's extraordinary ability to look at unstructured and structured information could more accurately identify weather patterns and help improve response times.
• Second Place: Mining for Insights, Literally – Considering profit margin, consumption rates and and opportunities for exploration of oil, gas and mineral reserves, the second place student team recommended that the Watson technology could help energy companies improve the understanding of environmental impacts, and regulatory and safety information to reduce accidents while avoiding the over exploration of natural resources. This team relied on Watson's cognitive reasoning capabilities to deliver precise and accurate results to optimize exploration efforts.
• Third Place: Unpacking Big Data Improves Travel Experience – About 1 million people travel into the United States every day and during the summer months this number peaks resulting in long lines, congestion delays and aggravated travelers. This team devised an approach employing Watson's technology to quickly analyze massive amounts of unstructured information in order to enhance security, reduce wait times and improve the travel experience in airports while taking the guesswork out of the customs process.
"Providing our students access to the most advanced technologies and approaches in business will better prepare them to be future leaders and innovators in the workforce,” said Mark Zupan, dean of the University of Rochester, Simon Graduate School of Business. "We are deeply appreciative of the opportunity to team with IBM in the area of Big Data and see this as a great opportunity to further teach and advance skills in diverse fields like finance, marketing, consulting, operations, and health care management."
Students in the top two winning teams held concentrations in marketing and business, a sign of the growing need and interest for hands-on expertise in analytics, outside of traditional engineering and computer science programs. As companies look to gain faster and more accurate insight into customer opinion and preferences, the ability for graduates to strengthen skills in analytics is making them highly sought after in today's job market.
The Watson case competition supports Simon School's commitment to incorporating analytics and evidence-based reasoning across all areas of business ranging from marketing to economics and brand development to entrepreneurship. The initiative is part of IBM’s ongoing collaboration with educational institutions to strengthen science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) skills.
“The case competition provides a new way for students to bring forward game-changing ideas while providing them with the opportunity to hone their skills in important new areas such as analytics and cognitive computing,” said Manoj Saxena, general manager of IBM Watson Solutions. “Our goal is to inspire the next generation of business leaders to think differently about how technology can be used to transform business and redefine industries."
The case based approach may help shape how IBM applies the Watson technology to client challenges across a variety of industries in the future. Watson is already being put to work in the health care and financial services industries. In a pilot program at WellPoint, the technology is helping medical professionals make more informed decisions around patient treatment options, and Citibank is evaluating new ways the technology can help improve the banking client experience.
The New Era of Cognitive Computing
The IBM and Simon School competition is intended to foster new ideas, drive awareness, and build student skills around transformative business solutions enabled by next generation big data and analytics technology.
Representing a fundamentally different type of technology, Watson is a cognitive system that learns and becomes more accurate over time by applying analytics and evidence-based reasoning to volumes of information. Like the human brain, Watson builds relationships between a variety of data sets and continuously processing and reprocessing information to draw deeper insights for better decision making.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there will be a 24 percent increase in demand for professionals with management analysis skills over the next 8 years. While the McKinsey Global Institute projects a need for approximately 190,000 more workers with analytics expertise and 1.5 million more data-savvy managers in the U.S.
The role and value of data is causing shifts inside organizations and across business cultures driving demand across a broad range of industries in the private and public sectors. These organizations are seeking new ways to tap information in traditional databases and unlock data tucked away in an unstructured format including videos, comments on social media sites and text messages.
IBM's Watson academic case competition is the latest example of how IBM is helping universities to prepare students in new areas of computing and business leadership. The Simon School and IBM Watson case competition is in keeping with IBM's Academic Initiative which delivers coursework, case studies and curricula to more than 6,000 universities and 30,000 faculty members worldwide to help students prepare for high-value future job opportunities. IBM worked closely with academic institutions during the development and introduction of Watson. Eight leading universities around the world participated in the development phase of the system; and more than 10,000 students watched Watson triumph on the Jeopardy! quiz show in February 2011.
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