Leveraging the explosion of information for better decisions and actions

The world is changing, becoming increasingly instrumented, interconnected and intelligent, and the resulting explosion of information is creating an opportunity for a new kind of intelligence.

On a Smarter Planet, information is the lifeblood of an organization, offering a transformative power for businesses that are able to apply it strategically.  And yet, despite this opportunity, too many organizations are not using information to its full advantage:

• 1 in 3 business leaders frequently make critical decisions without the information they need.
  
  
• 1 in 2 business leaders do not have access to the information across their organization needed to do their jobs.
  
  
• 3 in 4 business leaders say more predictive information would drive better decisions.

Better, faster decisions

Forward-thinking organizations, however, are starting to set themselves apart from their peers, creating smarter industries, smarter government, and smarter cities.  They are using this wealth of information and
analytics for better, faster decisions and actions, optimized processes, and more predictable outcomes – they are achieving breakaway competitive advantage through business optimization.

A new source of competitive advantage

Chief Executive Officers and Line of Business leaders, as well as leaders in public sector enterprises, are looking to create sustainable competitive advantage by optimizing all parts of their business -- how they invest and manage their finances; how they find, grow and retain their customers; how they optimize their supply chains or marketing investments; how they optimize resources and maximize service delivery (such as fresh water, electricity or information) to constituents; how they spot opportunities for growth and execute breakaway plays in their industry; how they proactively manage risk; predict the outcomes of
decisions; and anticipate or react to marketplace or other external events.

While investments in applications and systems to automate business processes have generated many benefits over the past two-to-three decades, the majority of the daily decisions made throughout an organization – by the individuals responsible for marketing, finance, manufacturing, or operations, to name just a few – are still based primarily on intuition and instinct.

The information from these applications is typically locked in silos or consolidated into a data warehouse for historical analysis and reporting only by expert business analysts.  Indeed, most employees and departments don’t have access to run the customized analyses they need to support the specific real-time decisions they need to make. 

What if you could...

Imagine instead the impact of being able to leverage information and analytics to optimize decisions and actions throughout the organization at each point of impact.  What if you could:

• Predict infection in premature newborns 24 hours earlier than skilled medical professionals could?
• Apply social relationships of customers to improve loyalty and prevent churn?
• Adjust credit lines as transactions are occurring to account for risk fluctuations?
  
• Determine to whom to offer discounts at the time of sale instead of reducing profitability by treating all customers alike?

Leading organizations are doing these things today, as CEOs and LOB leaders create and apply a Business Analytics and Optimization strategy, encompassing business strategy, information, process, and organizational change.

Analytics a top CIO priority

Chief Information Officers, as partners to line of business and public sector executives, are looking to meet the needs of the organization and create confidence in the information and insight provided, even as the volume, variety and velocity of information explodes.

They need to create an information agenda that supports the business and operational strategy, build and maintain a flexible platform for trusted information, and bring business analytics to all levels of the organization to optimize decisions.

In fact, IBM's Global CIO Study 2009 indicated that leveraging analytics to gain a competitive advantage and improve business decision-making is now the top priority for CIOs, with more than four out of five (83 percent) identifying business intelligence and analytics as the way they will enhance their organizations’ competitiveness.

Business and IT leaders need to work together to pursue an information-led transformation to support the business by focusing on three areas.

1. Planning an information agenda, a strategic plan to align information with business objectives, reflecting aspects that may be unique to the industry or organization.
   
   
2. Applying business analytics to optimize decisions to identify patterns in vast amounts of data and extract actionable insights through planning, monitoring, reporting and predictive analysis. 
   
   
3. Establishing a flexible information platform that will provide the necessary agility across the technology platform, infrastructure and common software services at an optimal cost and that will ensure that information can serve as a trusted asset that can be shared and securely accessed by all who need it, when and where they need it.

How to get started for immediate value

Organizations can approach an information-led transformation in many ways -- from the tactical to strategic -- and see immediate value: 

• Focusing on a foundational information need such as single view of the customer, or a full information agenda, addressing information strategy, roadmap, infrastructure and governance;
  
  
• Applying analytics to optimize a specific business objective such as customer retention, or a broader need such as enterprise risk management; or
  
  
• Solving a single information platform need such as a cost-effective archiving strategy, or a broader need such as a flexible enterprise information architecture.
  

The ultimate outcome of an information-led transformation is pervasive intelligence and predictive, real-time analytics that foster continuous optimization throughout a business.

Organizations will be able to optimize every transaction, process and decision -- ranging from a senior leader's strategic decisions to the actions of individual employees throughout the organization -- in real time, at the point of impact.

IBM is investing in analytics

IBM has recognized the increasing importance of information and analytics to support business optimization, and has invested heavily over the past decade to build the offerings, expertise and industry solutions to accelerate value, enable reuse, and systematically deliver client success.  These include:

• Investing over $12B to build the industry's richest, most integrated & flexible end-to-end platform of information management software technologies, capable of providing real-time access to trusted information even in the most demanding settings;
  
  
• Building a new global Business Analytics and Optimization service line, with more than 4,000 consultants experienced in strategy and change, advanced analytics techniques, industry solutions, and supporting technologies; and a network of Analytics Solutions Centers around the world to help clients accelerate time to value;
  
  
• Leveraging over $6B in systems-level research to develop workload-optimized systems and services, specifically designed for the unique demands of analytical workloads and leveraging the new possibilities enabled by advancements in technology and research; and information infrastructure offerings to ensure high-performing and cost effective information availability, security, retention and compliance;
  
  
• Capitalizing on the largest advanced math competency in private industry, and 10 years of ongoing investment in research dedicated to services.

Leveraging its experience with thousands of clients, deep industry knowledge and technology expertise, IBM is able to help organizations identify the greatest opportunities or greatest exposures to risk and then
develop and execute a strategy to optimize all types of decisions, leveraging the ability to capture, organize, process and contextualize enterprise information.

• Discover Information-Led Transformation at Information On Demand 2009
  

• Learn more about the Business Analytics and Optimization from IBM Global Business Service


• Get the new IBM Global CIO Study