Paris - 19 mai 2010: IBM dévoile aujourd’hui IBM InfoSphere BigInsights, un nouveau portefeuille de services et solutions basé sur la technologie open source Apache Hadoop et destiné à permettre aux professionnels d’analyser la quantité de plus en plus importante de données, structurées ou non, stockées au sein de leur organisation ou disponibles sur le web.

 

Nouvelle stratégie, IBM lance également « advanced case management » de nouvelles capacités logicielles de bout en bout regroupant l’expertise d’IBM dans l’Entreprise Content Management, le Business Process Management, l’analytique avancée, la collaboration et les logiciels sociaux dans une approche intégrée pour mieux gérer les activités métier telles que les demandes de service ou la gestion d’investigations et d’incidents.

   
Analyse prédictive : trois clics pour une décision intelligente

IBM dévoile également un logiciel permettant aux utilisateurs « métiers » de construire eux-mêmes leur modèle prédictif en seulement trois clics, grâce à une interface de navigateur web configurable, des simulations et des scénarios « what if » qui comparent et testent les différents résultats avant même que le modèle soit déployé dans un système opérationnel.  Les utilisateurs ont ainsi le contrôle total du processus analytique et peuvent ainsi prendre des décisions précises en temps réel, fondées sur les changements de stratégie, les habitudes d’achats et comportements des clients, ou les fluctuations du marché.

  
L’analytique et l’information également au service de l’efficacité énergétique 
IBM s’est associé à Hildebrand, société de conseil pour le secteur de l’énergie, pour accompagner les consommateurs dans leurs prises de décision en matière d’énergie. A l’aide du logiciel IBM data management, Hildebrand a mis en place un système de surveillance permettant l’analyse en temps réel de l’utilisation d’électricité dans les foyers, ou même de manière individuelle pour chaque appareil domestique, afin que les citoyens puissent prendre de meilleures décisions en ce qui concerne l’efficacité énergétique de leur foyer, et en réduire l’impact sur l’environnement.

 

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IBM Unveils Software and Services to Help Organizations Make Sense of Their Deluge of Data

ROME, - 19 May 2010: To help clients transform their businesses through information management and analytics, IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced new software and services designed to help organizations take advantage of the growing and diverse forms of data and content.

To view the multimedia assets associated with this release, please click

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The importance of business insight and analytics can be found in IBM's 2010 Global CEO Study, which reveals how leading companies are using new approaches to managing complexity and finding opportunities for growth. In fact, more than 60% of CEOs surveyed cite industry transformation and the information explosion as the most significant factors facing their organizations over the next 5 years.

With today's news, IBM is expanding its portfolio and furthering its investments in information and analytics with:

-         New services and solutions for business and IT professionals to address the emerging challenge companies face around the petabytes of data, otherwise known as Big Data.

-         New software capabilities to help companies improve case management challenges such as social services, healthcare member enrollment and insurance claims in a more collaborative and efficient way. This includes enterprise content management, business process management, analytics, business rules and social software.

-         New industry specific analytic models for banks and insurance companies to meet regulatory compliance requirements such as Basel II.

To view a video of Michael Rhodin, senior vice president of IBM software solutions group discussing the importance of IBM's information and analytics business, click here.

As part of today's news, IBM is also announcing new customers such as Avis, FUJIFILM Imaging Colorants, Spain's Social Services Agency and Hildebrand who are turning to IBM to extract new insight from their data.

"The ability to identify and stay ahead of customers' ever-changing activities and needs is key to Avis Europe's competitiveness in the market, and one of the biggest benefits provided by IBM business analytics software," said Chris Parker, direct analytics specialist at Avis Europe. "By gaining intelligence from 'click-throughs' on email and past transactional behavior, we are able to generate a new level of insight and deliver personalized emails best suited to a customer's car preferences, such as convertible or SUV. With IBM business analytics, we have been able to transform our marketing campaigns, increase participation in our Avis 'Preferred' customer loyalty program, maximize revenues and cut costs by 50 percent."

To listen to Chris Parker of Avis Europe discuss the importance of analytics to his business, click here

With Analytics, Size Matters -- New Solutions Help Clients Analyze Massive Amounts of Data

Organizations and the Web are exploding with data and business professionals want to analyze that data -- both structured and unstructured such as feeds, tweets, videos and images -- to gain actionable insight. To help organizations benefit from these massive and new sources of information, IBM today unveiled a new portfolio of services and solutions called IBM InfoSphere BigInsights.

 

Powered by Apache Hadoop, an open source technology designed for analysis of big volumes of data, the new portfolio will help organizations analyze and visualize petabyte sized quantities of data. Consisting of specific analytics solutions that can be used by business professionals and easily be deployed by IT professionals in data center and cloud configurations, the portfolio includes:

-         A package of Apache Hadoop software and services, code named BigInsights Core, designed to help IT professionals quickly get started with Big Data analytics including design, installation, integration and monitoring. The package helps organizations quickly build and deploy custom analytics and workloads to capture insight from internet-scale volumes of data.

-         A software technology preview called BigSheets designed to help business professionals extract, annotate and visually uncover insights from vast amounts of information quickly and easily through a Web browser. BigSheets includes a plug-in framework extension for analytic engines and visualization software such as ManyEyes (to view a video demo click here).

-         Industry specific solutions for the finance, risk management and media and entertainment sectors that help clients get started with analysis of massive volumes of information.

Performing analytics on massive quantities of data enables people to spot patterns and uncover insights hidden in the information they have stored across their organization as well as data available via the web. For example, using the new offerings from IBM, a financial analyst could combine historical market data trends with historical currency fluctuations and current news feeds to better predict risk exposure. The new solution can also help an agricultural company integrate satellite imagery with water tables and weather data to analyze optimal planting techniques and locations.

Created in February 2006, following the acquisition of Avecia's electronic materials businesses by FUJIFILM, FUJIFILM Imaging Colorants (FFIC) has grown into a world leader in the development and supply of innovative, high performance colorants for the global digital printing market.

"Working with big volumes of financial and corporate data spread out across our global operations makes it challenging to provide timely and accurate information to headquarters and meet tight internal reporting deadlines," said Christine Proffitt, Financial Controller at FUJIFILM Imaging Colorants. "As our data grows, we will continue to rely on IBM analytics solutions to help management monitor business performance and make informed decisions based on clear, consistent, accurate and timely information."

Building on its commitment to open source projects such as Linux, Java, Eclipse and Apache, IBM is working with leaders in the Big Data community Cloudera and Karmasphere to expand and develop the use of Apache Hadoop for enterprises (to learn more click here). IBM's Apache Hadoop strategy brings together the best of IBM software, services and Research portfolio to provide organizations with analytics solutions for internet-scale data. InfoSphere BigInsights expands on IBM's analytics strategy, complementing InfoSphere Streams, SPSS, and Cognos Content Analytics with new Internet-scale analytics processing power.

Applying Analytics to Resolve Industry-Specific Challenges

Today, organizations are facing an increasing need to manage important case-related processes such as benefits enrollment, patient care, insurance claims, audits, and loan applications. To improve case outcomes in the face of growing information volumes, cost pressures and increasing regulations, organizations need to bring people, processes and information together with a deeper level of insight to make decisions with increased precision.

To address this challenge, IBM is launching a new strategy with end-to-end software capabilities called advanced case management. Advanced case management brings together IBM's expertise in enterprise content management, business process management, advanced analytics, business rules, collaboration and social software in one integrated approach, helping to enable users to better manage business activities such as requests for service, investigations and incidents management.

Advanced case management capabilities are designed to help cross-industry experts capture best practices in reusable templates, empowering users and accelerating return on investment. IBM's approach includes a new solutions design environment designed for business users and an integrated Web 2.0 user experience which brings IBM software capabilities together in role-based and context appropriate business scenarios.

Spain's Social Services Processes Claims 25 Percent Faster

The regional government of Castilla y Leon, one of Spain's 17 autonomous regions, administers a broad range of social programs through its Social Services agency with more than 50,000 people benefitting from the agency's social assistance programs for the disabled, elderly and younger, and child protection.

"Spain's recent passage of a law introducing new social benefits to the elderly and the disabled dramatically increased the number of cases entered into the system," Jose Maria Molina, Project Director, IT Department Social Services, Social Services Management, Family and Equal Opportunity Council, Junta de Castilla y Leon. "By combining the strengths of IBM software and services, we are dramatically reducing the time to process paperwork by 25%, allowing the staff to put more focus on handling exceptional cases. As each application is processed faster and more accurately, the agency can now deliver social benefits more efficiently."

IBM Accelerates Adoption of Analytics with New Industry Models

IBM is helping organizations implement an analytics strategy faster with the new InfoSphere Warehouse Pack for Market and Campaign Insight. This new software provides pre-packaged report templates and physical data warehouse tables needed to analyze key metrics such as understanding the purchase behaviors of customers, conversion rates for marketing leads, and overall marketing campaign effectiveness.

IBM is also providing an update to the IBM Industry Models, with a new release of IBM Industry Models for Banking and Insurance. These models help organizations to design databases to manage their data according to industry-specific business needs. For example, an insurance company is able to more quickly comply with Solvency II by using the models to design a data warehouse and create reports that meet the regulatory reporting requirements. The new releases include new process models for payments, wealth management, and consumer credit for Banking, along with updates for ACORD and Solvency II for Insurance.

To listen to Rob Ashe, general manager of IBM Business Analytics, discuss IBM's analytics strategy click here.

To check out the IOD EMEA 2010 online press kit, click here.

Follow along on Twitter: #IOD2010

For more information on InfoSphere BigInsights, click here

For more information on advanced case management, click here.  

Related Links:

IOD EMEA 2010 online press kit

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IBM Moves Predictive Analytics Into New Era by Giving Business Users 'Three Clicks' to Smart Decision Making

Unveils New Software that Automates the Ideal Course of Action for Millions of High-Value, High-Volume Decisions

ROME, - 19 May 2010: IBM (NYSE: IBM) today unveiled new software that places the power of predictive analytics directly into the hands of business users for faster, more insightful decision making.

To view the multimedia assets associated with this release, please click

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ibm-moves-predictive-analytics-into-new-era-by-giving-business-users-three-clicks-to-smart-decision-making-94211734.html

With three simple clicks, business users can now build a predictive model within a configurable web browser interface, and run simulations and "what-if" scenarios that compare and test the best business outcomes before the model is ever deployed into an operational system. Business users now have full control over the analytic process, enabling them to make accurate decisions in real-time, based on changes in strategy, customer buying patterns and behaviors, or fluctuating market conditions.

Starting today, IBM is delivering a new, configurable offering for the insurance industry, and another for marketing organizations within all business verticals. The first is designed to help identify fraudulent insurance claims, which account for approximately $30 billion in losses a year. The second manages every inbound customer and prospect interaction via call center, web, point-of-sale or email.

The new software, IBM SPSS Decision Management, combines predictive models, business rules and optimization to increase an organization's confidence to automatically deliver accurate, high-value, high-volume decisions at the appropriate point of customer interaction.

For example, a retailer may need to decide which customers should receive information about a new line of products. The marketing manager can quickly build a model to identify the customers likely to respond – based on past purchasing patterns, demographics, responses to previous offers – and include those customers in the new product campaign. However, before deploying the results the business user can first "tweak the dials" using a simple web interface, and run what-if scenarios on the results. This ensures the campaign will yield optimal results by targeting only high-value customers.

"IBM Business Analytics software delivers complete, consistent and accurate information that decision-makers trust to improve business performance," said Rob Ashe, general manager, business analytics at IBM.  "By making predictive analytics pervasive, and giving business users control of the technology, organizations can optimize the point of interaction, better anticipate change in real-time, and carry out strategies that improve outcomes. With today's announcement, we have empowered every single business user with the power of predictive analytics, so the best course of action can now be easily deployed into any operational system, minimizing the cost of bad decisions."

To listen to Rob Ashe discuss the importance of IBM SPSS Decision Management, click here.

Analytics Goes Mainstream by Giving Control to Business Users

As business users possess the deepest understanding of customers and how the organization functions, IBM SPSS Decision Management software now gives them a simple way to inject predictive analytics in the business process to ensure optimal outcomes. The new solution has simplified predictive analytics by offering a simple, "three click" automated modeling and scoring web interface.

Business users can set up data for quick and efficient modeling, select the best-performing models automatically and then get results in easy-to-interpret charts and graphs. Now, predictive models can be deployed in a fraction of the time it would take to build them manually. And, with the new simulation feature, business users can visually see the outcomes and do a comparison of the models and business rules, and change if necessary, before they are deployed.

This solution also enhances collaboration between business users and professional analysts by providing one framework to work together seamlessly. Business users can easily design and build models based on their own business scenarios, with their expert analysts validating and refining those models to improve results.

Create Customizable Solutions to Fit Industry-Specific Business Problems

Any organization can fully configure and customize the software to fit their specific business problem and industry vernacular, whether it's risk management for financial services, predicting part failures in manufacturing, or crime prevention in government. IBM is launching a series of industry specific solutions with IBM SPSS Decision Management. The first two will focus on customer interactions and insurance claims, with others to be added in the future.

According to Forrester Research, about 60 percent of companies evaluate their capabilities to be poor/below average for customer interaction management, and 62 percent cannot easily manage real-time scoring of customers. The new IBM SPSS Decision Management software for customer interactions helps organizations retain customers, grow revenue and drive profits by creating a personalized experience for every inbound customer and prospect via call center, web, point-of-sale or email. Users can now quickly and easily determine which inbound interactions are the best candidates for an up-sell, cross-sell or retention offer – and then offer personalized, real-time recommendations that have the greatest likelihood of acceptance by the customer.

For example, if a high-value retail banking customer dials into the call center to complain about a product or service, the new software may predict, based on the customer's data, that the individual is likely to churn. The information about the complaint, combined with the customer's history, can then be used to create a customized retention offer on the spot.

"With IBM predictive analytics software, we have transformed our marketing efforts and increased cross-sell and up-sell rates by better understanding customer needs and providing specific offers at the right time, with the right customer, and through the right channel," said Dirk Meggert, head of database marketing at DekaBank, one of the largest asset managers in Germany.  "For example, by analyzing data specific to customer transaction behavior, the organization can better identify a customer that would benefit from a CD account versus a line of equity, resulting in savings from campaigns focused on the wrong customer targets."

According to the Insurance Information Institute, fraud accounts for 10 percent of the property/casualty insurance industry's incurred losses and loss adjustment expenses, or about $30 billion a year. With the new IBM SPSS Decision Management software for claims, insurers can easily reduce settlement time and increase customer satisfaction through automated, real-time risk assessment. As a result, claims adjustors and others with in-depth business knowledge can quickly and easily define how risk should be assessed and automate the decisions made by the call center agent – who is directly speaking with a customer – to easily determine whether a claim is fraudulent.

For example, by using a combination of business rules and predictive models, the insurer can set up processes to identify claims that qualify for quick approval, as well as those that seem suspicious and require follow up. This means they can resolve most legitimate claims in a single interaction – increasing customer satisfaction and decreasing costs – and detect fraudulent cases at an earlier stage so that they can be routed for investigation.

Availability

IBM SPSS Decision Management is now available worldwide. Also available are two pre-packaged solutions – IBM SPSS Decision Management for Claims and IBM SPSS Decision Management for Customer Interactions.

For the IOD EMEA 2010 online press kit, click here

Follow along on Twitter: #IOD2010

To learn more about IBM business analytics please visit: www.ibm.com/gbs/bao

To learn more about SPSS, an IBM Company, please visit: http://www.spss.com

Follow developments on IBM Business Analytics at:

IBM Business Analytics & Optimization Online Press Kit

IBM Business Analytics & Optimization: Smarter Planet on Tumblr

IBM Business Analytics on Twitter

 

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 IBM Teams With Hildebrand to Bring Smart Metering to Homes Across Britain

Information and Analytics Help Consumers Make Better Decisions About Energy Usage While Reducing Costs

ROME, - 19 May 2010: IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced it is teaming with energy consultant Hildebrand to help consumers make more informed decisions about their energy consumption with IBM data management software. As part of this effort, citizens and companies are working together to make more efficient use of energy by collecting, storing and analyzing detailed energy usage information in real time from homes across the UK.

The Hildebrand monitoring system enables real-time analysis of electricity usage for households, or even for individual appliances, to help people make better decisions about energy efficiency in the home and minimize their environmental impact.

Hildebrand received funding from the Seventh Framework Programme for EU Research (FP7) for a 30-month research project that would allow stakeholders from local authorities, private businesses and universities to study energy monitoring and its effect on human behavior.

The Hildebrand project involves installing small, low-cost energy monitoring devices at groups of homes in five European cities: Birmingham, Bristol and Manchester in the UK, and Plovdiv and Ivanovo in Bulgaria. Each of these groups form a 'living lab,' giving the researchers access to real-world energy usage data, and allowing them to study the behavior of individuals and their attitudes towards energy management.

Homeowners can access this information online in a simple format that displays their electricity usage and perform analytics, such as calculating costs against the users' electricity tariff, or comparing their usage to the average for their group. The end result is that people can make more informed decisions about energy management and change their behavior in order to reduce electricity bills and minimize their environmental impact.

"Giving citizens more information and better control over their energy use will cut down on costs and consumption as well as reduce their overall impact on the environment," said Guido Bartels, General Manager of Energy & Utilities at IBM. "With this collaboration, we can demonstrate how smart and connected communities can be more energy conscious and in turn, more sustainable."

"IBM software delivered spectacular results. In the first proof-of-concept we simulated three million homes sending readings once a minute and we were able to capture nearly 50,000 readings per second using only a quad-core, dual-processor Intel server. In the second, we moved to a slightly larger server and found we could deliver analytics response times of between one and three seconds for a similar load," said Clive Eisen, Chief Technology Officer at Hildebrand. "You don't need to understand the technical details – the point is that suddenly, energy monitoring for three million homes or more became a practical proposition."

Traditional databases struggle to deal with time-series data (i.e. 'pulses' of data arriving at regular intervals from one or more sources), because their structure makes it difficult to store and index this data efficiently. Using IBM Informix however, Hildebrand was able to create a single database object for each data-source, and now simply updates it with the latest readings whenever a new 'pulse' of data arrives related to energy consumption. This provides a far more manageable information structure, which makes it easier to store, extract and analyze data.

IBM also recently announced that the city of Amsterdam is using IBM software to help 500 Amsterdam households cut energy bills and reduce CO2 emissions. This is part of the Amsterdam Smart City initiative in which citizens, governments and companies are working together to make more efficient use of energy, water and mobility to create a more sustainable city.

The Hildebrand solution is powered by IBM Informix database software, using the Time Series capability.

IBM Informix database software has been voted #1 in customer satisfaction by VendorRate.

For more perspective on the Hildebrand smart metering project in Europe, visit the Smarter Planet blog (http://asmarterplanet.com) for a post from Hildebrand's CTO, Clive Eisen.

To view a video of Guido Bartels, General Manager of Energy & Utilities at IBM, discussing Hildebrand and energy use click here.

IBM is working with clients in more than 100 Smart Grid engagements across emerging and mature markets. For more information about IBM's smart grid initiative, go to http://www.ibm.com/press/us/en/presskit/27725.wss and http://www.ibm.com/energy

IBM and the IBM logo are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation in the United States, or other countries, or both. All other names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

To check out the IOD EMEA 2010 online press kit, click here.  

Follow along on Twitter: #IOD2010