IBM Redefines Social Business with the Power of Analytics


Bangalore: IBM unveiled new software and services that bring the power of big data analytics into the hands of today's social savvy workforce anytime, anywhere. Now, organizations can apply analytics to their social business initiatives, allowing them to gain actionable insight on information generated on networks and put it to work in real-time.

As part of the news, IBM is announcing the availability of its industry-leading social software platform, IBM Connections. IBM Connections incorporates sophisticated analytics capabilities, real-time data monitoring, and faster collaborative networks both inside and outside the organization, whether on premise, in the IBM SmartCloud or using the broadest range of mobile devices. View the demo today.

The rise of social media is prompting business leaders, from the CMO to the chief HR officer to the CIO, to evaluate how to create opportunities that drive business transformation through the use of social technology, creating real business value. According to Forrester Research, the market opportunity for social enterprise apps is expected to grow at a rate of 61 percent through 2016.

At the same time, business leaders lack the tools to gain insight into the enormous stream of information and use it in a meaningful way.  According to IBM's CEO Study, today only 16 percent of CEOs are using social business platforms to connect with customers, but that number is poised to spike to 57 percent within the next three to five years. A recent IBM study of more than 1,700 chief marketing officers reveals 82 percent plan to increase their use of social media over the next three to five years.

"To truly realize the full potential of a social business, leaders need to empower a company's most vital asset - the information being generated from its people," said Himanshu Goyal, Country Manager - IBM Social Business & Collaboration Solutions IBM Software Group, India/SA. "Now is the time for business leaders to embed social into their key business processes to shift their business from the era of "liking" to "leading."

Available on premise, in the cloud, and on the broadest range of mobile devices, IBM Connections integrates activity streams, calendaring, wikis, blogs, a new email capability, and more, and flags relevant data for action. It allows for instant collaboration with one simple click and the ability to build social, secure communities both inside and outside the organization to increase customer loyalty and speed business results. The new Connections mail capability provides simplified access to email with the context of the social networking environment.

Now, organizations can integrate and analyze massive amounts of data generated from people, devices and sensors and more easily align these insights to business processes to make faster, more accurate business decisions. By gaining deeper insights in customer and market trends and employees' sentiment, businesses can uncover critical patterns to not only react swiftly to market shifts, but predict the effect of future actions.