Overview
Across all industries and sectors, how companies acquire, manage, analyze, and use information has evolved to new levels of need and sophistication. Successful companies must now recognise and utilise information as a strategic asset. Information, when turned into business insight, allows more people throughout the enterprise to act more quickly, more accurately, and with greater success. Information can drive new control and better performance for companies who harness its power.
Information On Demand (IOD) is our overarching approach and value proposition for optimising the use of information and insight at large, complex enterprises. IOD provides solutions and services that allow our clients to get more value from their information assets. We accomplish this goal by delivering information in context to optimise business processes, productivity, and decision-making throughout the enterprise. IOD brings together the global expertise, services, software, hardware, research, and partner network to leverage information and solve our clients' most important and complex business problems.
Imperative: Information must be treated as a strategic asset
Today, companies often struggle with gaining the insight they need to make critical business decisions quickly, accurately, and effectively. This insight is often needed for use at the forefront of innovation, driving new strategies and enabling competitive differentiation. Decisions are made throughout the organisation, from back office financial controls all the way to developing market intelligence. Some of the top challenges business leaders face include increasing employee productivity, improving business processes, managing risk and compliance, improving the supply chain, and better understanding and meeting customer expectations. In all of these challenges, the use of information is critical to the success of the endeavor.
Unfortunately, much of this information is inaccessible, inaccurate, or difficult to obtain quickly. This is largely due to the proliferation of information that exists in a variety of forms and data sources. Most enterprises suffer from divisional, geographic and other organisational silos that lead to inconsistency of data definitions and processes. Trusted information is not available when needed. The cost of information integration is often too steep or too difficult to justify. The resulting inflexibility limits a company's adaptability and agility, placing them in a constant state of delayed reactions and unsure footing.
Companies with information issues often have them manifested in real challenges, such as:
- Too much information and not knowing what's important: Issues include not using demand signals to drive supply chain, not using customer analysis to tailor marketing and sales, and not leveraging valuable unstructured information.
- Multiple versions of the truth: Issues include problems managing customer, product and partner interactions, and regulatory compliance inhibited by poor transparency.
- Lack of trusted information: Issues include incomplete, out-of-date, inaccurate, misinterpreted data and a difficulty to understand or control how information is used.
- Lack of agility: Issues include an inability to take advantage of opportunities for innovation, and escalating costs due to inflexible systems and changing needs.
IBM's Global CEO Study revealed that one of the most significant obstacles to innovation is insufficient access to information, insufficient access to information, inflexible infrastructure, and inadequate enabling technology. In the new world of information excellence, where companies have begun to recognise the value of quality information, they are able to control and access that information where and when they need it. Information is available "on demand" during both critical and routine decision points, available in formats that provide instant insight and enable intelligent actions. Through a flexible information architecture they receive "information in context", meaning decision makers receive the insight they need as it relates to the problem at hand. They are able to acquire a real-time, single view of the truth and achieve true adaptive business performance. In the new world, they use information to drive innovation and become a strategic differentiator.
When companies seek to transform the information process across the enterprise and take advantage of information as a strategic asset, they must often transform their data and information processes at a foundational level. They should also embed useful information so that business processes take advantage of analytics by design and therefore the enterprise requires fewer "analytics experts". For example, a call centre rep does not need to understand details of analytical models, but simply needs to know what kind of an offer to present a customer at the time of need. They must evaluate their needs and the opportunities for greater insight within their business. They need to understand the needs of the business users. They must understand where and how data and information processes currently exist, and how they can integrate or improve those processes to provide more business value. Ultimately, the organisation must take a bold step forward, implementing new solutions that combine people, process, governance, technology, and infrastructure.
IBM Global Business Services helps companies succeed with information through Information On Demand
IBM understands the challenges and opportunities companies face when gathering and using information to generate insights and better decisions. IBM also understands that transforming information capabilities requires more than software or technology. It requires a smart strategy, a compelling business case, careful planning, and a thoughtful way to manage human change and build intelligent practices. Information On Demand (IOD) brings together the best IBM resources to deliver comprehensive solutions to complex enterprise environments. In addition to the best information technologies, IOD brings together best practices, comprehensive strategy and planning capabilities, proven models and methods, reference architecture, and experienced resources to meet the entirety of the clients' transformation needs.
IBM offers IOD solutions across all industries, covering Business Performance Management, Operational Intelligence, Risk and Compliance Management, Threat and Fraud Intelligence, Workforce and Customer Analytics, Productivity, and Supply Chain Management. Across these areas, span four common disciplines which each bring their own set of challenges, opportunities, best practices, and distinctive approaches for making them a reality. These disciplines are enabled by IOD strategy and planning and data governance:
- Master Data Management is an enterprise-wide program where companies reconcile and govern their key data domains (i.e. customers, products, location) to create a consistent and single view of the data and their relationships, creating a system of record and a "single version of the truth".
- Information Integration is the practice of interfacing and/or integrating key systems and databases to optimise the use, analysis and effectiveness of operational and analytical data between different applications. Integration initiatives drive to transform data into information in order to improve process efficiency, enhance data quality, and enable analytics.
- Content Management includes improving an enterprise's ability to understand, programmise, automate and distribute content and other unstructured data throughout the organisation. Sophisticated organisations are able to analyze unstructured data sources in new ways, driving insight and analysis from their content stores.
- Business Intelligence is the discipline of measuring performance by transforming operational data into analytics and insights. More than reporting, Business Intelligence provides leaders with information for critical business decisions at the point of need.
IBM Global Business Services (GBS) enables enterprises to start IOD at the beginning: by understanding the information environment and building a comprehensive strategy. We understand that information is not just about data, but also about the business processes and decisions it enables. IBM GBS helps companies define a path forward with IOD via a strategic vision and blueprint. IBM helps companies create a case for change and a compelling, ROI-driven business case. Most importantly, IBM understands what is necessary to bring all the elements together in a way that keeps the company engaged and motivated to change, including aligning stakeholders across the organisation and enabling a long-term, sustainable IOD governance model.
Companies begin their IOD journey with IBM with several valuable first steps:
- IOD Readiness Assessment: a diagnostic appraisal and evaluation of the client's state of information management, integration and consistency vis-?vis their business requirements.
- Information Maturity Assessment: an analysis of an organisation's use of information against a standard baseline of best practices resulting in a prescriptive action plan to address the highest priority issues.
- IOD Architecture Workshop: a technical workshop to identify an enterprise's information pain points, introduce and review IBM's information architecture capabilities, and map and define specific solution architectures and project initiatives to mitigate the pain points.
- IOD Pilot: a short feasibility project undertaken to study and evaluate effectiveness of IOD capabilities and proposed "to-be" architecture.
Why IBM?
IBM delivers distinct advantages to our clients in delivering IOD solutions. We are recognised across industries as leaders in Business Intelligence (BI), and our expansive portfolio of successful IOD engagements and successful client transformations is testament to our capabilities. IBM brings together the global expertise, services, software, hardware, research, and partner network to solve the most important and complex information intensive issues for our clients. Some of IBM's advantages include:
- IOD experienced practice groups: Dedicated, experienced practitioners in Business Intelligence with deep industry and domain experience, with a robust, mature knowledge network and infrastructure representing over 20 years of combined experience.
- IOD integrated approach: IBM brings a holistic approach from strategy and value case definition, through implementation, ongoing management, and value realisation.
- IOD Proven methodologies: Our consultants bring proven strategy and transformation methodologies and industry best practices to our engagements.
- Dedicated IOD Centres of Excellence and Research: Three dedicated IOD COEs and ongoing research and investments in developing IOD solutions.
- Reference Architecture, Accelerators and Assets: Our existing accelerators and assets enable us to bring best practices to bear early and quickly, speeding the "time to value" in our engagements.
