ARMONK, N.Y., Aug.
25, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) today
announced the results of a global study that revealed 80 percent of
leading enterprises are forming new partnerships with "citizen
developers," industry professionals operating outside the scope of
enterprise IT. These citizen developers help to close the skills
gap for application development to drive greater collaboration and
innovation across cloud, analytics, mobile and social
technologies.
"Raising the Game: The IBM Business Tech Trends Report" was
conducted by the IBM Center for Applied Insights and is based
on responses from more than 1,400 IT and business decision makers
in 15 industries across five continents. The survey found that 40
percent of all organizations still report moderate-to-major skills
gaps across cloud, analytics, mobile and
social technologies, despite these technologies being
recognized as the drivers for key innovations.
The study examined common traits of "pacesetters," leading
organizations that are achieving tangible business results from
cloud, analytics, mobile and social technologies. Pacesetters are
finding creative new ways to narrow the skills gaps in their
organization, including gaps in general IT skills,
application development or data analytics. One way pacesetters are
filling these gaps is via partnerships with citizen developers, an
emerging group of industry professionals who create new business
applications and help with IT decisions as a side venture --
outside of their regular work responsibilities.
In addition to turning to citizen developers, these pacesetter
organizations are twice as likely to turn to academia for product
development and 70 percent are more likely to engage with start-ups
for execution.
Tapping the Power of the Crowd
Organizations that actively crowdsource ideas and technology assets
with customers, partners and academia drive deeper engagement
for positive results, according to the survey findings.
For example, Esri, an IBM Business Partner and a leading
developer of geographic information systems (GIS) software,
regularly uses sites such as Github, a repository for open source
code, to share and build apps for cloud, analytics, mobile and
social technologies. In regard to its own product roadmap,
Esri also conducts hackathons and application challenges that drive
creativity and product feedback.
For example, Esri recently sponsored a "climate resiliency app
challenge" that was won by a student team from the University of Minnesota working on a semester-long
project to assess solar suitability in Minnesota.
"Through our efforts in events like hackathons and application
challenges that appeal to citizen developers, we ensure that we
have a pulse on what leading edge developers would like to do with
geospatial - and all of this informs our own roadmap," said
Robin Jones, director, platform
adoption, Esri. "The outcomes are fast, beneficial and
interesting for everyone."
Providing Better Customer Experience through the
Cloud
The study indicated that pacesetter organizations are
four to seven times more likely to use cloud technology to
deliver social, mobile, and big data and analytics
capabilities. Fifty-five percent of pacesetters are using mobile
solutions via the cloud and are five times more likely to deliver
social business solutions via the cloud than their competitors.
eyeQ, which provides in-store retail solutions that mimic the
online store experience, is one example of a company combining
cloud-based solutions built on IBM's cloud platform-as-a-service
(PaaS), IBM Bluemix. Bluemix uses powerful analytics to help brick
and mortar stores harness ecommerce capabilities to help eyeQ
better engage with its in-store customers. In addition, eyeQ
customers can leverage mobile location data to opt-in via text
message to receive a seamless personal and targeted in-store
shopping experience.
Another example of a company helping organizations better
integrate cloud, mobile and social technologies is Hootsuite, which
provides a widely used social relationship platform.
Hootsuite delivers a comprehensive cloud platform so organizations
can better integrate public and company social networks, such as
IBM Connections, to increase efficiency and productivity while
streamlining internal collaboration. The integration between IBM
Connections and Hootsuite allows users to improve collective
intelligence by empowering users to share knowledge across an
organization, increase coordination and project management, and
save time by unifying multiple messages across different social
networks.
Unlocking the Power of Analytics to Drive
Results
Real-time business demands real-time results, a
concept that pacesetters have fully embraced by implementing a
strong analytical foundation across business functionalities. The
study found that nearly 90 percent of respondents have mature big
data and analytics capabilities, while 60 percent plan to increase
investment in this area by 10 percent or more over the next two
years.
Additionally, the study found nearly seven out of 10 pacesetter
organizations make analytical insights a significant part of their
decision-making process.
Fiserv, a global financial services technology provider and IBM
Business Partner, has made analytics integral to its business. With
a deep integration of analytics in its banking and payments
solutions, Fiserv helps its financial institution clients gain
deeper insights into customer trends and behaviors.
Through a focus on analytics, Fiserv worked with an $8 billion savings bank to strengthen customer
relationships and spur mobile banking and electronic bill pay
adoption. Fiserv provided analytical solutions to help identify
individual customer groups for targeted marketing efforts that
helped the institution gain substantial increases in mobile banking
and bill pay utilization across its customer base.
"The 2014 Business Tech Trends report illustrates how IBM
Business Partners and clients are leading their industries due to
their use of cloud, analytics, mobile and social technologies,"
said Sandy Carter, IBM general
manager of ecosystem development. "Companies are no longer just
dipping their toes into the water with these key technologies.
Pacesetter organizations are diving in and adopting them broadly
across their business while also identifying new ways to partner
and gain the skills and capabilities necessary to outperform their
competitors."
For more information about the 2014 IBM Business Tech Trends
Report, please visit: http://www.ibm.com/ibmcai/biztechtrends.
Media Contact:
Liz
Campbell
IBM External Communications (US)
Email: lcampbell@us.ibm.com
Phone: +1 617-693-2718
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SOURCE IBM