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Improve the productivity and value of existing resources

Smart moves in tough times, part 2



One of the strategies presented in the IBM Institute for Business Value's report on succeeding in a new economic environment is to do more with less. This second part of the Smart Moves in Tough Times solution profile series shows you software that can help you do that by boosting the value and productivity of what you already have: your people, your business processes, your information and your IT systems and assets. Discover software and tools to help you improve their value and tap their potential productivity.

 

More productive people

Increase customer loyalty with self-service portals

It’s never been more critical to keep customers. According to an IBM survey of 30,000 consumers, 91% are sacrificing in some area of spending and 59% have less discretionary budget.1 Self-service portals can bring added productivity to your service staff, improve service quality and boost loyalty. They feature accelerators that make it easy and cost-efficient to deploy content, automate processes, manage performance, build mashups and more.

Empower business users to build applications and deliver information

If business users can deliver information and functionality themselves, and do it in a secure sustainable way, it’s a win-win in today’s economy: That’s the productive promise of mashups: Savvy users respond with agility to specific situations and expert IT resources are deployed where truly needed. IBM Mashup Center is a lightweight mashup environment to help you unlock and transform enterprise, Web, personal and departmental information into consumable assets, including information feeds and widgets.

Give business users the power to adjust processes and improve agility
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Changing business rules and processes can be a lengthy process – and one that often makes business and IT professionals adversaries, rather than partners. Business Rule Management software from IBM ILOG enables business analysts to adjust the behavior of applications and processes to respond to shifting business needs and achieve significant market gains – with little or no reliance on IT.

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More productive processes

Automate your manual processes

Like your employees and business assets, your business processes are vital to maximizing value. Through Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) and composite applications, processes can be automated to improve the speed and agility of your response to market demands. With IBM software for Business Process Management (BPM), you can achieve payback in 12 months or less.

Integrate your applications for greater productivity

Today’s IT staffs spend a great deal of time maintaining point-to-point application interfaces to support processes. Holistic and efficient connectivity solutions are needed to integrate applications and enable SOA. IBM has been a leader in integration for years and has solutions from hardware appliances to transaction and messaging software to help you get the connectivity you need to make your applications more productive across your organization

Optimize processes with electronic forms

It’s more than electronic forms. It’s a way to accelerate process automation and really boost performance and productivity, while saving time and cutting operational costs. Reduce transaction times. Reduce costly errors. Extend process efficiencies to customers and across your supply chain.

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More productive information

Make better decisions with IBM Cognos Reporting

Decision makers and their teams struggle daily with a pandemic problem: How can I get the information I need the way I need it to make smart business decisions? It’s possible with tools from IBM Cognos®. Cognos reporting capabilities can provide a single tool that adapts to many data sources and can be personalized to the roles of key stakeholders. The result is better decisions and better business outcomes.

No paper weight

Much of employees’ time is spent searching for information. By digitizing, retaining and controlling your paper documents you can help them retrieve the information they need – fast. Plus, a paperless solution can help meet compliance demands. Spend less time meeting compliance requirements (and possibly litigation) and more time running your business. Save time and money.

Lower your costs and get more from your storage

Your data is indispensable to your productivity. With IBM DB2® Version 9.7 you can not only leverage your data, you can lower the costs of storing it. The pure XML, deep compression technology of IBM DB2 9.5 has been enhanced and extended in 9.7.

Use your information to meet compliance demands and more

Information and content to meet compliance is more difficult to retrieve than you might think. Enter IBM eDiscovery. It collects, organizes, manages, and retrieves relevant enterprise information in a security-rich, auditable manner. Proactively get ahead of regulatory demands and improve productivity through a more structured, comprehensive approach to content and information management.

Get more from the finance department

Finance departments can do more than balance the books. They can help guide your business – especially important in a challenging economic climate. But they need trusted information and insight. IBM Cognos Financial Performance Management solutions deliver reliable forecasts to align costs with business activity, enable analysts to make reports more useful by creating their own models and improve your ability to measure, analyze and optimize performance.

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More productive systems and IT assets

Automate the data center

Inefficiency and poor productivity can plague the data center. Servers are underutilized. Repetitive tasks are not automated. Server availability stands in the way of critical business initiatives. Technical skills are squandered on fixing problems rather than innovating and improving service delivery. IBM Data Center Automation software can help you transform the data center into a hive of productivity by automating the tasks that manage your virtual and physical infrastructure.

Consolidate your systems management software

What if your IT teams could consolidate and centrally manage networks, operations and performance through a single “pane of glass?” Complexity goes down and productivity goes up. The productivity of your IT assets goes up, too, through improved availability and service delivery. IBM Tivoli® Netcool® solutions can help you do it.

Modernize the enterprise for System z

The mainframe can be a powerhouse of productivity. IBM Rational® offers enterprise modernization solutions for IBM System z® that can help you improve developer productivity and renew the value of core applications, and help teams work more collaboratively and productively in a unified environment.

Reuse applications to start fast and lower costs

Real business agility starts at the foundation. IBM WebSphere® Application Server enables developers and IT architects to build, reuse, run, integrate and manage SOA applications and services quickly and efficiently. As a result, you can release new products and services faster, while reusability helps you hold the line on costs.

Increase service reuse and reduce redundancy

One of the big advantages of a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) is the ability to reuse services across your enterprise, rather than duplicating applications for separate departments and functions. Doing so effectively requires managing services across their lifecycle. IBM WebSphere Service Registry and Repository enables you to easily and quickly publish, find, enrich, manage and govern services and policies. Increase reuse while you reduce costs, and improve application maintenance productivity.

Build in productivity when you build in security

IBM Rational web application security solutions stop security threats by incorporating security measures in the development process. They can be used for web application vulnerability scanning in all stages of development and by testers with or without security expertise. The result is greater productivity for your entire organization by avoiding damaging and time-consuming security breaches.

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SOURCES:

  1. GMA Direct Store Delivery Research, June 2002

NOTICE: This information is provided to you as an example of potential benefits which could be obtained through the use of IBM products. They are provided for illustrative purposes only. Actual results achieved are dependent on a variety of factors and may vary substantially from those described in these materials This information is provided with no representations or warranties of any kind either express or implied. IBM disclaims all warranties, including, but not limited to, implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. IBM does not warrant or make any representations regarding the use, validity, accuracy or reliability of the example or the results of the use of the statements of cost savings. In no event shall IBM be liable for any damages, including those arising as a result of IBM's negligence, whether those damages are direct, consequential, incidental, or special, flowing from your use or inability to use the cost savings examples or information provided herewith or results of the information use even if IBM has advised of the possibility of such damages. The ultimate responsibility for achieving the calculated results remains with you.

Do More With Less

A new podcast series shows you how to solve IT challenges with limited resources

Listen to the experts

Smart moves in tough times

Part 1:
Reduce costs while you boost performance

Part 3:
Software to help you focus on customers and business relationships

Part 4:
Software to help you analyze customer needs and opportunities