IBM Information Agenda for your industry

Automotive manufacturers are faced with increasing global pressures. These include:

• creating differentiated, market desired products and services to reinforce brand values
• capitalizing on worldwide sales, production and sourcing opportunities
• managing costs in the face of global competition and regulatory compliance

The information agenda for Automotive manufacturers helps them address these issues by making available intelligent, reliable, and real-time information to improve and manage core business processes, product development, supply chain and production, and sales and aftermarket service.

Market disruptions, mergers and acquisitions, global competition, information spread across the enterprise – all are concerns and challenges that are very real today in banking. Banks realize they must address three key business imperatives:

• Improve Customer Care and Insight
• Manage Governance, Risk and Compliance
• Increase Operational Efficiency

To thrive in this challenging landscape, banks are turning to information management strategies to leverage their existing resources to become more competitive.

IBM can help overcome these challenges and unleash the power of your information by helping you develop an information agenda. An information agenda is a comprehensive, enterprise-wide plan that IT, working with line-of-business colleagues, creates and implements to achieve both short- and long-term strategic objectives.

To assist in this effort, IBM has developed a number of tools and services to put your organization on the fast track to information management excellence. There are:

• Banking-specific Information Agenda Guides and Workshops
• Banking Information Agenda Roadmaps
• Foundational Tools
• IBM Competency Centers
• IBM Accelerators, including banking data and process models, pre-integrated applications, business blueprints, software frameworks and much more.
• Enterprise Content Management solutions (US)

There is unprecedented change taking place in the chemical & petroleum industry today. Everything from consolidation, green energy initiatives, energy trading, carbon credit trading, replacing an aging infrastructure, capturing information from an aging workforce, increased regulatory oversight, concerns over cyber security, planning and managing new construction, and pressure to improve financial performance. The world continues to look to chemical & petroleum companies to take a lead role in environmental issues.

The key to managing these activities is successfully managing all of the information in your enterprise. Successful C&P companies will be those that find a way to make the information work as a strategic resource for competitive advantage. Those that don’t have a plan will be frustrated and overwhelmed with all of this information.

With an Information Agenda for chemicals & petroleum in place, CIOs and senior IT managers have many of the tools needed to make the essential transition from simply supporting the business to making a measurable, sustainable contribution to the business bottom line.

Using the Information Agenda guide can help chemical & petroleum companies:

• Provide an integrated view of trusted information
• Increase asset availability and hence revenues
• Improve safety of operations
• Support new strategic initiatives with an integrated information framework
• Improve regulatory compliance
• Better manage partnerships
• Capture and manage information from an aging workforce
• Manage energy and carbon credit trading activities

Most important, consistently delivering trusted information to the right people, at the right time, gives organizations the ability to use that information in entirely new ways and improve business operations.

Convergence is causing the Communications industry to undergo a massive transformation. Communications Service Providers are being challenged to:

• Increase revenue with new offerings and reduced expenses
• Deploy new services quickly
• Provide superior customer experience

IBM can help Communications Service providers to develop an information agenda - a structured approach to unlocking the value of information. An information agenda is the strategic vision and roadmap for organizations to:

• Identify and prioritize projects that deliver a return
• Identify what data and content is important to the organization
• Identify how and when it should be made available
• Determine what capabilities are required to support and access it and
• Determine what management processes and governance practices are required to sustain the plan.
• Align the use of information to match the organizations business strategy
• Create and deploy an information infrastructure that meets immediate needs and future needs

In a flat and declining Retail environment, Consumer Products companies are facing tremendous pressure to grow their categories in the face of increasing macro-economic challenges (changing consumer buying behavior, increased cost of commodity materials, and the explosion of fuel prices). The lifeblood of any CP companies revolves around four key strategic imperatives:

1. Delivering Innovation Driven By Consumer Insight
2. Driving Profitable Growth Through Improved Value Chain Collaboration
3. Operating Responsibly and Profitably With Full Supply Chain Visibility
4. Building Brand Awareness and Loyalty

Over the years, transformations led by an 'Application Agenda' have provided some benefits. However, without the right focus on an 'information agenda,' CP companies will not achieve the ability to understand and more effectively meet consumer needs and wants, effectively collaborate with Retail to drive more relevant shopper programs. drive inefficiencies out of the supply chain, and ultimately, provide product 'stickiness' the marketplace.

To get started on the right path, IBM Information On Demand has numerous asset-based approaches designed to set our clients on the right path. They include Information Agenda briefings and briefing centers for concept validation, IOD workshops to generate key business requirements, and Solution Roadmap expertise to set our CP clients on a path toward achieving business results. Once started, IBM IOD has the full Lifecycle of integrated software assets, process and governance expertise, and industry experience to help our CP clients embark on an Information Agenda journey.

There is unprecedented change taking place in the energy & utility industry today. Everything from consolidation, green energy initiatives, energy trading, carbon credit trading, replacing an aging infrastructure, installing an Intelligent Utilities Network, managing information from an aging workforce, increased regulatory oversight, concerns over cyber security, planning and managing new construction, pressure to improve financial performance, all while satisfying an increasing demand for better customer service.

The key to managing these activities is successfully managing all of the information in the enterprise. Successful energy & utility companies will be those that find a way to make the information work as a strategic resource. Those that don’t have a plan will be frustrated and overwhelmed with all of this information.

With an Information Agenda for energy & utilities in place, CIOs and senior IT managers have many of the tools needed to make the essential transition from simply supporting the business to making a measurable, sustainable contribution to the business’ bottom line.

Using the Information Agenda can help energy & utility companies:

• Provide an integrated view of trusted information
• Increase asset availability and hence revenues
• Improve safety of operations
• Increase customer insight and customer satisfaction
• Support new strategic initiatives with an integrated information framework
• Improve regulatory compliance
• Reduce bad debt by better understanding the customer
• Capture and manage information from an aging workforce
• Manage energy and carbon credit trading activities

Most important, consistently delivering trusted information to the right people, at the right time, gives organizations the ability to use that information in entirely new ways and improve business operations.

Current market dynamics, an increasingly empowered consumer and business complexity will challenge carriers to innovate for continued competitiveness. Innovation in insurance products, services and distribution systems necessitate innovating with information - finding new and better ways to leverage enterprise information to drive real business value. Insurance organizations realize they must address three key business imperatives:

• Create a Customer Centric Organization
• Manage Risk and Compliance
• Operational Excellence

To thrive in this challenging landscape, carriers are turning to information management strategies to leverage their existing resources to become more competitive.

IBM can help overcome these challenges and unleash the power of your information by helping you develop an information agenda. An information agenda is a comprehensive, enterprise-wide plan that IT, working with line-of-business colleagues, creates and implements to achieve both short- and long-term strategic objectives.

To assist in this effort, IBM has developed a number of tools and services to put you organization on the fast track to information management excellence. There are:

• Insurance-specific Information Agenda Guides and Workshops
• Insurance Information Agenda Roadmaps
• Foundational Tools
• IBM Competency Centers
• IBM Accelerators, including insurance data and process models, pre-integrated applications, business blueprints, software frameworks and much more.

In the heavily regulated and scrutinized drug industry there is a shifting balance of power between Pharma and its customers. Governments, healthcare insurers and patients are increasingly dictating the sort of new drugs they want and the prices they are willing to pay. In short, it is the healthcare payers – not the drug makers – that are now defining the threshold of innovation. In order to grow in this environment, Pharmaceutical companies are focused around four key strategic imperatives:

1. Transforming R&D To Accelerate Innovation
2. Optimizing Supply Chain and Manufacturing
3. Driving Sales and Marketing Performance
4. Building Treatment Awareness and Loyalty.

Forces driving this industry-wide transformation in healthcare have lead to business and IT Innovations, however, these transformations have often been focused on process transformations and a supporting 'Application Agenda.' Without the right focus on an 'Information Agenda,' Pharma companies will not be able to develop products and therapeutic packages that demonstrably surpass the drugs that are already on the market (the hurdle governments and healthcare insurers will set in deciding when to pay premium prices), drive inefficiencies out of the supply chain, more effectively collaborate with Pharmacies, Doctors, and Regulators, and more effectively market specific treatments to specific ailments.

To get started on the right path, IBM Information has numerous asset-based approaches designed to set our Pharma clients on the right path. They include Information Agenda briefings and briefing centers for concept validation, IOD workshops to generate key business requirements, and Solution Roadmap expertise to set Pharma clients on a path toward achieving business results. Once started, IBM IOD has the full Lifecycle of integrated software assets, process and governance expertise, and industry experience to help our CP clients embark on an Information Agenda journey.

Retailers are grappling with evolving buying behavior, a more demanding consumer, issues of environmental impact, social responsibility, global supply chains, compliance and information security. These forces are driving companies to develop new business models. For example, some retailers are now offering services in addition to merchandise. This blurring of segments creates opportunity for retailers to expand their businesses, and also intense competition as the number of competitors increases.

Emerging technology is also transforming the retail landscape. Mobile and self-service devices have made dramatic advances in functionality and reliability. Technology has made it easier for individuals to become creators as well as consumers of products.

The Retail industry is responding to these challenges by adopting three key imperatives:

1. Deliver a superior shopping experience by providing personalized services that enable every customer to shop however, whenever and wherever they choose. Lack of trusted customer and product information across the enterprise has made this imperative impossible.
2. Create demand-driven merchandising and supply chains that are fully integrated and driven by consumer insights that align products and services with anticipated shopper demand. This imperative requires that information be securely shared across many enterprise locations and with trading partners. Most companies still don’t have this full capability.
3. Drive operational excellence through integrated systems and processes that deliver analytical insights for fast development and deployment of new capabilities. The ability to make enterprise information an asset and use those assets to effectively analyze, plan, monitor and optimize business performance is a work in progress for most companies but still far from complete.

One business requirement ranks at the top across all three of these imperatives - effective use of enterprise information. IBM’s Infosphere Information Management products together provide all these capabilities. IBM can help you develop an industry specific roadmap for your business to get from where you are today to where you need to be.