IBM Introduces New Software and Cloud Services to Help Companies Improve Processes, Automate Decisions

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Oct 12, 2010, 11:12 ET

ARMONK, N.Y., Oct. 12 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) today introduced new software and cloud services that accelerate business processes, helping clients deliver better results and expanding IBM's leadership in business process management (BPM).

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IBM's new Blueworks Live offering brings together process documentation and social community elements with more than 20,000 members and over 200,000 processes already modeled and documented. The new cloud service also adds a new ability to structure and automate ad hoc processes in 90 seconds that businesses currently run over email and attachments. Blueworks Live combines and delivers these in one cloud offering starting at $10 per user per month.

IBM's newest business process management cloud offering, Blueworks Live provides a more cost-efficient way for businesses to acquire and use information technology (IT) with IBM's reputation for security, reliability and integration. According to IDC, public IT cloud services will grow at over five times the rate of traditional information technology (IT) products. Worldwide revenue from public IT cloud services exceeded $16 billion in 2009 and is forecast to reach $55.5 billion in 2014, representing a compound annual growth rate of 27.4%.*

"75 percent of our customers' processes today are conducted using email or spreadsheet and document attachments," said Marie Wieck, IBM General Manager for Application Integration Middleware. "Blueworks Live is a revolutionary tool for the masses, opening the door to valuable business user involvement and insight into processes not addressed by business process management tools in the past."

With Blueworks Live, employees can start quickly improving simple processes such as new marketing promotional campaigns, employee on-boarding, and sales quote approvals, gaining greater visibility, understanding, insight and control. Business users can easily interact with their departmental colleagues and can collaborate through a private and secure company work stream, choosing to easily follow any updates to roles, processes, and more, which are updated in this Facebook-like stream view. Managers and team members can instantly see the status of work in progress via built-in dashboards and reports.

Blueworks Live provides intuitive discovery and documentation capabilities for even the most complex processes. One client, PRC, is using these capabilities as part of its integrated call center operations. "Everyone is engaged in the process and people are participating," said Rachel Pace-Maron, Director of Operations, PRC. "It has really worked out very well. This is as easy as it looks."

Lincoln Trust, one of the country's leading independent providers of trust and custodial services, is using process documentation and analysis as a key tool in their BPM projects. "We now have tools to map out, study and improve all of our processes. They are user friendly and logical. I'm excited that we've embraced the BPM technology and culture that supports the way we want to manage our business," said LaTeca Fields, Business Analyst-Specialized Support Services.

As part of their BPM solution with IBM, Lincoln Trust has seen a 90 percent reduction in customer complaints due to lost or mishandled documents and achieved an overall cost savings to date of $2.2 million.

IBM WebSphere Decision Server Automates High-volume Operational Decisions

A key to improving business processes is automating decisions to streamline process design and execution and make better, faster decisions. IBM is adding a new technology to its market leadership in Business Rules Management Systems - WebSphere Decision Server. This decision management software, for example, can deliver more dynamic marketing promotions and pricing, better fraud detection and prevention, and more refined risk assessments.

This product builds on IBM's growing decision management portfolio, joining SPSS Decision Management which allows business users to set up industry-specific data for quick, efficient modeling, providing predictive analytics to business users.

By combining Business Rules Management technologies with WebSphere Decision Server, IBM enables organizations to detect and react to defined data patterns as they occur and provide the appropriate decision response based on a variety of factors, including business policies and best practices or regulatory requirements.

For example, EMT, a leading mobile telecommunications provider, owns and operates network infrastructure and develops and markets services and solutions around the world. Using IBM ILOG software, EMT back-office staff can now create rules that define how campaigns and services will be used and whom they will target – without any need for programming knowledge. IT teams spend less time programming rules and can focus on more strategic projects. Simple rule changes can be implemented in less than two days, instead of being tied to the standard monthly development and testing cycle, resulting in faster launches of new campaigns and services.

IBM WebSphere Lombardi Edition Accelerates Process Improvement

WebSphere Lombardi Edition is an easy-to-use business process management (BPM) offering for building and managing process applications with less time, cost, and risk in a unified platform. Its graphical design makes it easy for process owners and business users to implement and improve their business processes.

With built-in real-time monitoring and analytics, clients can gain the visibility to understand process bottlenecks and inefficiencies so they can be streamlined. WebSphere Lombardi Edition is suited for business processes that require a high degree of usage and collaboration. Its shared model architecture ensures collaboration between business and IT departments.

University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (UCLH), one of the largest NHS (National Health Service) trusts in the U.K. elected to use business process management (BPM) capabilities from WebSphere Lombardi Edition to develop a comprehensive Patient Tracking System (PTS). UCLH also used capabilities available from Blueworks Live for process discovery sessions of its highly complex administrative processes.

"A vital part of the Patient Tracking System is the business process management platform that provides real-time tracking, enables parameters to be set and creates the notifications and alerts allowing us to know what stage the patient is in their pathway and how long they have been at that stage," said James Thomas, IT Director of University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

For more information on IBM BPM, please visit www.ibm.com/bpm

For more information on IBM Blueworks Live, please visit www.blueworkslive.com

IBM, the IBM logo, ibm.com, WebSphere, SmartSOA, Smarter Planet and the planet icon are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation, registered in many jurisdictions worldwide. Other product and service names might be trademarks of IBM or other companies. For a current list of IBM trademarks, please see www.ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml

All other company, product or service names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of others. Statements concerning IBM's future development plans and schedules are made for planning purposes only, and are subject to change or withdrawal without notice. Reseller prices may vary.

*source: IDC Worldwide and Regional Public IT Cloud Services 2010–2014 Forecast, June 2010 (Doc.# 223549)