IBM Introduces New Software to Help Customers Identify Critical Insights and Manage Business Content

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Oct 26, 2010, 09:10 ET

LAS VEGAS, Oct. 26 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced new software that helps clients automate content-centric processes and manage unstructured content such as scanned images, electronic documents, web pages, video, email and text messaging to gain better insight across the business.

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According to recent analyst reports, enterprise data growth over the next five years is estimated at 650%, and 80% of this data will be unstructured generated from forms, web content, and chat transcripts, etc. Organizations are also facing an increasing need to manage important case-related processes that are manual and paper intensive such as social services, healthcare member enrollment, dispute resolution and insurance claims in a more collaborative and efficient way.

Today IBM introduced the industry's first advanced case management product – IBM Case Manager and enhancements to its content analytics and information lifecycle governance solutions.

Automating Business Processes with Heavy Content

IBM Case Manager integrates content and process management with advanced analytics, business rules, collaboration and social software. Business users now have the right tools to support ad hoc processes such as communication by email or paper and extract more value and critical insight from their structured and unstructured information.

The new software offers a more integrated way for customers to handle growing, increasingly complex caseloads and shrinking resources in areas such as insurance claims management, credit dispute management, fraud identification and resolution, and contract execution.

An insurance underwriter, for example, can make decisions faster with better information by using the software with integrated analytics to improve key processes covering applicant review, risk assessment, and policy issuance. Customer service agents can use the software to resolve a credit card dispute fairly by capturing, processing and analyzing key information from all parties including the customer, the merchant, the card issuing bank, and the credit card agency in a single view. Doctors and nurses can use the software to get real-time access to complete patient history. In addition, hospital administrators can help ensure proper compliance and billing information by using its content and process management capabilities.

State of North Dakota

The State of North Dakota uses IBM capabilities across 23 agencies and 2,000 employees. Departments of Commerce, Taxation, Transportation, Human Services, and Secretary of State, currently use IBM Enterprise Content Manager software. The solution manages a wide variety of citizen records and information, ranging from unemployment applications and vehicle registrations to tax filings and flexible benefit records resulting in increased operating efficiencies, improved services and a reduction in overhead expenses. For example, the payback for implementing IBM software in the Public Employees Retirement System was achieved in only six months. Prior to using IBM software, Tax Department Records employees manually retrieved over 500 paper withholding returns per month. Now with instant access to information, they've been able to save 200 employee hours per month by eliminating the need to request the documents and manually retrieve and re-file the returns.

"Serving citizens is at the forefront across our agencies. With IBM software, we can now provide our agencies with a 360-degree view of our citizens, quickly develop and share best practices and leverage capabilities such as advanced analytics to adjust case management business processes and balance workloads," said Chuck Picard, EDMS Coordinator, State of North Dakota. "There are eight regional Human Service centers, and they all rely on silos of information to provide assistance in their regions. With advanced case management capabilities, we have the flexibility to house those documents in a repository, automatically route applications to the proper case worker, and run analytics against them to find patterns where fraud might exist," Picard said.

As part of today's news, IBM has also enhanced its content analytics software, designed to help customers more easily access and analyze structured and unstructured data such as documents, customer correspondence, web forms, email, and case notes to drive smarter decisions based on external and internal insights. With IBM content analytics software, users can reach better and faster decisions, turning their content into trusted information and sources of business insight.

A content analytics solution results in an integrated view of all the information that is relevant for a business. By leveraging information as a strategic asset, businesses can now derive new intelligence and gain competitive advantage in a rapidly evolving marketplace.

A telecommunications company, for example, can analyze call scripts to identify early customer satisfaction trends about a new product or service and adjust marketing efforts. An insurance company can identify fraud earlier and more efficiently in the claims process to streamline existing predictive detection models.

NTT DOCOMO of Japan

NTT DOCOMO is Japan's premier provider of leading-edge mobile voice, data and multimedia services. With more than 56 million customers in Japan, the company is one of the world's largest mobile communications operators. IBM Content Analytics has helped the company transform its customer service operations by using unstructured data to improve customer churn detection and customer voice analysis.

"With IBM Content Analytics, we have an integrated view of all information that's relevant to run our business in one place regardless of where it's stored," said Makoto Ichise, Manager of Information System Department Group at NTT DOCOMO. "As a result, we can easily identify trends and patterns from customer voices across our organization and provide better customer service. IBM Content Analytics gives us the real-time performance insights we need to run our business better and to deliver the most compelling products and services in our market."

IBM has also enhanced its Information Governance solutions to help customers manage the explosion of information and lower risks and costs by governing information over its lifecycle.

BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee

BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee (BCBST) is a leader in the health insurance industry, serving more than 5 million people. With rising costs and increasing complexity in healthcare, managing information across its operations has become critical to its success.

Using IBM Lifecycle Governance, BCBST is able to quickly adapt to industry and government regulations while reducing costs and risks responding to legal discovery requests. The IBM solution provides full capabilities for current archiving, retention and compliance while providing a lower cost, lower risk method to expand and integrate key capabilities to meet future BCBST needs.

"With IBM, we've been able to significantly reduce the size and cost of handling litigation of investigative data." said Andy Jacobs, Senior Exchange Administrator at BCBST. "In addition, we're able to archive and index more than 400,000 daily emails and attachments for rapid search and retrieval. All this content is potentially accessible from other applications, which eliminates silos of information and allows secure access to critical information to keep the business running efficiently."

"These enhanced IBM solutions help customers make better decisions faster by capturing content, incorporating it in key business processes, managing its lifecycle, and leveraging it as a trusted source of business insight," said Ken Bisconti, Vice President, Products and Strategy, IBM Enterprise Content Management. "Improving process efficiency and information sharing will also drive significant economies of scale and cost savings for customers."

For more information on IBM ECM visit http://www.ibm.com/software/data/content-management, or Twitter: http://twitter.com/IBM_ECM

To hear how clients are using IBM ECM to transform their business visit: http://www.youtube.com/user/IBMECM

For more information on and news from the IOD Conference and Business Analytics Forum visit: www.ibm.com/press/baiod2010

To follow along on Twitter: #IODGC #IBMECM

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