IBM Showcases Work with European Companies Using Hybrid Cloud and AI Solutions to Transform Industries

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May 15, 2019, 04:00 ET

Agricultural Social Insurance Fund, Confindustria, Endesa, P4A, and ERGO Aktiv have all turned to IBM to help write the next chapter of business and social transformation

PARIS, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced work taking place across Europe with leading companies embracing hybrid cloud and AI as a means to drive meaningful and substantive change within their business. These companies represent different industries and different markets, but each is working with IBM to use data to transform their business processes and ways of working.

The announcement precedes IBM Chairman, President and CEO Ginni Rometty's keynote address at Viva Technology in Paris, where she will be joined by leading European CEOs to talk about the next chapter of business and social transformation, driven by hybrid cloud, digital and AI technologies.

"IBM is writing the next chapter of business and social transformation together with our clients," said Rometty. "Companies across Europe and the world are working with IBM to put the hybrid cloud infrastructure in place and to start infusing AI into businesses processes as a means to accelerate future innovation."

The work IBM is showcasing includes:

The Agricultural Social Insurance Fund (KRUS), a social insurance provider for farmers in Poland, this week announced it is adopting IBM Cloud to implement a hybrid cloud strategy that is designed to help modernize its new e-learning platform. Moving its educational programs about the rules of safe work in farming to the cloud enables KRUS to improve children safety. Until now, KRUS's educational programs were only available in pamphlet form and had limited reach. In advance of the summer usage spike, KRUS has revamped the program to live online and will host them on the IBM Cloud, while keeping their existing IT system on-premises.

Confindustria, the main association representing manufacturing and service companies in Italy, renewed its agreement with IBM and will move its entire IT infrastructure to the IBM Cloud. Previously hosted on-premises, Confindustria will move all of its IT workloads -- from its customer-relationship management system to its external-facing member channels -- to the IBM Cloud. This complete IT migration is expected to help the company scale to meet the fluctuating demands of its members and tap into advanced technologies that are designed to power more personalized, innovative offerings for members.

Endesa, the largest Spanish power company taps IBM Watson and IBM Cloud to transform its call center into an AI contact center to help deliver quick and personalized customer service. Using IBM Watson Assistant, Endesa built a virtual assistant helping to enable clients to get answers to their inquiries, and empowering call center agents to focus on more complex requests and selling. Since the launch of their Watson assistant July 2018, Endesa's overall client satisfaction has increased 4,5%. Through their phones, customers can ask the assistant to handle transactional requests like providing bill duplicates, changing bank account information or paying a bill. Hosted on the IBM Cloud and integrated with Endesa's back-office processes, the assistant is designed to easily scale both in functionality and customer reach. Currently managing 40,000 customer calls per month, it will soon be expected to handle 90,000 calls monthly and will be adding additional transactions like changing the contracted power, modifying the contract holder and even the supplier.

Performance for Assets (P4A), a Belgian start-up, provides wind-park operators with a virtual assistant hosted on the IBM Cloud to give action alerts for technicians before asset failure. P4A teamed up with IBM Cloud Garage to create a comprehensive solution that uses IBM Watson IoT platform to collect and process data from sensors, detect and diagnose potential issues using IBM Watson Machine Learning, IBM Watson Studio and Cloud Foundry, and share this information with engineers in the field using IBM Watson Assistant. The solution helps turbine owners monitor asset performance and extend the asset life cycle as well as increase their output. The system has been piloted in the North of France in a wind park of 5 turbines.

ERGO Aktiv, the Czech Neurorehabilitation Center has developed a virtual assistant "Andělín" to help patients after a stroke with their return to an active life and work. The virtual assistant can help reduce confusion and misinterpretation of information by answering questions and providing general information related to the post-stroke rehabilitation shared widely on the Internet. Built on the IBM Cloud, the Watson-based assistant allows the patients and their families to ask questions about the challenges and situations they typically face after stroke. The new virtual assistant, available on ERGO Aktiv's website, brings a new pillar of help for ERGO Aktiv clients 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Patients after stroke need a personal approach in rehabilitation as well as an interactive partner, is able help and consult them. Andělín is trained to react to emotional questions and helps users find out useful information by asking specific questions proactively or suggesting alternatives. Users can also ask to be contacted by a human adviser, and if they do it during the conversation with the virtual assistant, the important parameters are passed to the adviser allowing him or her to better focus their answers.

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SOURCE IBM