IBM Launches Industry's First Consulting Practice Dedicated to Cognitive Business

SINGAPORE, Oct. 9, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM has launched the industry's first consulting organization dedicated to helping clients realize the transformative value of cognitive business.

IBM Cognitive Business Solutions extends the exclusive cognitive leadership of IBM Watson and the company's established market leadership in business analytics. The new practice draws on the expertise of more than 2,000 consulting professionals spanning machine learning, advanced analytics, data science and development, supported by industry and change management specialists to accelerate client journeys to cognitive business.

Cognitive represents an entirely new model of computing that includes technology innovations in analytics, natural language processing and machine learning. Industry analyst firm IDC predicts that by 2018, half of all consumers will interact regularly with services based on cognitive computing.

"Our work with clients across many industries shows that cognitive computing is the path to the next great set of business possibilities," said Bridget van Kralingen, SVP, IBM Global Business Services. "Clients know they are collecting and analyzing more data than ever, but 80 percent of all the available data -- images, voice, social expressions -- remains out of reach for traditional computing systems. We're scaling expertise to close that gap and help our clients become cognitive banks, retailers, automakers, insurers or healthcare providers."

IBM's Institute for Business Value found that executives from the highest-performing companies prioritize cognitive capabilities over peers in market-following enterprises.

• Insurance: 65% of industry CXOs are pursuing some form of business model innovation, but nearly 30% feel the quality, accuracy and completeness of the data in their organization is insufficient.
• Retail: 60% of retail executives do not believe their company is equipped to deliver the level of individual experiences consumers demand.
• Healthcare: The industry forecasts a 13 million person gap in qualified healthcare workers by 2035, and more than half of healthcare industry CXOs report that current constraints on the ability to use all available information limits their confidence about making strategic business decisions.

Across all industries, executives surveyed cite the scarcity of skills and technical expertise as the primary barriers to cognitive adoption, surpassing concerns about security, privacy or the maturity of the technology.  

IBM consultants are prepared today to bring clients "get started" offerings and readiness assessments that create low-cost entry points to begin the journey to become cognitive enterprises.

"Before long, we will look back and wonder how we made important decisions or discovered new opportunities without systematically learning from all available data," said Stephen Pratt, global leader, IBM Cognitive Business Solutions. "Over the next decade, this transformation will be very personal for professionals as we embrace learning algorithms to enhance our capacity. For clients, cognitive systems will provide organizations that adopt these powerful tools outperform their peers."

The new practice will also draw upon the exclusive computational reasoning and learning capabilities of IBM Watson, which represents a $1 billion investment to advance cognitive innovations across industries. IBM will train another 25,000 IBM consultants and practitioners on cognitive computing this fall.