IBM Ponies up $100 Million to Expand Big Data Consulting Services

IBM (IBM) is delving deep into Big Data-driven customer experience technology. The vendor intends to allocate $100 million to expand its data analytics consulting services worldwide to help customers with experience design and engagement, using the money to open up 10 new labs worldwide and hire 1,000 new specialists.

The idea behind the initiative is to leverage Big Data and analytics to help customers improve their interactions and engagements with customers, IBM said. The vendor already maintains four such labs in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago and Toronto.

The Interactive Experience labs will be located in Bangalore, Beijing, Groningen, London, Melbourne, Mexico City, New York, Sao Paulo, Shanghai and Tokyo and provide customers with the opportunity to work with researchers and consultants and experts in experience design, mobile and digital marketing. IBM consultants will collaborate with customers to assess their business challenges and jointly craft solutions using next-generation mobile, social, analytics and cloud technologies, the vendor said.

“There’s no longer any real distinction between business strategy and the design of the user experience,” said Bridget van Kralingen, IBM Global Business Services senior vice president. “The last best experience that anyone has anywhere, becomes the minimum expectation for the experience they want everywhere, and the quality of that experience is entirely dependent on the use of individualized information,” she said.

“As our clients recalibrate what it means to engage with their customers or employees, we're bringing them the full spectrum of world-class design and IBM Research, book-ended by strategy consulting and our strength in Big Data."

In addition to the new facilities, IBM said it had developed new Big Data algorithms to help businesses modify the way customers experience their products, services and brands.

The new capabilities include Intelligent Customer Profiles, an analytics-driven solution that enables consumers to directly manage the personal information companies use to provide them services; Influence Analysis, an analytical approach to help companies identify the best ambassador for their brand or hone in on the right targets for a viral marketing campaign; and Customer Identity Resolution, a rules-based matching toolkit that helps enterprises build a broader understanding of who their customers are by connecting information across different data sources such as customer relationship management (CRM) records, social media accounts and other profile information.

IBM plans to open additional labs in the future to support the global demand for data-driven experiences.