Turning the digital journey into a cognitive business across South East Europe

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Michael Paier, General Manager, IBM South East Europe

On Friday I had an interesting video conversation with the Editor in Chief of the business wire SeeNews about IBM’s transformation, the need for data-driven decisions, blockchain and how we in IBM help our clients turn their digital journey into a cognitive business across South East Europe.

 Key points:

• Over the past 80 years since IBM has been present in the region of South East Europe, we have been continually transforming
  – the who – our people
  – the what – our technologies, focused on creating solutions, not products
  – the how – how we engage with clients and create ecosystems that thrive

• Three big shifts are transforming industries and our lives: data, cloud and mobility, driving the digitalization of data and processes, all underpinned by a strong need for security in the digital space.

• Clients are increasingly looking for solutions that help them make data-driven decisions, while 80 percent of the data today is unstructured and is never analyzed or acted on.

• Cognition helps digital things learn and turns computer systems from an enabler for better efficiency and effectiveness to a trusted business advisor.

• Clients across SEE are already using IBM cognitive business solutions.

• Technology shifts are impacting key industries as well, like financial services industry, retail, healthcare. Industry players today need to deal with traditional challenges along with a completely new ones, like the explosion of structured and unstructured data, the need to secure complex IT environments or ever changing client expectations and behaviors.
  – Cloud services, along with analytics and security solutions are already helping SEE’s financial industry clients create powerful customer experiences.
  – Retail industry across SEE grows faster than SEE economies, suggesting for an untapped market opportunity. SEE consumers are increasingly savvy and demanding. Clients leverage IBM solutions that provide a unified approach to managing evolving digital and physical channels.
  – SEE countries spend between 6 and 10% of GDP on healthcare, yet this does not translate into higher life expectancy and less deaths. Advanced technology can be a game changer here as It can link medical expenditure to patient outcomes, save time and money.

• Blockchain is an emerging technology of transactions. It requires a complete ecosystem of industry players working together. It goes beyond banks and touches different industries.
  IBM is the leader in blockchain, currently working with more than 300 clients to pioneer blockchain for business – more than any other company. IBM is the only company that can provide the entire stack for blockchain and help save time, speed up transactions, save money on document transfer and verification, reduce risk and increase trust.

Watch the full conversation here.

Check for more on IBM SEE Industry Talks channel here.