Firms invest millions in business applications—but staff must use them correctly for the benefits to be realized. Assima stepped into the cloud to speed time-to-market for its intelligent application overlay technology, which adds information and process guidance to users’ screens in real-time, infused with artificial intelligence (AI).
Imagine how productive your employees could be if they could access the right answers and information they need, continuously on-the-job? Assima wanted to deliver such success through a technology that drives better system adoption, and accelerates user performance.
Assima helps create smarter employees, arming them with an intelligent application overlay hosted in the IBM Cloud®, delivering AI capabilities with IBM Watson® technology.
reduction in time-to-market by moving to IBM Cloud
interruptions in service strengthen customer satisfaction and retention
increase in engagement from new and existing clients since adoption of AI began
Every company wants their workforce to perform to the best of their ability but, ironically, the very systems and processes they deploy to achieve this can affect performance. When business applications are new, the learning curve can be steep. And even when someone has been using a system for a while, it can be difficult for them to follow best practices at every step. All this can prevent organizations from getting their expected returns on investments in enterprise software.
For Assima, there was a clear opportunity to help employees reach their full potential. Germain Bourgeois, Chief Operating Officer, EMEA, begins: “Giving employees proactive guidance is naturally more effective than waiting for them to ask for help or, worse, making a mistake that needs to be corrected later. It was this realization that led us to develop an intelligent application overlay solution, which analyzes a user’s screen and offers them relevant information and process guidance, helping to improve performance.”
Assima has experienced great success since it was established in 2002, growing from five to more than 160 employees and gaining some of the largest companies in the world as clients. Part of this success lies in the company’s willingness to adapt.
“Originally, we delivered our solutions as on-premise software, but recognized a desire from our clients to benefit from the consumption-based pricing and elasticity offered by the cloud,” recalls Germain Bourgeois. “We knew it was time to move to a software-as-a-service [SaaS] delivery model, and needed to find the right cloud provider to help us do that. Above all, we were looking for strong reliability and security—features that are important to all our customers, but essential to those in the healthcare and banking industries, which make up a significant portion of our client base.”
He continues: “We didn’t just want a cloud services provider, but also a technology partner that could help us take our solutions to the next level. Specifically, we were interested in exploring the use of AI, so we looked for a vendor that invests in R&D [research and development].”
To help it to successfully evolve into a SaaS provider, Assima embraced IBM Cloud solutions, hosting its software on bare-metal servers in IBM® data centers.
“With IBM’s technical and process expertise, we were able to achieve a very smooth transition to the cloud,” comments Germain Bourgeois. “Since then, our experience of IBM Cloud solutions has been exceptional; they allow us to forget about the infrastructure and focus on solution development.
He continues: “Assima has always been known for its innovative, intelligent technology. When the opportunity presented itself to participate in a new IBM Event, the Watson Build Challenge, we seized it, knowing it would accelerate our journey with the development of our cognitive solutions.”
Eleni Iatridis, Chief Learning Officer at Assima, picks up the story: “The Watson Build Challenge was a chance to compete for access to IBM support and tools, and to gain recognition for our cognitive solutions by building an AI-enhanced prototype. The concept we presented was an extension to our existing application overlay solution. Powered with Watson AI services, it goes beyond giving role-based information to provide users with intelligent responses and recommendations as they work, to improve and accelerate their decision-making. From 400 entries, our submission was judged the second best in Europe, an exciting achievement.”
Today, Assima is further developing its cognitive solutions and has harnessed IBM Watson Assistant to enable its solutions to communicate with users via a chatbot in natural language. Assima is also leveraging data from the Weather Company®, an IBM Business, to facilitate weather-based recommendations. Soon, Assima plans to incorporate Personality Insights and Tone Analyzer.
“With help from IBM, we are adding chatbot capabilities and increasing personalization, to help enhance user performance even further,” explains Eleni Iatridis. “The use cases are numerous. For example, if an employee is struggling with the next step in a process, our digital agent intervenes with the relevant help documents and even performs tasks automatically for them.
“It can help with recommendations about the best time to schedule external works based on up to date weather predictions. Or, if a call center worker is on the telephone with a customer, the digital agent can give practical suggestions around how to interact effectively with that customer, depending on their mood and the situation.”
Assima’s move to the IBM Cloud has paid off, with lower barriers to adoption helping clients to start reaping the benefits of Assima software faster than ever.
Germain Bourgeois resumes: “Before, it could take up to 20 days to get clients started with our solutions. By migrating to IBM Cloud, we have reduced time-to-market by 500 percent, allowing us to onboard new customers much faster and at lower cost.”
The IBM platform has lived up to Assima’s expectations for security and reliability, enabling exceptional service continuity.
“Since adopting IBM Cloud solutions, we have experienced no interruptions to service, which means we can deliver on extremely demanding client SLAs [service level agreements],” says Germain Bourgeois. “Equally, the IBM data centers are highly secure and compliant with a range of regulations, allowing us to serve clients in the healthcare and banking industries with ease. We are also confident that IBM can help us to meet the upcoming requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation [GDPR].”
By augmenting its solutions with AI capabilities, powered by IBM Watson, Assima is poised to deliver even greater value to its client base and sharpen its competitive edge.
Eleni Iatridis concludes: “IBM Watson solutions are helping us deliver ‘augmented human intelligence’, where employees benefit from improved decision-making and reduced complexity, so they can get the most out of their business applications. With help from IBM, we’re cutting out the noise to put the most essential information at users’ fingertips, so they can perform better than ever.”
Established in 2002, Assima (link resides outside of ibm.com) provides technology and services that help to improve user performance and increase business efficiency. It supports its global blue-chip clients with operations in 11 countries in Europe, North America and Africa, and through strategic partnerships with consulting companies.
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