What is a Smarter Business? How to act at the speed of insight to navigate change and drive growth.

The most resilient among us are built for change—organizations that strategically align their trusted information to business decision making. However, only 9 percent of enterprises surveyed globally claim to achieve this (C-Suite, 2020). What separates the most durable businesses from the others is a belief that technology alone is not enough to sustain and expand performance at scale. Business transformation also requires new skills and methods, governance and management approaches, and a mandate to rethink how work gets done.

IBM has a long history of helping clients solve hard problems with resiliency and continuity. We provide best-in-class technology and proven solutions to help you realize business agility with immediate results. With the right expertise and secure, AI-rich applications, you can act at the speed of insight, amplify your organization’s unique purpose and respond to change in the moments that matter most.

IBM’s 2020 C-Suite Study¹ examines how the alignment of business strategy and data strategy is fundamental to the way Smarter Businesses create value.

Results comparison with industry peers for torchbearers

¹ Based on the IBM Global C-suite Study, 20^th edition, by the IBM Institute of Business Value

Customers are won and lost based on the quality of their experiences – and they need you now more than ever. In fact, 84% of customers say the experience a company provides is as important as its products or services. To meet and exceed rising customer expectations you need an insight-driven approach that builds trust, earns loyalty, and increases spend. 

Smarter customer experiences integrate data and AI, enabling you to connect your business to customer and employee needs, end-to-end. From your contact center to personalized commerce, sales and marketing, IBM unlocks the value of your data across leading customer technology platforms. We responsibly apply AI to make employee workflows more efficient and customer relationships more human. Through every challenge, IBM co-creates experiences for everyone, everywhere and grows both your relationships and your business. 

• Use IBM Watson to improve customer service while reducing costs.
• Unite every corner of your business around your customer with IBM Garage.
• Personalize communications and grow your business on leading market platforms with IBM Services.
• Protect privacy to gain trust.

• Optimize your investments to create actionable insights and invest in innovation.
• Accelerate time to value with expert integration.
• Operate with flexibility and empower faster decision making.

A smarter business ensures the reliability of critical assets and the adaptability of operations to enable business continuity. When powered by AI, IoT and reliable weather data, connected operations allow you to see how assets perform in real-time, manage them from any location, and ultimately reduce operating costs. Further, data from 5G and edge computing infused into business workflows can uncover insights that will lead to a more adaptable operations infrastructure.

IBM can help you bridge IT and operational technology (OT) through securely designed end-to-end digitization. We have the products and people to help you achieve as much as a 40% reduction in asset maintenance costs, a 20% reduction in buildings operations costs and up to a 30% improvement in yield at enterprise scale. Together, we can help:

• Ensure efficient and reliable equipment operations.
• Utilize space and reduce costs through intelligent facilities operations.
• Streamline product development through engineering operations.
• Improve product quality and yield with intelligent, secure, and adaptable manufacturing operations.

IBM possesses the essential combination of software, services, and industry expertise to build intelligent workflows that respond to rapidly changing conditions. Wherever you are in your digital journey, we will partner with you to deliver the AI-powered insights and consultative services required for more resilient business operations.

L’Oréal leveraged Industry 4.0 solutions and IoT applications to realize more frequent and agile product innovations that launch faster – all supported by the ability to change manufacturing lines to over 15 different products in 5 minutes.

A smarter business scales up and down and can change how work gets done so you can be resilient. Forward-looking enterprises utilize automation and AI to augment their core strengths, supplement their weaknesses, and empower their people to focus on what’s important. In fact, 73% of organizations expect revenue growth from implementing intelligent automation².

Automation with AI enables your entire organization to be always-on, optimizing the delivery of goods and services to provide seamless continuity in dynamic markets. IBM runs the digital day-to-day operational processes locally and around the world of some of the most critical systems. With a diverse set of intelligent workflow solutions, we can guide you on your digitization journey to automate more types of work at greater speed and lower cost. We’ll meet you at any stage, helping you adapt and thrive by turning momentary challenges into long-term opportunities.

In partnership with IBM, you can:

• Digitize and automate more types of work – Improve productivity while addressing change.
• Apply intelligence – Create intelligent workflows with AI and RPA to free up employee time.
• Augment your workforce – Improve business continuity and outcomes with flexible labor.

Working in an intelligent, automated environment will redefine many occupations—and the skills and talents needed for success.

Below: Forbes Insights shows just how AI and Automation are changing the way we work.

To learn more about how you can transform your business, please contact your IBM representative or IBM Business Partner, or visit
ibm.com/smarter-business