How BI, Cloud, Mobility and Social are Spurring Innovation

By IBM Channel Partners
Business analytics, cloud computing, mobile computing, and social business software are the most in-demand technologies for businesses looking to optimize IT strategy in 2012, regardless of industry. IBM’s 2011 Global Tech Trends report reinforced the importance of these technologies, with 90 percent of respondents citing business analytics as the most adopted technology. Additionally, 75 percent of respondents reported their organizations will begin to build a cloud infrastructure over the next two years, and three out of four respondents are currently working in mobile computing.
Michael Riegel,  IBM Developer Relations

The Keys to Success
The amount of data generated, stored and analyzed today is increasing exponentially. Business analytics software helps make sense of data before it loses relevancy. The technology allows for information inside and outside of businesses—structured information coming from business applications and unstructured information coming from sources such as social networks—to be quickly monitored and analyzed. Analytics tools translate unorganized data to make smarter business decisions. Combined with the agility of cloud computing, business analytics is a strong competitive differentiator.
Jo Coutuer, Numius

Find Your Cloud
Instead of educating clients on the benefits of cloud computing, we are now focused on how quickly clients can be brought into the cloud. Organizations have accepted that cloud must be a part of their IT strategy, whether moving existing legacy applications or integrating new solutions in the cloud as part of an overall IT solution. One thing making cloud solutions so appealing is their flexibility. With private, public, and hybrid cloud solutions being offered, organizations can customize cloud solutions to meet specific needs. No two businesses are alike, and neither are their cloud solutions. This presents a great opportunity for ISV’s to bring new applications to customers that simplify tasks, cut costs, and help achieve goals.
Lonnie Willis, CloudTrigger

Anywhere, Anytime, Any Device
The next big mobile trend is new applications that expand an organization’s ability to function on-the-go. ISVs should expect a connection between developing these new mobile applications and a surge in cloud adoption, as workers use mobile devices to instantly access their IT environments. The big question is how to ensure these new applications are able to function across operating systems and devices created by different manufacturers. For this reason ISV’s will be turning to open standards and open source platforms to meet customer needs.
Kleber Stroeh, Icaro

The Social Business Evolution
Social business tools are a major part of how professionals communicate, as wikis, blogs, IM, and mobile e-mail streamline communication, cut travel costs, and simplify file sharing. ISVs are playing a big role in this evolution. With
concerns from employees and customers around social business, ISVs are developing applications that ease the adoption process and encourage businesses to go social. ISVs are also developing tools to optimize systems for security and compliance, simplify the support of legacy
applications, and ease deployment. We expect ISVs to work more on cloud-based applications that allow social business tools to be used
anytime, anywhere.
Michael Baum, GBS

Smarter Healthcare
Healthcare IT is undergoing rapid transformation and modernization as providers are overwhelmed with new and social technologies, massive amounts of data, and compliance requirements. Providers must navigate trends like meaningful use, collaborative care, and health information exchange. To enable a smarter healthcare system that offers better care and better value, it’s critical for hospitals and insurance companies to adopt holistic, business-driven technology solutions that are agile, integrated and interoperable, enabling data sharing between critical systems, collaboration between stakeholders, and compliance with industry standards and regulations. Innovative business processes and technical service solutions like healthcare portal collaboration, focused business intelligence and analytics applications, and an enterprise health information exchange ecosystem will help modernize, simplify, and integrate our healthcare systems.
Martin Sizemore, Perficient

Smarter Cities
Governments are taking a “Smarter City” approach, looking at the big picture and adopting strategies the private sector implemented years ago. One strategy we have seen is consolidation of data sources and systems, together with sharing those systems amongst fellow agencies. By taking multiple silo systems and data sources into a single source system, and implementing it across multiple sites and agencies, officials get the benefits of improved data sharing, decreased redundancy, and increased efficiency. In addition, consolidation and cooperation allows them to see trends form. It’s the ability to make critical decisions by seeing the big picture—it’s no longer a resource-driven solution, it’s a smarter solution.
Joanne Taylor, Provista

Smarter Commerce
Companies are rethinking how to meet the needs of shoppers empowered by technology, transparency, and abundant information. The right strategy can make all the difference for a business aiming to serve highly informed and interconnected customers. Companies need applications aimed at increasing brand loyalty and keeping customers happy, while also streamlining supply chain and keeping costs in line. Smarter Commerce tools like comprehensive end-to-end technology solutions maximizing online sales of products and service, or business analytics software quickly identifying sale trends, are essential for businesses to adopt if they want to stay competitive in the marketplace.
Terry Hunter, 20:20 Technology