Analytics Magazine Analytics Magazine, July/August 2014 | Page 62

ANALY TIC S AC ROS S T H E E N T ERP RISE Analytics transforms a ‘dinosaur’ The story of how IBM not only survived but thrived by realizing business value from big data. BY (l-r) BRENDA DIETRICH, EMILY PLACHY AND MAUREEN NORTON his is the story of how an iconic company founded more than a century ago, and once deemed a “dinosaur” that would not be able to survive the 1990s, has learned lesson after lesson about survival and transformation. The use of analytics to bring more science into the business decision process is a key underpinning of this survival and transformation. Now for the first time, the inside story of how analytics is being used across the IBM enterprise is being told. According to Ginni Rometty, chairman, T 62 | A N A LY T I C S - M A G A Z I N E . O R G president and chief executive officer, IBM Corporation, “Analytics is forming the silver thread through the future of everything we do.” What is analytics? In simple terms, analytics is any mathematical or scientific method that augments data with the intent of providing new insight. With the nearly 1 trillion connected objects and devices generating an estimated 2.5 billion gigabytes of new data each day, analytics can help discover insights in the data. That insight creates competitive advantage when used to inform actions and decisions. W W W. I N F O R M S . O R G