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New York: International Business Machines (IBM) chief executive Ginni Rometty sees 'big data' services, which let customers mine vast troves of information to make better decisions, as the company's biggest focus this year.
"It's certainly everything around big data and analytics," Rometty said in a brief interview on Friday night when asked about IBM's priority in 2013.
She had just given a speech in front of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, where she emphasised that data will give companies and governments a competitive advantage.
"I want you to think about data as the next natural resource," she told the audience of business and political leaders. Data-based insight helped reduce crime by 30 per cent in Memphis, Tennessee, and correctly predicted the outcome of swing states for United States President Barack Obama's campaign, she said.
For IBM, the capabilities are helping it break into new overseas markets and sell services covering a wider range of tasks — from traffic management to weather monitoring to payroll.
About 80 per cent of growth is coming from outside the United States, she said.
IBM increased its 2015 sales forecast for data analytics to $20 billion last week, from an earlier goal of $16 billion. Revenue from the category in 2010, when IBM first set he goal, was about $10 billion. Since 2005, IBM has spent more than $16 billion on 35 acquisitions to boost its analytics capabilities. Shares of the Armonk, New York-based company climbed 0.5 per cent to $210.38 at the close in New York. The stock has risen 9.8 per cent this year.
Monitoring workers
Businesses are using analytics to track individual employee performance and treat customers based on personal preference, she said. That means they don't have to make as many blanket assumptions. "You will see the death of the average," Rometty said.
Analytics also will help companies fight the mounting threat of cybercrime by predicting where the next attack might happen, Rometty said.
She called on countries to work together on a data-based strategy, instead of individual legal approaches. "If every country tries to regulate this itself, you will have a standstill and a great vulnerability," she said.
Sales goal
Last week, IBM said its business-analytics unit will add $4 billion more in revenue than expected.
The company raised its goal for annual sales from analysing business data to $20 billion by 2015, from an earlier $16 billion, Rometty told investors at a recent presentation. Customers are increasingly relying on analytics to study the flood of data coursing through their businesses, she said. Revenue from the category in 2010, when IBM set the first goal, was about $10 billion.
"Data will be the basis of competitive advantage for every company, for every industry, for the next decade" Rometty said, based on her meetings with 500 chief executives of IBM clients last year.
In 2012, IBM's business-analytics revenue grew 13 per cent, the company has said. Raising its sales goal for the analytics segment could help ease investor concerns about the company's growth as a whole. Total annual revenue at the Armonk, New York- based company is up less than 1 per cent since 2008.
IBM has divested $15 billion in revenue over the past 10 years, Rometty said. "If we had not, we would be a much larger company," she said. "Potentially a faster-growing company. But we would be a way lesser-margin company."
Higher margins
Instead of focusing on sales, the company has emphasized gains in earnings per share. IBM has added higher-margin software that handles data analysis and continued its shift away from less-profitable hardware and services contracts. IBM expects to generate more than half of its profit from software by 2015.
IBM has been thinking of ways to drive better performance from its businesses with lower margins, including some labour based services, legacy application services and its industry-standard computer business, chief financial officer Mark Loughridge said.
Acquisitions
Since 2005, IBM has spent more than $16 billion on 35 acquisitions to boost its analytics capabilities. Tealeaf Technology, which IBM bought in June, helps chief marketing officers analyse customer behaviour, for example. Star Analytics, which IBM said it would buy this month, integrates business information and helps sort out what's important, eliminating time-consuming steps for data analysis.
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