The Hindu Business Line : IBM researchers develop ‘Solution Accelerators’

Hyderabad, Dec. 18 Researchers at IBM have developed over 120 “Solution Accelerators” for 17 verticals that help cut short overall deployment of technology and business solutions.

These solution accelerators are being referred to as some sort of disruptive technologies that have brought about a paradigm shift in the way IT and business solutions get deployed in a wide-ranging of enterprises.

Research firms such as Gartner and Forrester have highlighted how these solution connectors would in many ways bring about changes in the way solutions are deployed and software coding addressed.

The Head of Global Business Solutions Centre of IBM, Mr Jeby Cherian, explained how a fundamental shift has come about in the way IBM deploys technology and business solutions by harnessing the power of these accelerators which could be described as products that help accelerate project implementation.

This is the only centre in the world that has worked on these solutions combining the capabilities of consulting, hardware, software and systems. Set up in March 2006 at Bangalore with 60 people, it has now grown to over 800 researchers, converging diverse capabilities.

Mr Cherian, who comes with consulting background at PriceWaterhouse Coopers, told Business Line that the centre was created in India from a choice of 174 countries from where IBM operates. And India was chosen after short-listing eight countries.

So what are solution accelerators?

As the name suggests, these help in acceleration of deployment of business solutions. These solutions draw upon IBM’s expertise of providing solutions for over 3,50,000 client engagements over 15 years. These are pre-developed software that technology services providers use to automate a particular business process. More than 30-70 per cent software code could be reused across clients.

This is also like IBM in a box where expertise from software, research, consulting and systems management, converge.

Sector-specific usage

Illustrating how these help enterprises, Mr Cherian said: “globally automotive industry spends up to $50 billion in warranty. To address this issue, IBM has partnered with a leading automotive manufacturer to help it better manage warranty and also address problems in a specific part recall. Since warranty is a common issue for all automotive manufacturers, we have developed solution connectors for this segment.”

Likewise, IBM has developed a solution for fraud and risk management in the banking and insurance sector. For instance, the insurance sector has over 3,000 variables and this solution factors all of them and helps insurance companies better manage risk. This is replicable in other firms.

More Stories on : Software | Research & Development

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page