Smarter Work
Focusing on our processes to increase
business productivity.
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Improve business productivity – Smart Work solutions
If today is an average workday, you could lose an hour of time trying to get something done and experience low business productivity. But you won't be able to accomplish the task because you can't find the right information, access the right tool or reach the right person due to inefficient processes. Employees spend 25% of their time just looking for information. Every week, 42% of people use the wrong information to make decisions, requiring rework. And with the economic downturn, there is an even greater urgency to improve business productivity.
Yet, you probably work smarter today than you did a few years ago — or even last year. Technology has the potential to significantly increase business productivity as well as reduce costs. The rise in globalisation has opened access to new talent, expertise and resources that have energised businesses... in fact, two thirds of workers are now located in growth markets. Social networking capabilities allow us to tap into partner and customer thinking. And people increasingly have "anytime, anywhere" access to their applications, information and resources.
Employees are ready, they know their jobs and have valuable ideas... it's the processes that haven't kept up. Organisations and businesses around the world are recognising that they need to reinvent their infrastructures and processes to allow their people to collaborate with each other, their customers and their partners; to foster creativity and problem solving and to enable the very act of enterprise. If we can create businesses as smart as our employees, we can make more informed decisions, leverage deeper relationships, improve business productivity and develop more connected, agile and effective processes.
Smart Work
Watch the short video to find out why organisations need to work smarter.
These organisations are getting smarter about how they work
Connecting people to drive efficiency
Celina Insurance, a U.S. multi-line property and casualty insurance firm, uses online collaboration tools like "chat" to connect its independent insurance agents and underwriters, reducing policy turnaround time from weeks to days.
The Salvation Army implemented a Web-based collaboration infrastructure across 118 countries that connects volunteers, supplies and relief coordination activities. This has helped response time in a number of emergency situations, such as terrorist attacks, flooding, and earthquakes by facilitating donations and coordinating relief efforts.
Hannover Medical School, a leading university medical centre in Germany, optimises its treatment processes, reduces waiting times for patients and increases patient security through an automated tracking solution. The mobile and wireless technology can gather and record trauma patients' data securely and in realtime throughout their hospital stay, enabling its system to communicate: "Patient X is waiting for doctor Y in room Z."
Flexing a supply chain
Yansha (US), a regional Chinese retailer of upscale brands, deployed a first-of-its-kind SOA-based supply chain platform from IBM for its employees and 1,800 suppliers. They can get a realtime performance view into their supply chain... and lead times improved from 2.5 days to 4.5 hours.
Monitoring all points of the process
IBM is helping Norwegian oil and gas company StatoilHydro (US) use sensors and telemetry to monitor conditions in realtime. By pooling all of the sensory data from fields and rigs and combining it with 3-D visualisation, employees can make smarter decisions. Benefits include an expected 5% increase in production and a 30% decrease in costs.
Working in realtime
Danone, the world's leading maker of fresh dairy products, can now react dynamically to key market changes. Danone's planners work smarter, making realtime adjustments that are interconnected to the production process and improving critical key performance indicators from days to hours.
You need to open your business to the world
Collaborate with partners. Get insights from suppliers anywhere.
Watch the video above to learn more about Secure Collaboration.
What might work look like in the future?
- Within six years, workers will collaborate 80% of their time
- Work will flow seamlessly, fluidly, across fully connected and visible processes
- Work increasingly will involve external partners
- Agility will become a key performance metric
- Pro-active processes will be strengthened with predictive capabilities
- Work will not be centered on an organisation but on a community of people
- Batch processing will be forgotten; realtime will be the norm
How IBM can help
Smarter Business & Technology
You've seen the areas where progress is still needed to build a smarter planet ... now why not explore the business solutions and technology that will help drive the change that is needed.
