New IBM Initiative to Help Business and IT Leaders Achieve Greater Value From Software Investments

Globalization and Rapidly Changing Business Climate Driving New Focus on Reducing Cost and Improving Efficiency of IT



ARMONK, NY .- IBM (NYSE: IBM) today unveiled an initiative to help organizations reduce costs and improve the efficiency of their information technology (IT) and product engineering teams. To help companies overcome the challenges associated with today’s rapidly changing and global business climate, IBM’s new offerings will empower companies to use their software as a strategic business asset.

Organizations too frequently waste valuable time, money and resources by failing to ensure software and systems projects meet business requirements prior to delivering them to the marketplace. Even if business objectives are clear, most companies experience a serious gap in the ability of IT to execute against these goals. With 62% of projects failing to meet deadlines, 49% of projects suffering budget overruns and 41% failing to deliver on expected business value or return on investment (ROI)*, software and systems projects are not providing the level of return of investment required by today’s businesses.

For example, if an automobile manufacturer is forced to recall a significant number of cars due to defects in the software, or a large organization reports a loss due to problems in its ERP system, they are wasting valuable time, money and resources that could have been saved by ensuring their software and products met business requirements prior to marketplace delivery.

To help address these challenges, IBM is announcing new software enabled by Jazz, IBM’s collaborative technology platform, to help companies balance the rising cost of IT operations with the need to generate results with fewer resources. To derive greater value from their software investments, companies must collaborate across geographical and organizational boundaries, automate work flow based on up-to-date information and continuously report progress against desired business outcomes. These new offerings will help transform how business leaders and IT organizations work together to:

* Act quickly to seize new business opportunities by analyzing ROI scenarios, the impact of change and the alignment of business and technology investments which are key to successful business transformations;


* Achieve precision in desired business outcomes by building consensus among business and technology leaders and by making better decisions based on accurate and real-time information;


* Execute with reduced risk and cost, delivering higher quality solutions and improved IT and product engineering efficiency through real-time team collaboration, automation and reporting.

“Historically, when companies have looked for ways to reduce costs, they have often overlooked the importance of assuring that information technology is efficient,” said John Lutz, general manager, Managed Business Process Services, IBM Global Technology Services. “In today’s rapidly changing economic climate, organizations must drive business and product differentiation with greater agility and confidence. This ’agility at scale’ will be crucial to the future of many businesses.”

New and enhanced software facilitates collaboration and business transformation

The challenges of globalization and technology outsourcing are forcing companies to become more nimble, using an increasingly geographically dispersed, virtual and agile workforce to remain competitive. In the world of software delivery, this means around the clock collaboration to improve the success rate of software projects. IBM’s Jazz technology platform helps geographically dispersed teams collaborate to improve business processes and align business and IT priorities.

* IBM Rational Requirements Composer -- new software that helps business and IT teams partner to deliver business differentiation and improve the business results tied to their investments in software. Built on Jazz, IBM Rational Requirements Composer helps geographically distributed teams work together in an open, real-time and transparent manner to more effectively define the scope of a project and build consensus among business and IT leaders.


* IBM Rational RequisitePro -- enhanced software that tightly integrates with IBM Rational Software Architect to ensure delivered solutions meet business requirements and priorities.


* IBM Telelogic System Architect -- enhanced software that helps business and IT teams work together to prioritize investments to support business goals and seize new business opportunities by visualizing, analyzing and communicating enterprise blueprints of business and technology architectures. Integration between Telelogic System Architect and IBM Rational Software Architect links strategy, processes and IT infrastructure planning directly with solution and system implementations. IBM Telelogic System Architect XT, the System Architect web client, includes new, out-of-the-box templates that improve how business and IT information is captured and consolidated, making the data more visually appealing to CTOs and business leaders. In addition, new web-based dashboards provide executives with the insight about IT projects they need to quickly seize new business opportunities.


* IBM Rational ClearQuest, Rational Build Forge, Rational Asset Manager and IBM Rational ClearCase -- a collection of enhanced software which improves team productivity and the ability to execute against desired business and technical requirements at lower cost and risk. With new collaboration, automation and reporting features taking advantage of Web 2.0 and Jazz technologies, customers can more easily implement software delivery best practice processes, helping them deliver higher quality solutions and improved IT efficiency. Organizations can now achieve better visibility into projects and provide traceability across the software supply chain using around the clock global monitoring.