IBM 1998 Annual Report Download - page 45

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Not by services alone.
Customers who engage with our services business find they’ve also tapped
a direct pipeline to solutions development teams in 26 industries, as well as
the re s o u rces of IBM Research. Often, this can provide a competitive
edge for our customers – and for IBM . M onsanto’s decision to sign a long-
t e rm, strategic outsourcing agreement with IBM was based, in part, on
the opportunity it saw to team up its genomics scientists with our pattern
recognition re s e a rc h e r s .
Speed without sacrifice.
Speed or customization? It’s not an either-or decision. Through thousands
of services engagements, we build insights in one industry, and use them
to create tested, proven solutions that can be replicated (and customized)
in others – to get our customers going very quickly. In fact, seven of
our 10 fastest-growing global offerings – built around opportunities like
enterprise re s o u rce planning – are less than two years old.
A premium on
security and privacy.
When businesses send valuable intellectual pro p e r ty over the Net, they
have to know they can control access to their content, validate the ID of all
p a rticipants in the transaction and provide a high level of security for the
data. That’s why five major music labels are using the IBM Electronic M usic
Management System to test the highly secure sale and digital distribution
of CD-quality music over the Internet. This is just one of many IBM e-business
solutions across dozens of industries – all backed by services that make
e - c o m m e rce safe, secure and very re a l .
Strategic partnerships
catch on.
Customers seeking a competitive edge often decide to concentrate
on their core business, and entrust the management of the inform a t i o n
technology infrastru c t u re to an expert part n e r. This model, strategic
“ o u t s o u rcing,” is well known in the United States. And it’s now
sparking the imagination of customers like Cable and Wi reless in
the United Kingdom, Daiwa Bank in Japan and Caricentro in Italy.
Of 38 outsourcing contracts we signed last year worth $100 million
or more, nearly half were with customers outside the United States,
m o re than double the percentage of two years ago.