IBM announced the launch of its New York-based IBM Business Analytics Solution Center, part of a network of global analytics centers addressing the growing demand for the complex capabilities needed to build smarter cities and help clients optimize all manner of business processes and business decisions.
The center will be housed at IBM's 590 Madison Avenue location. It will draw on expertise from across the company, including IBM's Business Analytics and Optimization consulting organization, IBM Research skills in mathematical modeling and optimization, software engineering, and architecture.
The New York-based IBM Business Analytics Solutions Center will be supported initially by up to 450 consultants, researchers, and experts in advanced software platforms with plans to retrain or hire an additional 100, as demand grows. The New York-based IBM Business Analytics Center, the first center to open in the United States, is part of the recently detailed IBM business strategy to expand IBM's capabilities around business analytics and optimization. IBM opened three other analytics solution centers in Berlin, Beijing and Tokyo this summer. The remaining centers will be located in London and Washington, D.C. As part of this initiative, IBM expects to retrain or hire as many as 4,000 new analytics consultants and professionals globally.
The center also will focus on supporting IBM's banking and financial markets clients in the development of systems to provide improved viability and tracking of their risk positions across all markets and asset classes.
"We're seeing an incredible opportunity for businesses, institutions and governments to elevate the performance of all existing systems to another level via the application of advanced analytics," says Phil Guido, general manager of the Eastern U.S. for IBM. "Through close collaboration with universities, educational organizations and local leaders, we are making this investment in New York to encourage further development of the necessary skills required to apply analytics to the region's most complex challenges and biggest opportunities."
IBM has already worked across New York to apply advanced analytics to some of the region's toughest challenges. For example, the company is working with the New York City Police Department and the Fire Department of New York to better assess, predict and prevent crime and fire incidents.
In these centers IBM will draw upon its vast software information management portfolio, including technologies from IBM Software and IBM Research and industry expertise from consultants in the recently launched IBM Business Analytics and Optimization services practice.