IBM - Achievement in Management

Gold Stevie Award Winner 2021, Click to Enter The 2022 American Business Awards

Company: IBM, Armonk, NY
Company Description: IBM is the global leader in business transformation through an open hybrid cloud platform and AI, serving clients in more than 170 countries around the world. Guided by principles for trust and transparency and support for a more inclusive society, IBM is committed to being a responsible technology innovator and a force for good in the world. For more information about IBM visit: ibm.com
Nomination Category: Management Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Achievement in Management - Conglomerates

Nomination Title: The IBM Hybrid Cloud – Creating a Trusted Ecosystem for Every Industry and Every Citizen

At the heart of any digital transaction is trust. As we adjust to our new reality during the pandemic, trust is more important than ever.

While IBM has had more than a century’s worth of experience in adapting to changing times, it was 2020 that brought a new challenge to imagine – what if the entire world needed to live and work remotely, at the same moment in time and were more dependent than ever on trusted, secure, digital channels?In the early days of the pandemic, right when he joined IBM, Howard Boville, SVP, IBM Cloud Platform, and his team of thousands of technologists, coders and problem solvers worldwide, began to re-imagine, roadmap and execute on that scenario.

We all witnessed campuses and businesses, hospitals and healthcare digitally transform and shift to a virtual world over a period of weeks. As we adjusted to this new reality, so did businesses as they quickly accelerated their shift to the cloud.

With every online transaction -- security, trust, data privacy have become top of mind for consumers and businesses that interact with them. At the same time,research shows that cloud-based cyber-attacks rose 630%between January and April 2020.

This is particularly true for highly regulated industries such as banking, government, and telecommunications,who are turning to IBM to modernize their operations to digitally transform. By embracing emerging technologies, these businesses are balancing the need to transform without compromising ontheir regulatory, compliance and security requirements.
As we increasingly move our lives online, customers are asking“who has access to my data, and is it at risk of being compromised?” Whether it’s depositing money in a bank account, booking a medical appointment, or using a credit card to order food, our personal data is all over the Internet.

And with high-profile breaches having made headlines as of late –the SolarWinds hack – which was one of the largest supply chain attack of our times -- and the Colonial Pipeline $4.4 million ransomware attack-- businesses are coming to the stark realization that that they are only as secure as their weakest link.

In fact, data breaches cost companies an estimated $4.24 million per incident on average, according to IBM’s recent Cost of a Data Breach report – the highest cost found in the 17 year history of the report. And the changes incurred because of the pandemic are partly to blame, with the report finding that breaches cost over $1 million more on average when remote work was indicated as a factor in the event, compared to those in this group without this factor ($4.96 vs. $3.89 million.)

Because of these factors, it’s incumbent on enterprise technology providers – stewards of massive volumes of personal data -- to ensure we are doing our utmost to protect our clients’ end customers’ personal data and earn and retain their trust. We must deliver on IT with integrity.

All cloud architectures are not created equal when it comes to protecting sensitive data. The key missing piece that many cloud providers lack is trust. Because of this, it is critical to adopt both a hybrid cloud approach and an industry specific approach in modernizing for a digital economy. This model builds in privacy and security, helps their unique regulatory and compliance requirements, and is still open and accessible to both consumers and the thriving ecosystem of global developers building adjacent solutions around these new industry specific clouds.

In March, IBM Cloud announced the latest in our series of milestones to date, giving clients the ability to bringcloud services to wherever their data resides -- on any cloud, on premises or at the edge. IBM Cloud Satellite brings a secured, unifying layer of cloud services for clients across environments, helping address critical data privacy and data sovereignty requirements. In essence this milestone allows in any industry to leverage secure cloud services, wherever workloads reside. This will help companies in all industries as data – and data processing – moves closer to the edge with applications like mobile banking, telehealth, and more.

This also gives clients a flexible, secure way to run their AI and analytics workloads as services across any environment – without having to manage them on their own – with the availability of IBM Cloud Pak for Data as a Service with IBM Cloud Satellite.

The strength and security of our cloud architecture is at the core of enabling organizations to operate in the digital economy. COVID created a sense of urgency around digital transformation. In fact, 66% of executives completed initiatives during this time that previously encountered resistance. As we move forward, it’s crucial we bring these innovations along with us-- that meet the stringent regulatory and privacy needs of our clients across these industries.

  • Red Hat Acquisition: In July 2019, IBM closed the landmark acquisition of Red Hat for $34 Billion, a game changer for enterprise computing.The acquisition redefined the cloud market pairing Red Hat's open hybrid cloud technologies with the scale and depth of IBM's industry expertise, technology portfolio and commitment to innovation in over 175 countries.This model made AI-powered cloud a reality,at scale, including the capability to deliver AI’s powerful predictive capabilities to deliver deeper business insights and analytics and drive better business decisions across industries. Since then, we have re-architected our cloud around Red Hat OpenShift to support open innovation.Red Hat’s software underpins the most flexible, secure and cost-effective platform for running mission-critical workloads—the hybrid cloud.This model gives enterprises seeking to accelerate migration of mission critical workloads, the speed, efficiency and innovation that comes with moving to the cloud, without having to reinvent their entire IT infrastructure. That’s what hybrid cloud is all about.
  • The IBM Cloud For Financial Services:In November 2019, IBM announced the IBM Cloud for Financial Services in collaboration with Bank of America. This industry-first platform allows financial institutions to take advantage of the cloud, while meeting the industry’s critical standards of data security, resiliency, privacy and compliance; as well as the flexibilityto serve their global customer bases, wherever they are. The platform is capable of handling increasing data sovereignty changes, around the world, while simultaneously meeting regulatory requirementsand safeguarding against ever increasing cyber threats. The IBM Cloud for Financial Services helps to reduce risk for financial institutions, their partners and FinTechs, and innovate faster with built-in controls that are adhered to by the entire ecosystem, and draws upon technology and financial services industry experience earned through relationships with 47 of the Fortune 50 companies and the 10 largest financial institutions in the world.
  • Policy Framework & Advisory Council:On July 22, 2020, IBM, in collaboration with Bank of America and Promontory, announced the IBM Cloud Framework for Financial Services, which enables common operational criteria and streamlined compliance specifically for the financial services industry. This framework ensures the right sets of security and compliance requirements and controls, architecture patterns, and guidance required for banks to operate securely on the public cloud.To oversee this policy framework and ensure its effectiveness, IBM also introduced the Financial Services Cloud Council, led by Howard Boville, SVP, IBM Cloud Platform with Tony Kerrison, CTO of Bank of America and representatives from other major financial institutionson the council.
  • The IBM Hybrid Cloud Ecosystem: In March 2020, the IBM Hybrid Cloud Ecosystem was launched.This initiative helps address what IBM was hearing from partners: they seek clarity on where opportunities exist, where to engage, how to grow solutions and IP, and with resources to accelerate skills and expertise development.This represents an in-kind investment of $1 billion to support partners and help clients withthe high-value skills, solutions and expertise including:
    • Access to the Hybrid Cloud Build Team, a highly-specialized team dedicated to accelerating our ecosystem partners’ modernization efforts, and to infusing AI into their applications and software.
    • The development of innovation centers with our GSI partners, like the one planned with Tech Mahindra, to co-create and co-innovate to offer the best platforms, products and services for clients.
    • Building industry cloud ecosystem programs to help partners grow their business with the IBM Cloud for Financial Services – currently with 100+ partners --and the IBM Cloud for Telecommunications –currently with 65+ partners.
  • Care in the Cloud: On October 15, 2020, the IBM Cloud team andSanta Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa built and launched a simple and secure telemedicine platform to meet the physical and mental health needs of underserved citizens in Lisbon, particularly the elderly and vulnerable during the accelerating pandemic. The solution is built on the IBM Cloud and incorporates a state-of-art cryptographic technology called "Keep Your Own Key."This encryption gives the doctor and patient enterprise level data protection over a secure platform designed so patients can easily communicate with their medical providers and psychologists to get the assistance they need, quickly and from home. The platform schedules patient care via SMS and email and sessions are conducted through phone, video and chat. SCML has been able to increase their patient support, care and follow up while serving citizens from the comfort of their own home.At scale, the platform has the potential to open up access to all underserved communities, the elderly in particular, who often have no means of transportation or who are at greater risk of serious complications from COVID-19.
  • IBM Cloud for Telecommunications:In November 2020, IBM took the next step in its commitment to building industry-specific solutions with the IBM Cloud for Telecommunications with partners including Nokia, Samsung, Cisco and 35 others. This open, hybrid cloud architecture is designed to help telecommunications providers address the specific challenges ofthe highly-regulated industry: accelerating business transformation, enhancing digital client engagement and improving agility as they modernize their enterprise applications and infrastructure to unlock the power of 5G and edge computing.To date there are 40+ partners in the IBM Cloud for Telecommunications ecosystem, and growing.As 5G becomes more prevalent, telecommunications providers need to scale quickly to support growing volumes of data, voice and multimedia services. For example, Indian telco Vodafone Idea is transforming its network into an open hybrid cloud platform using IBM’s Watson AI and Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform to improve the cost and quality of its core network delivery.
  • IBM’s Shift to Remote: On March 11, 2020, IBM’s 350K employees in 175 countriesshifted to remote work.Among the best evidence of the strength, security and reliability of IBM Cloud is thatnot only were there no disruptions to the employees and clients we support, but our global supply chains supporting essential items had zero disruptions.
  • IBM has helped some of the world’s most critical businesses adopt new technologies to help them speed innovation – all while helping protect their critical processes and data. The past year-plus has been a sped-up version of this legacy. With the very way we live and work having been upended, to now evaluating our return to a new normal, the role of cloud providers has become even more important. Keepers of critical data and enablers of information, cloud providers like IBM face a new task of meeting companies where they are, and helping them navigate their digital transformation journeys. With the guidance of Howard Boville and his team, IBM is rolling out a powerful series of solutions to enable this sea change.