Information 3.0: Intelligent Marketing for a Smarter Planet

As we enter the second decade of the 21^st century, it’s becoming clear that the world is getting smarter. Technology is being infused into the systems and processes that make the world work.

Areas not traditionally associated with technology—from roadways to natural systems like agriculture and waterways—have “gone digital.” There are now trillions of digital devices connected through the Internet that are producing a vast ocean of data. And all this information—from the flow of markets to the pulse of societies—can be turned into knowledge because we now have the computational power and advanced analytics to make sense of it.

What does it all mean for business-to-business marketers? Find out on Thursday, December 2, when Matt Preschern, vice president of North American Demand Programs at IBM, keynotes BMA’s next Marketing Innovators Luncheon Seminar at The Standard Club.

For business marketers, the key to capitalizing on this smart new world is being able to mine all this data, process it and put it into action. “That takes business agility—the right insight coupled with technology and analytics—to truly get closer to your customers and prospects,” Preschern said.

He added that as the world has gotten smarter, it has also become more competitive and more complicated. “Our companies, our cities and our world are complex systems—indeed, systems of systems—that require new things of us as leaders, as workers and as citizens,” Preschern said. “A smarter planet will require a profound shift in management and governance toward far more collaborative approaches.”

And statistics show that these changes are already under way, he said. Some examples:

• A yearlong study by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory found that consumers within smart meter systems saved 10% on their power bills and cut their power usage by 15% during peak hours.
• Eight hospitals and 470 primary care clinics implementing smarter health care systems across their facilities—by making information available to practitioners at the point of care and applying insights into organizational performance—were able to improve clinical results and operational efficiency by up to 10%.
• Leading retailers have cut supply chain costs by up to 30%, reducing inventory levels by up to 25% and increasing sales by up to 10%. They did so by analyzing customer buying behaviors, aligning merchandising assortments with demand and building end-to-end visibility across their entire supply chains. With this in mind, IBM launched its Smarter Planet” initiative, designed to help companies extract insight, identify patterns and seize opportunities to make smarter business decisions and quantify ROI. During his presentation, Preschern will show how business marketers can apply Smarter Planet principles to their own organizations and strategies.

IBM, which will turn 100 in 2011, is a fundamentally different company today than it was 10 years ago, Preschern noted. With an unprecedented opportunity to make the world work better by making it smarter, IBM today is poised to help clients through this challenging economic time, enabling them to emerge from this downturn stronger and better prepared for the future.