Read this article about IBM, one of our finalists, in the category Best Achievement in Technology Enabled Process Automation, selected by the independent judging panel, for the 2019 Business Transformation & Operational Excellence Industry Awards program. Click here to read articles on other finalists.
Using Artificial Intelligence (AI), IBM has created a sales opportunity passing solution that has exponentially improved the process, resulting in $32M in additional revenue over the first half of 2018.
Much of IBM’s business is conducted through our wide network of Business Partners (BPs) who are highly invested in IBMs solutions. Historically, the responsibility of selecting a BP for a specific sales opportunity fell on the IBM seller, who often has limited knowledge about which BPs represent the best choice for a given opportunity, resulting in a delayed process and revenue impact.
Opportunity passing has historically been a very manual process. Business rules were prescribed to determine which leads should be passed and notifications were then sent to the Opportunity Owners (OOs), who then had to select a BP for an opportunity. While many process improvements were implemented across the past decade attempting to increase the volume and speed of passing, none contributed to a sizable impact.
IBM’s Chief Analytics Office (CAO) partnered with IBM Research Ireland to create a solution that provides recommendations for BP selection. Called the Smarter Cognitive Opportunity Recommendation Engine (SCORE), this engine uses AI techniques that allow it to learn from sales data and operational feedback from IBM Sellers, BPs and clients to recommend the optimal BP to receive each lead.
To allow for quick and effective development and implementation of the system, the previous opportunity passing system was retro-fitted with the new cognitive models. As a result, no additional development was needed to facilitate the lead passing – simply the development and integration of a new recommendation engine and a mechanism to automatically pass opportunities to BPs.
Prior to SCORE, BP recommendations were based on a model that was limited in scope and based predominantly on business rules. To improve this model, an Elastic Search algorithm was developed focusing on the main characteristics of a successful business partner: (1) Historical Performance; (2) Product Experience, (3) Customer Experience; (4) Industry Experience; (5) Deal Size; (6) Proximity to the Deal; and (7) Social Network of Sellers and BPs. This algorithm was then enhanced with a feature that incorporates feedback from sellers to continuously improve recommendations. The model is retrained weekly to account for the recent activities of BPs. Once the recommendations were considered trustworthy, a system to automatically pass the opportunities to BPs was implemented.
SCORE’s results over the past eight months demonstrate improved access to the BP ecosystem, positioning IBM to better tap into the full potential of BPs. Many changes have already been put into effect that would not have been possible under the previous infrastructure and new improvements are made continuously to the model and the overall process because of the cognitive system that is in place.
With SCORE, the time to pass a sales opportunity to a BP was cut in half when comparing 1H2017 to 1H2018. In addition, process improvement benefits have driven an incremental $32M of transactional revenue for IBM in the first half of 2018.
The Business Transformation & Operational Excellence Awards have been established to showcase globally the most outstanding organizational achievements through the application of Operational Excellence programs. Click here to view the Press Release.
The winners for all categories and for The Platinum Awards will be announced at The Business Transformation & Operational Excellence Summit & Industry Awards on Wednesday March 20th, 2019, from 6.30pm, in the Venetian Ballroom at the Loews Portofino Bay Hotel at Universal Orlando Resort®.
The Business Transformation & Operational Excellence Awards are open to all organizations, both private and public sector, across the globe, which have implemented Operational Excellence programs to deliver outstanding business results.
The 2019 Awards will be held in conjunction with the Business Transformation & Operational Excellence World Summit on March 20, 2019 in the Venetian Ballroom at the Loews Portofino Bay Hotel at Universal Orlando™
BTOES is the industry’s biggest and best, senior-level, cross-industry gathering of Business Transformation & Operational Excellence industry leaders and senior executives.
It also hosts the Business Transformation & Operational Excellence Awards, which showcase globally the most outstanding organizational achievements through the application of Operational Excellence programs.
The summits hosts a number of private forums for C-Level & Global corporate-level leaders as well as business unit heads.
With over 150 speakers, over 100 sessions, 12 Keynotes, 9 Track Themes, 5 parallel tracks, 60+ track sessions, 50 roundtable discussions, 20 Interactive Workshops, 6 Thought Leader Panels, 5 Leaders Boardrooms, 5 co-located events, the Industry Awards Program, Site Visits, 20+ hours of social networking including 2 gala cocktail parties, dinners, numerous group activities, this is the ultimate event to benchmark, network and drive Operational Excellence to the next level.
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There is a strong focus on Cultural Transformation, Customer Delight, Sustaining an Operational Excellence program, Need for end-to-end Business Transformation, Keeping up with new technologies/impact of digitalization and Leadership Buy-in & Understanding. We dedicated two tracks to advanced technologies, such as AI, Machine Learning, RPA, Predictive Analytics, Blockchain, Cloud infrastructure etc.
The agenda is designed to encourage active meaningful conversations though all day enhanced networking and interaction opportunities, including
All-day Refreshment & Themed Breaks
1¼ Hour Hot Breakfast Networking Sessions
1½ Hour Hot Plated Networking Lunches with Topic & Industry Sector focussed tables
1½ Hour Roundtable Sessions by Topic & Industry Sector.
Keynote & Themes Panel Sessions
Hosted Welcome Receptions from 5.30pm
Expanded more lavish Awards Program
Newly launched Night Summit for attendees to meet after dinner
For more information or to discuss the summit in more detail please schedule a call below,
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