IBM has announced an expansion of its mobile portfolio for enterprises as it continues to create analytics-driven and cognitive enabled enterprise iOS apps that enable organizations to accelerate digital reinvention and transform how businesses engage across industries.
Three years ago, IBM escalated its focus on mobile by partnering with Apple to deliver enterprise iOS apps that change the nature of work. Today, the partnership continues to expand, achieving several billion dollars in signings with more than 3,800 client engagements supported by market-ready and custom iOS apps designed for professions across all industries, including store associates, flight attendants, and field technicians, according to Bridget van Kralingen, senior vice president, IBM Industry Platforms.
In addition, new mobile client initiatives are underway to empower employees at Lufthansa Group, City Furniture, Singapore Airlines, and Japan Airlines that are equipping employees, in multiple roles, with data and analytics to provide an improved experience for their customers, she adds.
In order to offer clients greater access to its mobile capabilities, IBM is introducing new Garages dedicated to the quick design, integration and deployment of MobileFirst for iOS apps, adding to its growing network of global studios and labs where clients work with more than 10,000 experts in mobile and cognitive.
The company is expanding its network of design and development studios and Garages across the world, which currently include Atlanta, Cupertino, Toronto, Chicago and the MobileFirst for iOS Garage in Bangalore, to add global hubs in Shanghai and Bucharest dedicated to the creation and delivery of apps across mobile platforms.
Mobile apps designed by IBM can now be embedded with the cognitive capabilities of IBM Watson to deliver experiences that learn and adapt, and drive better, faster decision-making. IBM is using the new studios and garage development labs to accelerate access to its Mobile at Scale capabilities and help enterprises fast track their transformations.
A recent report from Forrester shows that by using Mobile at Scale, an airline deploying a suite of iOS enterprise apps anticipates a 48% return on investment over a three-year period, with a 30% reduction in mobile app development costs and a 10% reduction in operating costs, van Kralingen notes. The study is based on a comparison of Mobile at Scale to current enterprise wide approaches to mobile.
Enterprises including United Airlines, Banco Santander and Finnair are using Mobile at Scale to build entire app ecosystems –transforming multiple roles within their enterprises — with speed and scale.
