IBM Predicts 9 Smart Work Trends for '09
Las Vegas - 06 mai 2009
Finding smarter ways to work is critical to a lasting economic revival, IBM announced today.
Through a set of technology and work-style trend predictions, IBM outlined how people will conduct business more efficiently and effectively within a "smart planet," IBM's view of an increasingly connected and instrumented world, shaping tomorrow at work.
IBM's nine Smarter Work trends for 2009 include:
1 - Universal access to collaboration technology on any device will redefine what it means to be "at work" in an increasingly mobile and globally distributed workforce. Improved applications for mobile devices will offer enterprise office levels of security, flexibility and ease-of-use.
2 - Messaging will move beyond basic email and calendaring to become an integrated platform for communication, collaboration and sharing of resources.
3 - Organizations will begin managing their workforces primarily through the use of human networks. Employee skills and interests will be easily catalogued, helping employers find the perfect fit for projects and assignments.
4 - Unified communications will enable interaction through any mode via any computing device. Rich presence will drive interactions; instant messaging will be the defacto form of communication; traditional telephony will give way to "voice collaboration."
5 - Despite challenging economic conditions in 2009, the affordability and ease of using cloud-based software services will transform many small-medium businesses and individual corporate departments into global trading partners.
6 - Free and inexpensive technology will spread, allowing cash-strapped organizations to weather the storm of economic uncertainty with everything from office desktop productivity to social networking and collaboration in the cloud.
7 - The availability of essential business applications, the growing popularity of Netbooks, budget pressures and general maturity of the platform will push Linux on the desktop towards critical mass.
8 - Business applications will increasingly become interactive on mobile devices.
9 - Mashup technology will become increasingly used by IT and line of business workers to create a millions of morphing situational applications to solve daily problems.
"We have more reasons to change now," said Bob Picciano, General Manager, IBM Lotus Software. "We can't simply go about our business relying on resource-draining business trips, over-crowded inboxes, paper-based operations and hierarchical methods of finding the answers we need. It's time to work smarter and build a smarter planet."
Here are some tips on how individuals and businesses can start working smarter right now, according to Picciano. He suggests that people start working one day per week without using email as the primary application. Instead, they should rely more on collaborative Web 2.0 technologies like social networking, instant messaging and unified communications. Picciano recommends that people at work form social and professional networks with the experts in the fields most important to them based on the daily demonstration of their expertise, not based on their title. Businesses can also connect with people and resources more efficiently and economically in the cloud -- or over the Web -- with reliable, secure software services.
Another tip is to conduct instant, Web-and-voice meetings instead of forcing people to fly or drive great distances, saving time, cost and greenhouse gases. Eliminating paper-weighted processes altogether with digital forms and systems for capturing and conveying company information will also streamline business and help the environment.
IBM Reveals How People Will Use Collaboration to Work Smarter
Previews of Technology from IBM, SAP, RIM, LotusLive.com Cloud Services and Business Best Practices
Bring the Future Closer
LAS VEGAS -- May 6, 2009 -- At the IMPACT 2009 conference, IBM (NYSE: IBM) today described how people will work differently on a smart planet by building in new forms of intelligence, efficiency and productivity in the ways they work together. Mobile Lotus Notes-based business analytics from IBM and SAP, richer collaboration tools on the Blackberry and mobile access to LotusLive cloud services are among the tools the smarter workforce will use.
IBM's vision for a smart planet is to bring a new level of intelligence to how the world works - how every person, business, organization, government, natural system, and man-made system interacts.
"Each interaction among and between people and systems increases efficiency and productivity leading to meaningful progress for individuals, businesses and the wider world," said Bob Picciano, General Manager, IBM Lotus Software. "Costs go down. Meaningful relationships are formed. Untapped sources of expertise emerge. New markets are realized. Better business outcomes are achieved. The possibilities are endless."
Smarter ways to work must be found because even in stressful economic times, businesses waste 5.3 hours per employee due to inefficient processes. A full two-thirds of employees believe there are colleagues who can help them do their jobs better, but they don't know how to find them – and 42% of people are forced to make decisions with the wrong information at least once a week. That explains why 91% of CEOs surveyed said they needed to restructure the way their organizations work.
Key trends in how people are working more intelligently are swelling up to overcome the inefficiencies of the past. Mobility is a defining attribute of a smarter planet Increasingly mobile and distributed employees are looking for universal access to their work wherever they are. IBM's Institute for Business Value predicts one two billion mobile Web users over the next decade, and a significant shift in the way the majority of people will interact with the Web over the next decade.
As a result, IBM and SAP are demonstrating "Mobile Alloy" --- Lotus Notes collaboration infused with business analytics by running their joint Alloy software as a native application on a mobile platform. Alloy connects IBM Lotus Notes software with SAP Business Suite to get people to the core of their business. Alloy presents information and data from SAP applications in the context of what millions of business users are familiar with – the Lotus Notes collaboration software desktop. This will make it easier for professionals to do their jobs seamlessly and give a broader audience a clearer view and understanding of their business.
Devices such as the RIM Blackberry enable individuals to receive and send e-mail, explore the Web, view their own information portal, blog, instant message, access and convey business intelligence in the office, from home or on the road. Around the world, devices and wireless networks from AT&T, Nokia, Orange,Samsung, Sprint, and Verizon are also carrying collaborative applications.
Organizations will begin managing their workforces primarily through the use of human networks, crossing over from the personal realm. Employee skills and interests will be easily catalogued, helping employers find the perfect fit for projects and assignments. In anticipation of this, Research in Motion has installed a native client for IBM Lotus Connections on the Blackberry to enable people to build and track their networks on the go with blogs, communities, activities and tag clouds. The Practicing Law Institute, McKesson Medical Services, HSBC and Colgate-Palmolive are among the many organizations creating their own advanced social networks to help people readily locate information and expertise - raising the collective intelligence of the organization in the process. Moosejaw Mountaineering's social networking approach has increased its online customer conversion rate by 50%. The Salvation Army's Web-based collaboration infrastructure across 118 countries connects volunteers, supplies and relief coordination activities.
Unified communications is rendering traditional phones obsolete. The new Lotus Sametime client on the Blackberry and more than 120 million Sametime customers in both Lotus Notes and Microsoft Exchange environments are making realtime communications an expectation for the majority who need an answer now. Insurance firm Celina uses collaboration tools to connect its independent agents and underwriters, helping them to reduce policy turnaround time from weeks to days.
Mashup software will come into common business use to solve every day challenges like finding the fastest route to ship a customer order or major emergencies. Boeing Corporation has developed a software mashup that can identify resources such as usable airfields within one minute, a dramatic improvement over the manual process that hampered relief efforts following Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Slow, paper-based processes are being replaced by digital media. Businesses are anxious to speed up their work and reduce their carbon footprint. Meanwhile, younger workers grew up in a digital environment with expectations of a paperless office. Hoping to lead the way, the US Army has saved more than $1 billion in paper-related costs by migrating to Web-based processes and electronic forms from IBM.
Free and inexpensive technology such as Lotus Symphony (now arriving on the Blackberry), the "Microsoft-Free Desktop," and the self-managing Lotus Foundations office-in-a- box will spread, allowing cash-strapped organizations weather the storm of economic uncertainty with everything from office desktop productivity to social networking and collaboration in the cloud.
Remote,disbursed workers are costing company budgets and earth fewer precious resources but getting better connected to their colleagues through mobile, social and unified communications technologies delivered through the cloud. LotusLive Meetings will support the ability to participate in an online meeting on mobile devices making it easy and simple to join a meeting regardless of location. By taking advantage of the 3G network, they can have an integrated audio and web conferencing experience.
Despite the economic conditions of 2009, the affordability and ease of using cloud-based software services such as LotusLive Engage will transform many small-medium businesses and individual corporate departments into global trading partners. Individuals can form their own network of experts to manage any business situation; bid for, or find talent to complete a project; meet with customers; or create plans with partners and colleagues for new products or services from any location, at any time of the day or night.
In fact, construction conglomerate EMCOR Group, Inc. used LotusLive Engage extensively to work through an annual budget process. They quickly brought together many stakeholders into an online place to pull together figures and reports. They held online meetings to collaborate on the substance of the reports and quickly shared new versions of critical files for the team to comment and revise. Though the team was spread out in a variety of subsidiaries around the world, they completed their budget more in time comprehensively and efficiently.
The Institute of High Performance Learning at the City University of New York is both planning and implementing their vision of an easily accessible place for all types of mentoring program using LotusLive. They rely heavily on volunteers and is using LotusLive to plan and collect materials for their summer mentoring programs by leveraging file sharing and online meetings and activities. They are bringing together work teams from many different companies and organizations to reach out and get connected with students online.