LAS VEGAS - 25 Oct 2016: IBM (NYSE:IBM) today unveiled a series of new cognitive solutions intended for professionals in marketing, commerce, supply chain and human resources. With these new offerings, IBM is enabling organizations across all industries and of all sizes to integrate new cognitive capabilities into their businesses.

Watson solutions learn in an expert way, which is critical for professionals that want to uncover insights hidden in their massive amounts of data to understand, reason and learn about their customers and important business processes. Helping professionals augment their existing knowledge and experience without needing to engage a data analyst empowers them to make more informed business decisions, spot opportunities and take action with confidence.

“IBM is bringing Watson cognitive capabilities to millions of professionals around the world, putting a trusted advisor and personal analyst at their fingertips,” said Harriet Green, general manager Watson IoT, Cognitive Engagement & Education. “Similar to the value that Watson has brought to the world of healthcare, cognitive capabilities will be extended to professionals in new areas, helping them harness the value of the data being generated in their industries and use it in new ways.”

At the core of any flawless experience is information, including details on a customer's past purchases to their style and delivery preferences. However, this insight cannot be isolated, it must be present from the first click all the way to product receipt and throughout the post purchase period.

IBM’s new cognitive solutions for marketers help practitioners identify and target the right audiences based on customer behaviors and quickly create the ideal combination of campaign assets to drive conversion and build brand loyalty.

• IBM Watson Customer Experience Analytics taps into a variety of behavioral data (for example shopping patterns, buying trends, etc.) to understand which customers are the right target for a campaign. The offering is constantly reasoning, processing new behavioral data and models so marketers can adapt their customer segmentation quickly and easily through visualizations and natural language interactions.
• IBM Watson Content Hub uses cognitive capabilities to understand and learn about the data in a company’s content management system. It trains itself to understand what has been stored and then recognize and automatically tag content including images, videos and documents based on millions of previous examples. This allows marketers and merchandisers to quickly select the right content based on the needs of the campaign regardless of the channel they are using.

Great customer experiences don’t end with the purchase but rather when the item is in the hand of the customer. Despite this fact, many retailers wrestle with delivering last-mile fulfillment that meets client demand while improving profitability and reducing costs across all sales channels. The new IBM Watson Order Optimizer, part of IBM’s cognitive solutions for commerce professionals, helps online commerce practitioners fulfill orders across all channels.  And, because it is cognitive, the offering learns over time, studying patterns from past orders and current market trends to make recommendations on everything from network capacity to shipping costs and times.

One of the biggest challenges for supply chain leaders is the lack of visibility and transparency into their physical and digital supply chain[1], specifically the ability to see and understand the vast amounts of data being generated. Part of IBM’s new cognitive solutions for supply chain professionals, IBM Watson Supply Chain Insights, continuously learns about a company’s normal supply chain patterns by analyzing and spotting trends in the data from multiple systems including trade partners, which can account for up to 65 percent of the value of a company derives from its products and services2. The solution then alerts practitioners to potential disruptions, provides insights into estimated time delays and financial costs of the issue and recommends specific experts who can gather in a virtual work room to quickly solve the problem.

Attracting, developing, and retaining the right talent are pivotal factors essential to business success. Leveraging cognitive capabilities, IBM Watson Talent offerings bring greater efficiency and effectiveness to the recruitment, learning, and talent functions, driving improvements in the delivery of HR services. To retain key talent, organizations must have the tools that support employees’ preferred working style. With IBM Watson Work cognitive-powered productivity applications and services, employees can connect with the right experts, ensure relevant content and insights are utilized and work together in a simple manner.

·    IBM Watson Workspace learns how an individual works and interacts, and consolidates multiple work conversations from various communications channels into a single space. Using Watson, the technology highlights the most urgent action items, points to the right content needed at the time, and automates everyday tasks so employees can focus on the most vital business tasks.

·    IBM Watson Work Services are a set of cognitive APIs –Action Identification, Moment Identification and Summarization –developers can access through the offering’s website so they can infuse cognitive capabilities into existing work products and applications such as IBM Watson Workspace, existing third party applications and when building new applications. The technology uses natural language classifiers so it can analyze and facilitate the necessary action. For example, if someone says: "Great point –let's schedule a meeting to discuss further," the system can identify 'schedule a meeting' as an action, and help find the best time to continue the conversation.

For more information on the new categories of cognitive solutions: IBM Watson Marketing, IBM Watson Supply Chain, IBM Watson Commerce, IBM Watson Talent and IBM Watson Work. These new categories join previously announced solutions Watson Financial Services, Watson Regulatory Compliance Solutions and Watson Education.

About IBM Watson: Pioneering a New Era of Computing

Watson represents a new era in computing called cognitive computing, where systems understand the world the way humans do: through senses, learning, and experience. Watson continuously learns from previous interactions, gaining in value and knowledge over time. With the help of Watson, organizations are harnessing the power of cognitive computing to transform industries, help professionals do their jobs better, and solve important challenges. 

As part of IBM’s strategy to accelerate the growth of cognitive computing, Watson is open to the world, allowing a growing community of developers, students, entrepreneurs and tech enthusiasts to easily tap into the most advanced and diverse cognitive computing platform available today. Watson solutions are being built, used and deployed in more than 45 countries and across 20 different industries.

For more information on IBM Watson, visit: ibm.com/Watson and ibm.com/press/watson. Join the conversation at #ibmwatson.