12.05.2015, 16:32
More Businesses are Turning to Watson Analytics for Fast Access to Strategic Insights
OREANDA-NEWS. IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced today that organizations of all shapes and sizes are turning to Watson Analytics, IBM’s cloud-based analytics service, for fast, accurate and actionable insights into business operations.
From Legends, a premiere hospitality and planning services firm, to Mueller Inc., a leading manufacturer of steel buildings and metal roofs, organizations are leveraging Watson Analytics to improve business processes and customer engagement, while better understanding fluctuating business dynamics caused by sales, marketing, and even weather.
Watson Analytics is a breakthrough natural language-based cognitive service that provides business professionals across such disciplines as marketing, sales, operations, finance and human resources, fast access to powerful, predictive and visual analytic tools. Through IBM’s relationship with Twitter, Watson Analytics also enables customers to analyze social sentiment for insights around programs, products, trends and more.
Since its release in December, more than 40,000 people around the globe have registered and are using Watson Analytics. One such client is Mueller, the leading manufacturer of metal roofing across the central and southwest U.S., an area known for extreme weather. In the State of Texas alone, residents from the Panhandle to the Rio Grande Valley can experience drought conditions one moment and golf ball-sized hail and tornados the next.
But while Mueller’s products can withstand the extreme forces of Mother Nature, weather can still compound traditional business challenges like revenue forecasting.
“Before Watson Analytics we used a basic formula to gauge and forecast revenue,” said Mark Lack, manager of strategy analytics and business intelligence, at Mueller. “We would take our daily invoice revenue, month-to-date, divide it by the number of business days for the daily average and then multiply that by the number of days left in the month. The formula was ok, but it was never accurate until the last week of the month.”
That all changed with Watson Analytics. By inputting a variety of variables into the system, including everything from invoice data, to the number of projects ongoing, to even the number of phone calls received, Mueller was able to consistently produce highly accurate revenue forecasts, quickly and easily.
With more accurate revenue forecasts available earlier each month, Mueller was able to start identifying and confirming trends, said Lack. With such insights, the company was able to begin re-aligning staffing and sometimes entire jobs. “With more accurate forecasts, we can mitigate if not eliminate guesswork, as well as surprises,” Lack said.
But most important to Lack, is Watson Analytics’ ability to inspire additional queries and analysis. “The system produces search and query results so fast, and in such an easy-to-view format, that it really sparks new ideas and ‘what-if’ questions,” he said. “That’s a unique power of this system.”
From Legends, a premiere hospitality and planning services firm, to Mueller Inc., a leading manufacturer of steel buildings and metal roofs, organizations are leveraging Watson Analytics to improve business processes and customer engagement, while better understanding fluctuating business dynamics caused by sales, marketing, and even weather.
Watson Analytics is a breakthrough natural language-based cognitive service that provides business professionals across such disciplines as marketing, sales, operations, finance and human resources, fast access to powerful, predictive and visual analytic tools. Through IBM’s relationship with Twitter, Watson Analytics also enables customers to analyze social sentiment for insights around programs, products, trends and more.
Since its release in December, more than 40,000 people around the globe have registered and are using Watson Analytics. One such client is Mueller, the leading manufacturer of metal roofing across the central and southwest U.S., an area known for extreme weather. In the State of Texas alone, residents from the Panhandle to the Rio Grande Valley can experience drought conditions one moment and golf ball-sized hail and tornados the next.
But while Mueller’s products can withstand the extreme forces of Mother Nature, weather can still compound traditional business challenges like revenue forecasting.
“Before Watson Analytics we used a basic formula to gauge and forecast revenue,” said Mark Lack, manager of strategy analytics and business intelligence, at Mueller. “We would take our daily invoice revenue, month-to-date, divide it by the number of business days for the daily average and then multiply that by the number of days left in the month. The formula was ok, but it was never accurate until the last week of the month.”
That all changed with Watson Analytics. By inputting a variety of variables into the system, including everything from invoice data, to the number of projects ongoing, to even the number of phone calls received, Mueller was able to consistently produce highly accurate revenue forecasts, quickly and easily.
With more accurate revenue forecasts available earlier each month, Mueller was able to start identifying and confirming trends, said Lack. With such insights, the company was able to begin re-aligning staffing and sometimes entire jobs. “With more accurate forecasts, we can mitigate if not eliminate guesswork, as well as surprises,” Lack said.
But most important to Lack, is Watson Analytics’ ability to inspire additional queries and analysis. “The system produces search and query results so fast, and in such an easy-to-view format, that it really sparks new ideas and ‘what-if’ questions,” he said. “That’s a unique power of this system.”
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