> IBM does have Cognos (which is actually a suite of products) lots of data scientists (not just in Research but also in SWG) and most of the other bits they need.
Disagree. I've worked with swaths of consultants from the big IT consultancies and I can assure that not only are data scientists few and far between, that anyone with those skillsets usually gets frustrated and leaves when security restrictions bog down their ability to perform.
> – Supply chain is a long term, continuous improvement effort. IBM’s business model is sell, do something, get paid, leave. Under the context of “do something” IBM will stick to requirements that may or may not produce the desired results.
– If IBM’s supply chain expertise is so good — why does IBM have so many slow and inefficient internal processes?
This is absolutely spot on. The second point is a bit of a curse of "the carpenter's children have no shoes", but an important point that companies like SAP have counteracted lately (SAP does lots of dogfooding and has very good analytics people internally)
> Believe it or not … Most companies are still in their analytics infancy. Yes, there are pockets of excellence and some companies (Intel comes to mind, as do a few CPG companies like P&G and PepsiCo) are really, really, good at it.
This is very true. Most people would be surprised (appalled?) at how many large businesses still rely on Excel. Worse, the amount of manual work required to get data clean, formatted, etc. is absolutely incredible...especially given how much money they spend to deliver an analytics solution.
Ex-IBM'er here. Couldn't agree more on "anyone with those skillsets usually gets frustrated and leaves when security restrictions bog down their ability to perform." Actually remove "with those skillsets" and it still holds true. While on one hand it's important to protect data, the amount of shit you have to install on a system just to make and keep it compliant with internal ITSC-whatever policies amounts to malware, and employees bending over backwards trying to work around them because they essentially cripple their systems. I can't tell you for example just how many employees there have Virtual Machines they once a month start, run some mandated software which calls home to satisfy it, then shut it down to actually be able to get some work done. Ridiculous.
– If IBM’s supply chain expertise is so good — why does IBM have so many slow and inefficient internal processes?
This is absolutely spot on. The second point is a bit of a curse of "the carpenter's children have no shoes", but an important point that companies like SAP have counteracted lately
This is very true. Accenture and Microsoft are infamous for weak internal systems. This is in a larger part because their best developers are working on external facing systems.
And to your last point... Wall Street is build on Excel. Now THAT is scary!
"Watson’s budget, if the rumors I heard are true (and I knew a couple of people on the Jeopardy team so I didn’t doubt them) IBM spent north of $1 Billion to win that game. Marketing and Research shared the cost."
(I don't have a point here, I just like quoting "Marketing and Research shared the cost." - seems to be the first time such words were published on the net ;-)
Disagree. I've worked with swaths of consultants from the big IT consultancies and I can assure that not only are data scientists few and far between, that anyone with those skillsets usually gets frustrated and leaves when security restrictions bog down their ability to perform.
> – Supply chain is a long term, continuous improvement effort. IBM’s business model is sell, do something, get paid, leave. Under the context of “do something” IBM will stick to requirements that may or may not produce the desired results.
– If IBM’s supply chain expertise is so good — why does IBM have so many slow and inefficient internal processes?
This is absolutely spot on. The second point is a bit of a curse of "the carpenter's children have no shoes", but an important point that companies like SAP have counteracted lately (SAP does lots of dogfooding and has very good analytics people internally)
> Believe it or not … Most companies are still in their analytics infancy. Yes, there are pockets of excellence and some companies (Intel comes to mind, as do a few CPG companies like P&G and PepsiCo) are really, really, good at it.
This is very true. Most people would be surprised (appalled?) at how many large businesses still rely on Excel. Worse, the amount of manual work required to get data clean, formatted, etc. is absolutely incredible...especially given how much money they spend to deliver an analytics solution.