The future of Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) is here.
IBM Cloud customers span across five continents, 60+ data centers, and more than 20 industries. Within this global diversity, data trends highlight unifying business needs: A place for open source innovation with market-leading cloud security, enterprise grade platforms and complete management capabilities.
Enter IBM Cloud Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offerings.
Of the 170+ services and products on IBM Cloud, the top five provisioned services of 2019* were as follows:
- IBM Watson® Assistant
- IBM Watson Speech to Text
- IBM Cloudant® NoSQL DB
- IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service
- IBM Watson Natural Language Classifier
Based on Q3 2019 analysis from Data Science and Insights (DSI), 32% of customers use more than one IBM Cloud service or product. Across industries including IT, education, finance, telecommunications, automotive, insurance and healthcare, IBM Cloud customers strengthen their competitive advantages by using a combination of services from the most open and secure public cloud for business.
Accelerating innovation to battle bullying
IBM Watson services are so advantageous that 23% of all IBM Cloud customers use more than one for their business ventures. Two prime examples are Guardio and WatsomApp, technologies that aim to decrease bullying.
Guardio helps parents protect kids against cyberbullying anytime, anywhere. The company’s AI-based service relies on several of the 2019 top services. Like 17% of all IBM Cloud customers, Guardio uses IBM Watson Speech to Text, IBM Watson Natural Language Classifier and IBM Watson Natural Language Understanding to maximize the capabilities of each.
The Guardio app scans social media activity, identifies language which may indicate bullying, and alerts parents. Currently, the app works for WhatsApp and Instagram, which together account for 80% of social media use for children under 14 years of age. Supported by the responsive analytics of IBM Watson and IBM Cloud, the app has an accuracy rate as high as 99.99%.
As Pablo Elosua, CEO and Founder of Guardio, explains, “The IBM Watson solutions are very easy to implement and use, and its language understanding capabilities have enabled us to move to market very rapidly … [and] focus on connecting to social media and developing the protection that matters to parents.”
WatsomApp offers a tiered gamification and chatbot system to identify high risks of bullying in schools. Students play the game, which identifies classroom personas and relationships and alerts educators of at-risk or high-risk students. The WatsomApp chatbot then provides an easier outlet for students to speak safely about their problems and experiences, without having to face a parent or administrator directly.
To operate this groundbreaking multiplatform service, WatsomApp combines the power of top-provisioned services IBM watsonx Assistant, Watson Speech to Text and Watson Natural Language Classifier, as well Watson Text to Speech and Watson Natural Language Understanding.
Optimizing technology for faster customer service
To gain a competitive advantage, insurer Helvetica Seguros focused on optimizing technology and AI for an improved digitization transformation. To give customers a faster, friendlier digital option for reviewing and purchasing insurance policies, Helvetica Seguros took a global, hybrid approach by using the popular IBM watsonx Assistant (used by 11.5% of all IBM Cloud customers) as well as Watson Speech-to-Text, Watson Text-to-Speech, Watson Natural Language Understanding, and IBM Cloud container services.
The virtual assistant powered by IBM Watson converses with customers to complete the forms online, often within 10 minutes. This alone is a customer-centric cost-saver, as traditional insurance forms are long, take three to four days to complete and arrive via mail, and often result in loss of approximately 51% of customers.
The efficient, customer-centric digital service model from Helvetica Seguros makes for better first impressions and stronger customer relationships. Agents are more free to focus on selling higher-value and more complex policies, while customers have access to assistance anytime, anywhere.
Cloud-based transformations for better healthcare
With the power of IBM Cloud, Think Research began a digital transformation for healthcare professionals through optimized technology and AI solutions. The company provides a suite of apps that gives clinicians a condensed, actionable order set of the latest medical research and best practices.
Of course, working in healthcare means dealing with Personal Health Information (PHI). Doing so comes with industry security and privacy restrictions (HIPAA in the U.S.) and the need for mobility, scalability, and correlation of patient data and medical research at the point of care.
Using a combined solution of bare metal and virtual servers, IBM Compose and IBM Cloudant databases, and a containerized approach with IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service, Think Research provides an efficient best-practice solution for healthcare professionals. Doctors and nurses can have the latest medical research and protocols at their fingertips, spend less time searching for data and filling out forms, and deliver effective, efficient patient care with access to the necessary records.
The Think Research pilot programs are showing promising results in ultra-efficient healthcare—two hours saved per patient admission, increased compliance and standardization of care, and up to USD $50,000 in daily savings for hospitals due to better post-treatment practices.
As Alfred Wong, VP of Engineering at Think Research, concludes, “Thanks to the support of IBM and the flexibility of IBM Cloud technology, we can focus on building digital solutions that empower clinicians to provide better care more efficiently.”
Combining service solutions for business longevity
Customers are accelerating digital innovations and transformations with the optimized Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) solutions of IBM Cloud. In fact, 32% of our customers already benefit from using a complement of IBM Cloud PaaS offerings to scale and span their business in a practical, cost-effective, and efficient way. It’s no wonder these solutions and services, including IBM watsonx Assistant, IBM Watson Speech to Text, and IBM Cloudant, are at the top of many IBM Cloud customers’ ‘must have’ lists when planning the future of their platforms.
Will you join them in capturing business growth and future innovation opportunities with the most open and secure public cloud for business in 2020?
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*data based on users January – October 2019
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