IBM Business Consulting Services
IBM capitalises on its market intelligence.
Overview
 The challenge
Support IBM’s marketing
transformation by leveraging
technology to effectively distribute
Market Intelligence (MI) throughout
the organisation
 The solution
The MI Knowledge Portal
– a communication vehicle that
disseminates market intelligence
throughout the organisation
 The benefit
– An up-to-date, relevant means
of delivering relevant market
intelligence and insight to
decision makers
– One stop shop for marketing
information
– Over 47,000 page views per
month in EMEA1
“IBM’s old approach to
marketing focused on marketing
communication,” explained
Uwe Kuehne, Director of Market
Intelligence, IBM EMEA. “Our teams
wanted to support marketing and
business decisions with the most
up-to-date information. IBM needed
to pool its collective customer and
market intelligence so we could make
more effective business and marketing
decisions.”
Since IBM embarked on its marketing
“ Our teams wanted
transformation nearly a decade ago, to support marketing
the company’s brand ranking has and business decisions
leapt from 282 in 1994 to number
with the most up-to-
three in 2002.2 The company’s market
date information. IBM
intelligence initiative played a key role
in turning IBM into a successful world
needed to pool our
class market driven company. collective customer and
market intelligence so
In the mid 1990s, IBM sought to build we could make more
one of the most successful marketing
effective business and
operations in the world. To achieve
this, IBM needed to move away from
marketing decisions.”
its sales-oriented stance and explore
Uwe Kuehne, Director of Market
smarter ways of selling, positioning Intelligence, IBM EMEA.
and marketing the company.
Creating a communication vehicle
IBM’s Software Group was a logical
place to start. Four years ago the
Group was a complex conglomeration
of brands and teams working with little
visibility of each other. This resulted in
acute difficulties in sharing key market
intelligence with IBM’s business
decision makers. “We needed to
help the IBM Software Group identify
relevant information, track key metrics,
and compile customer research,”
explained Anthony Marsella, Senior
Manager, EMEA Market Intelligence.
“But marketing intelligence is about
more than information – it’s about
providing insight that would support
the Group as it moved forward.”
“ We wanted a
communication vehicle
that would deliver
relevant marketing
intelligence directly to
decision makers,” said
Marsella.
Anthony Marsella, Senior Manager, EMEA
Market Intelligence.
IBM sought to leverage its technical
and marketing expertise to effectively
disseminate marketing intelligence
throughout the organisation. The
company decided to create a
marketing intelligence intranet, or
Knowledge Portal, to provide both
business leaders and the wider
marketing community with fast and
timely market information. “We wanted
a communication vehicle that would
deliver relevant marketing intelligence
directly to decision makers,” said
Marsella.
Meeting the needs of the users
Marsella interviewed key marketing
executives within the IBM Software
Group to ensure that the Knowledge
Portal would meet its marketing needs
and enable informed decision making.
This needs-based assessment fed into
every aspect of the portal.
Content for the portal comes from
a variety of sources, including data
from external analysts, marketplace
assessments and internal research.
Currently, 12 external vendors have the
ability to update their reports straight
into the portal in EMEA.
Some parts of the portal are
accessible to anyone with an IBM user
ID. Other sections are only accessible
to specific groups or certain
individuals. “Users create quite a
detailed profile, so you can customise
the portal to show only content that is
relevant to that particular user,” said
Marsella.
Up-to-date and relevant
The main challenge to the portal’s
success was getting people to use
it. IBM found that the most effective
way of driving people to the portal
was ensuring that it was current and
relevant. “People come to the portal
if they know they’ll get the information
they need,” said Kuehne. “We revisit
the portal twice a year to ensure
that it is still providing users with the
information they require.” Since its
launch, the MI Knowledge Portal has
been integrated into IBM’s worldwide
Web site and has become widely
accepted throughout the company as
a powerful business information tool.
“The traffic data proves how much
it is used,” said Kuehne. “In EMEA
alone, we have an average of 150
authenticated users per month and
3,500 page views for the portal. The
database that underpins the portal has
an average of 47,000 page views per
month.”3
 “ We have tremendous
insights to bring into
the art of merging
technology with the
professional needs of the
marketing intelligence
community. We’ve
proved we can do it,
and now we can help
others achieve the same
success.”
Anthony Marsella, Senior Manager, EMEA
Market Intelligence.
Bringing it to market
IBM can now bring its expertise in
leveraging interactive technology to
disseminate market intelligence data
and insights to other companies. “We
have a tremendous amount of learning
behind us,” said Kuehne. “We’ve
acquired a lot of skills through this
process, including how to balance the For more information
needs of the user community with the To learn more about IBM Business
desires of the management. We’ve Consulting Services, contact your
also learned that introducing complex local IBM sales representative, call
projects in phases improves the overall 0870 010 2530 or visit:
adoption rate. There aren’t a lot of
people out there who have marketing ibm.com/bcs/uk
intelligence capabilities at the level
we’re at today. The knowledge we now
have allows us to focus the business
where it needs to be.”
Marsella added: “We have
tremendous insights to bring into the
art of merging technology with the
professional needs of the marketing
intelligence community. We’ve proved
we can do it, and now we can help
others achieve the same success.”
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1 ‘IBM MI Information Services’.
2 ‘The 100 Top Brands’ – 5th August, 2002
Business Week/Data: Interbrand Corp., J.P.
Morgan Chase and Co.
3 ‘IBM MI Information Services’.
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