Australian Bureau of Statistics Adopts IBM Social Software to Boost Employee Collaboration

ARMONK, N.Y., Aug. 18 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) is adopting IBM social software to support the way thousands of employees connect and interact.

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According to a recent IBM survey, 98 percent of CEOs need to restructure the way their organizations work. 5.3 hours are wasted per employee per week due to inefficient processes. Two hours is spent per employee per day looking for the right information and expertise within an organization. Social software can help alleviate this problem because it helps keep global work teams better connected and more able to deliver results.

ABS will be utilizing IBM Lotus Connections throughout its 3,200 person organization.  With this investment, the ABS is extending social software to all of its employees across Australia. ABS is confident that this strategy will put it at the forefront of technology enabled collaboration.

"ABS prides itself on a history of adopting cutting-edge software to bring speed and effectiveness to our organization," said Dale Chatwin, Director, Knowledge Management Initiative, ABS. "With Lotus Connections, ABS can use business-grade social software, straight out of the box."

"Social software helps enterprises accelerate innovation and the speed of business," said Alistair Rennie, general manager, IBM Lotus Software.  "IBM social software is transforming the way people work -- providing a platform for collaboration that mirrors human interactions."

Since 1992, the ABS has used IBM Lotus software to empower its employees to connect, collaborate and innovate while optimizing the way they work. Recently, ABS was recognized in the Gershon review for its best practice use of the Lotus platform in supporting the ABS' advanced knowledge management environment.  The environment delivers ongoing information productivity and facilitates collaboration through the integration of  portal, collaboration, mail, workflow, offline capabilities, document management and record keeping.

IBM Lotus Connections complements and extends existing collaboration environments by featuring the latest internet advances like blogs, wikis, secure file sharing, profiling and tagging capabilities, task management, and community spaces, along with email, chat and social data components. By coupling its existing IBM Lotus Notes environment with IBM Lotus Connections, the ABS can introduce an integrated Web 2.0 social software platform utilizing the best features of each product.

In adopting Lotus Connections technology, the ABS is in very good company. Over 35% of Fortune 100 companies have also adopted IBM's social software offerings.

According to the IDC Worldwide Social Platforms Revenues by Vendors, 2007-2009, June 2010*, IBM was named the worldwide market share leader in the Social Software Market, which includes Lotus Connections. The IDC report states that worldwide revenue for the social platforms market was $369.7 million in 2009, representing growth of more than 55 percent.

For more information on ABS, please visit http://www.abs.gov.au/

For more information on IBM, please visit http://www.ibm.com

*IDC, Worldwide Social Platforms 2009 Vendor Shares, Doc. #223817, Jun 2010.  

SOURCE IBM