IBM Debuts New Analytics Appliance to Help Retailers Transform Big Data Into Business Opportunities

ARMONK, N.Y., Jan. 24, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced a new analytics appliance that analyzes up to petabytes of big data including consumer sales data and online shopping trends to help retailers gain actionable insight on buying patterns.

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The new appliance helps retailers deliver Smarter Commerce by using analytics to better understand buying patterns across multiple channels, and build stronger, more profitable customer relationships. Clients can now run complex, real-time analytics in a matter of seconds to improve the customer experience, shift marketing campaigns on the fly and boost sales.

In today's digitally transformed marketplace, consumers are increasingly empowered with information on products and services and ways to make competitive purchases, creating a hyper competitive marketplace for retailers. According to IBM, 70 percent of a customer's first interaction with a product or service takes place online, placing more importance on the digital consumer experience.

Through its Smarter Commerce initiative, IBM is defining and leading a new market that it estimates will grow to a $20 billion opportunity in software alone this year, driven by the demands of rapidly shifting customer buying patterns in the era of mobile and social networks. The new appliance is a part of IBM's Smarter Commerce initiative as it can help retailers deepen relationships with consumers and create a sense of brand intimacy.

Retailers need to understand their customers from browsing through purchase and across all channels in order to be more competitive. Tapping into analytics is the key to converting petabytes of customer data into actionable insight, revealing their needs and wants, and driving smarter decision-making across a retailer's organization.

The new IBM Netezza Customer Intelligence Appliance addresses these issues by providing retailers with big data analytics that allows them to analyze all customer interactions within their brand. A combined offering from IBM and business partner Aginity, and Cognos software, retailers can gain a single view of the customer spanning all channels and sales touch points including mobile, online and in store shopping. This means retailers can gain insights on the fly, better predict and target products and promotions, as well as improve store design and pricing.

Bass Pro Shops® adopted IBM's new appliance to gain insight on their customers' needs and provide better products and shopping experiences across all their channels, consisting of retail stores, boat dealerships, internet and catalog sales, wholesale, and hospitality, including restaurants and world class destination resorts.

"IBM analytics allowed us to quickly get information across our multiple channels and lines of business in one place to deliver meaningful analytics that drive top line and bottom line results," said Leslie Weber, Chief Information Officer at Bass Pro Shops®. "We can now create and deliver more targeted promotions, circulars and catalogs to create a better customer shopping experience."

Using the new appliance, retail clients can now also expand their predictive analytics capabilities with SPSS Predictive Analytics and IBM's Global Business Services, allowing them to go deeper in customer segmentation and business analytics.

IBM Netezza appliances are optimized systems based on IBM BladeCenter technology that can analyze petabytes of data significantly faster than competing options, and at a much lower total cost of ownership. Unlike competing appliances, Netezza can be up and running in minutes instead of days or weeks.

About Bass Pro Shops®

Bass Pro Shops® operates 58 retail stores in 26 states and Canada, and is visited by over 110 million people annually. The original store in Springfield, Missouri, at over 400,000 square feet and growing, is the world's largest outdoor recreational products store. Bass Pro Shops® also conducts an international catalog and internet retailing operation. Its Wholesale division, American Rod & Gun®, sells recreational products to over 7,000 independently owned retail stores worldwide. Outdoor World® Incentives also sells Bass Pro Shops® gift cards through over 132,000 retail outlets across America and Canada. The Bass Pro Shops® restaurant group operates 28 locations. The company's Tracker® Marine Group (www.trackerboats.com) is America's largest boat manufacturer. It manufactures and sells Tracker®, Nitro®, Sun Tracker®, Tahoe®, Grizzly® and Make® boats through Bass Pro Shops® retail stores and over 400 dealers worldwide. The Resort Group (www.bigcedar.com) includes Big Cedar® Lodge and other resort properties including restaurants and golf courses.

For more information regarding Bass Pro Shops® store locations, products or special events, please visit www.basspro.com. To request a free catalog, please call 1-800-BASS PRO. You may follow us on Face book at http://www.facebook.com/bassproshops.

About Aginity

Aginity combines deep experience in big data and big math to build and deploy customer analytic solutions, creating intimacy at scale. For more information, visit http://www.aginity.com.

About IBM

For information about the IBM Netezza products, please visit: www.thinking.netezza.com, http://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/netezza/

In North America alone, 14 of the 20 largest retailers work with IBM to transform key business operations and deliver Smarter Commerce to their customers. For more information, visit IBM Smarter Commerce at: www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/smarter_commerce/overview/index.html.

For more information on IBM Business Analytics and Information Management, please visit the online press room: http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/index.wss.

IBM YouTube Analytics Channels: http://www.youtube.com/user/ibmbusinessanalytics.

Contact:
Payal Patel Cudia
IBM
781-640-6764
[email protected]

SOURCE IBM