Report: IBM Global Business Services Ranked #1 in Thought Leadership

ARMONK, N.Y., Oct. 20, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced today that for the fifth time, its consulting organization was named the industry's top producer of thought leadership in a White Space Report by Source Global Research, a leading research and strategy firm for the global management consulting industry.

According to the most recent White Space report evaluating the quality and impact of 25 major global consulting firms in the world, IBM remains the leader for the consistent high quality of its thought leadership. The White Space rankings are based on four evaluation criteria - Resilience, Differentiation, Appeal, and Prompting Action. This is the fifth time IBM has led the ranking.

IBM Institute for Business Value (IBV) part of the company's consulting unit, IBM Global Business Services, creates innovative thought leadership on behalf of IBM and provides practical insight for business leaders across industries. The White Space report highlighted the IBV's recent study, "Inspiring Deeper Brand Enthusiasm: Your Cognitive Future in the Consumer Products Industry" as an example of IBM's effect approach. The study was praised for using data "effectively to underpin points of view" and providing a forward-looking recommendation.

"When creating high quality thought leadership, consultancies are faced with the challenge of working around constraints such as the required evidence, length, tone, and topics to reflect the needs and wants of target readers," said Rachel Ainsworth, co-founder of Source Global Research and White Space. "IBM tops our list once again for showing that the Institute for Business Value can successfully work within those constraints to produce creative reports that resonate with today's senior executives."

IBM-produced thought leadership leads all firms in both appealing readers to continue reading past the introduction and resilience, "building a reader's trust and confidence in what they have read," based on its methodology and analysis, as well as, "prompting action" via a clearly outlined courses of action. This recognition of IBM's thought leadership is a result of IBM's ongoing commitment to provide its clients with insight on issues of industry dynamics and business transformation.

"Businesses are experiencing an unprecedented level of disruption so we want to critically evaluate business trends shaping those changes in the world today and give executives a clear path forward," says Peter Korsten, Vice President and Global leader thought leadership and eminence, IBM Global Business Services. "Our recent blockchain series is a great example of an emerging technology that is reinventing global trade and how transactions are conducted and recorded. We've outlined how this technology can be used and will impact business networks from organizations to ecosystems and economies. By conducting in depth global research, we're able to more fully understand industry transformation and provide support to improve business performance."

The IBV's trademark C-Suite studies series, which have followed and analyzed the priorities of global CXOs for more than a decade, are celebrated for the research method's thoroughness and face-to -face interviews with key business leaders. For example, last year IBM leveraged a worldwide team of business strategists, consultants, data scientists and statisticians to conduct mostly in person interviews with more than 5,200 business leaders from 21 industries in 70 countries. These professionals examined how members of the C-Suite are tackling the threat of competition, technology disruptors and planning for the future of business to garner the insights released in the IBM 2015 C-suite study. Individual reports specific to professional roles, including CEO, CMO, CHRO, CIO, CFO and COO.

For more information on the Source Global Research's White Space Quality Report, visit http://www.sourceglobalresearch.com/portal/whitespace/ (subscription required).

About IBM Global Business Services
For more information, visit http://www.ibm.com/services/gbs.

About IBM Institute for Business Value
For more information, http://www.ibm.com/iibv 

Download the IBM IBV app from iTunes 

About Source Global Research
Source Global Research (Source) is the leading research and strategy firm for the global management consulting industry. Set up in 2007 and with offices in London and Dubai, Source serves both consulting firms and their clients with expert analysis, research and reporting. Source draw not only on our extensive in-house experience, but also on the breadth of our relationships with both suppliers and buyers. All of our work is underpinned by our core values of intelligence, integrity, efficiency and transparency.

Source was founded by Fiona Czerniawska and Joy Burnford. Fiona is one of the world's leading experts on the consulting industry. She has written numerous books on the industry including: The Intelligent Client and The Economist books, Business Consulting: A Guide to How it Works and How to Make it Work and Buying Professional Services. Joy Burnford was Marketing and Operations Director at the UK Management Consultancies Association between 2003 and 2010, and prior to that worked for PA Consulting Group and has extensive experience of marketing consulting services. For further information, please visit: www.sourceglobalresearch.com

About White Space
White Space is a subscriber-based web service which provides detailed analysis of the thought leadership of around 30 leading global consulting firms. This analysis is updated regularly, giving up-to-date market intelligence on the state of the thought leadership market.

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