Editor’s note: In the second part of a review of two recent IBM events, Technology Business Research says by embedding Watson-backed cognitive solutions into each of the IBM cloud SaaS and PaaS solutions, IBM showcases the value of cognitive solutions. (Part one is available here.)

HAMPTON, N.H. – Blockchain buzz bled through InterConnect and into Amplify

Blockchain is more than a buzzword now, with use cases and success stories being touted by IBM and its peers as the market begins to accept the otherwise nascent technology. Despite Amplify being less focused on technology and more focused on end users and how technology helps business, blockchain was a particularly interesting theme throughout the conference, especially when discussing the supply chain piece of the Watson Customer Engagement portfolio.

Blockchain and cognitive, together, serve to transform labor interactions in the economy in much the same way that cloud enablement has shifted and accelerated the movement of data flows. In short, the human side of IT needs to transform to align to the new ways the data side of IT can move throughout organizations as well as their customers and partners. Blockchain and cognitive allow for automated check points so the human approvals of transactions can happen as quickly as the data layer moves.

[VIDEO: Watch highlights of IBM’s blockchain efforts at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIu5ZQi-zP0&index=9&list=PLOspHqNVtKACUCpEvXYJeInqGyh4g7a27 ]

Supply chain solutions and blockchain together help provide the same version of the truth in real time for all parties involved. Jeanette Barlow, IBM VP Strategy and Offering Management, Supply Chain, indicated that bringing blockchain to supply chain solutions is a key route to market as supply chain organizations are already connected to and trusting of each other. “It is a shared version of events and immediate, so it improves the process across the supply chain,” she said. Barlow is committed to supporting blockchain in her portfolio, and we expect to see product updates and announcements from IBM related to this within the next 12 to 18 months.

Watson Customer Engagement is the bright spot in IBM’s SaaS portfolio

While IBM ranks among the top vendors in the cloud market, and has for some time, TBR believes the company continues to struggle in developing and bringing to market its SaaS solution sets and portfolio. In prior years, while public cloud pure plays such as Salesforce and Marketo homed in on their marketing cloud strategies and appealed to the LOB user, particularly the CMO, IBM appealed more to the IT department, focusing on the IaaS and PaaS layers. But TBR believes the company has made strides in bridging the gap and appealing to both IT departments and LOB users.

IBM events continue to showcase the shift in corporate strategy from focusing on the services opportunity around SaaS, as it did at Smarter Commerce Global Summit three years ago, to focusing on ease of use and instant access to these all-cloud-based solutions during the Amplify 2016 and 2017 events. On top of the industry marketing focus that has been at the core of its go to market for decades, IBM developed the overlay segmentation by user persona as new technologies continue to pressure labor skills, and therefore IBM has begun packaging its various composable assets around specific job roles that touch cognitive technologies.

IBM’s prior investments in SaaSifying its software portfolio, particularly WebSphere, and in the acquisitions of companies such as Cognos, Unica, Tealeaf, Silverpop, Xtify, Coremetrics and DemandTec, laid the foundation upon which IBM is building its SaaS portfolio. At IBM Amplify 2016 and again in 2017, each solution announcement and update promoted ease of use for the end user and interoperability and a common user interface throughout the portfolio. This is a notable change in IBM’s SaaS portfolio from years prior, and in the way the company goes to market, particularly as IBM has historically appealed to the large enterprise IT department and is now appealing to the LOB user at organizations of all sizes. IBM is also unifying its customer experience elsewhere in the cloud stack, bringing SoftLayer into the Bluemix portfolio and brand and allowing a single sign-on and user experience across the PaaS and IaaS layers.

TBR’s end-user research, including the Cloud, Digital and Analytics & Insights Customer Research programs, finds that over the past year and a half, the LOB user has gained significant influence in SaaS purchases across the board, whether for marketing, analytics, CRM, ERP or any other SaaS workload. This is due in part to LOB users’ ad hoc, often unsanctioned adoption of SaaS solutions that cater to some of the same, specific personas IBM identifies at these events such as a CMO. Such actions have forced communication and compromise between IT departments and LOB departments regarding cloud adoption and the control and funding of these solutions such that all are sanctioned and optimized across the organization.

This, in our opinion, is where cloud brokerage tools become critical, particularly for less centralized organizations that seek to meter and charge cloud expenses back to each department based on usage. Free trials and freemium models of SaaS purchasing help empower the LOB user, as they highlight the benefits of the solution during the trial period, which helps promote onboarding. After the trial period, however, it is critical for IT and LOB departments within organizations to reach an agreement as to whether a solution will be onboarded, particularly any solution that brings together various data points, to make sure data is secure and being utilized in the most optimal way for better business outcomes.

(C) TBR