IBM’s Smarter Planet is intelligence being infused into the systems and processes that make the world work. Those systems include computers, cars, appliances, roadways, power grids and even the natural systems which include agriculture and waterways. Smarter systems are being implemented all around us in every industry, in every region. It has now become emerging reality.
In a study of 439 cities, for those that employ transportation congestion solutions – including ramp metering, signal coordination incident management – travel days were reduced on average by more than 700,000 hours annually and nearly 15 million dollars was saved by each.
Leading retailers have cut supply chain costs by up t0 30%, reducing inventory levels by up to 25% and increasing sales by up to 10%. They did so by analyzing customer buying behaviors, aligning merchandising assortments with demand and building end-to-end to visibility across their entire supply chains.
Near term ROI is being recognized along with data discovery. Data is being captured like never before and revealing all aspects of the global supply chain. All the data is more real time than ever before. Data is useful if only you can extract value from it. With the right tools, you can do this and that makes businesses smarter. Securing infrastructure and maintaining privacy is valuable.
These are all challenges in the world and in businesses. It’s new ways of working and thinking and it requires a shift in management and governance toward more collaborative approaches.
By 2011, an estimate of two billion people will be on the web and they will be doing more than talking.
Video on demand, IP Television and Internet TV will account for nearly 90% of consumer IP traffic by 2012. More people talking means more social networking sites and those memberships will top 500 million in the next three years. Consider that there are 300 connected sensors on a bridge in Minnesota and 800 monitoring another in Hong Kong. Multiply this number by other bridges, buildings and cities around the world and in 3 years the IP traffic is expected to total more than half a zettabyte. A zettabyte is a trillion gigabytes – or 1 followed by 21 zeroes!
A smarter planet will need smarter communications infrastructure. Networks will have to be multi-directional instead of point-to-point. A foundation of software and standards will have to be built so these devices and objects can communicate. Digital platforms will be needed by telecom providers. Communications lead to systems connecting and that leads to a smarter planet.
