NEWS
IBM and Salesforce announce landmark
global strategic partnership
I
BM and Salesforce have announced a
global strategic partnership to deliver
joint solutions designed to leverage
artificial intelligence and enable companies
to make smarter decisions, faster than ever
before. With the partnership, IBM Watson
and Salesforce Einstein will seamlessly
connect to enable an entirely new level of
intelligent customer engagement across
sales, service, marketing, commerce and
more. IBM is also strategically investing
in its Global Business Services capabilities
for Salesforce with a new practice to help
clients rapidly deploy the combined IBM
Watson and Salesforce Einstein capabilities.
The partnership will bring new
insights from Watson directly into the
Salesforce Intelligent Customer Success
Platform, combining deep customer
insights from Salesforce Einstein with
Watson’s structured and unstructured
data across many sources and industries
including weather, healthcare, financial
services and retail. Together, Watson
and Einstein will ingest, reason over and
derive recommendations to accelerate
decision-making and drive greater
customer success.
“Within a few years, every major
decision — personal or business —
will be made with the help of AI and
cognitive technologies,” said Ginni
Rometty, Chairman, President and
Chief Executive Officer, IBM. “This
year we expect Watson will touch one
billion people, through everything
from oncology and retail to tax
preparation and cars. Now, with
today’s announcement, the power
of Watson will serve the millions of
Marc Benioff, Chairman and CEO, Salesforce
and Ginni Rometty, Chairman, President and
Chief Executive Officer, IBM.
Salesforce and Einstein customers and
developers to provide an unprecedented
understanding of customers.”
“The combination of Einstein and
Watson will make businesses smarter and
our customers more successful,” said Marc
Benioff, Chairman and CEO, Salesforce. ¢
GMC Software updates global programme
including software partners
G
MC Software, a vendor in
customer communications
management (CCM), announced
the expansion of its current partners
and alliance programme with the
introduction of the GMC Software
Partner Advantage Programme, a
newly-expanded programme intended to
engage, empower and enable all types of
GMC Software business partners.
The programme accommodates four
tracks of business partners according to an
organisation’s individual business model
and relationship with GMC Software. Track
options include delivery partners, business
partners, alliance partners and software
vendor partners. A focus on delivery partners
will initiate the expanded programme.
Delivery partners support GMC
Software’s customers by providing
implementation services, functional and
technical product expertise and vertical
industry experience that augment and
extend the reach of GMC Software’s
Professional Services Organisation in
specific geographies.
Integral to GMC Software’s solutions,
service and support, delivery partners
physically located near GMC’s customer
base make GMC’s solutions more readily
available to customers it services in
banking, insurance and healthcare
enterprises, and service providers globally.
Companies approved to become part of
the preferred delivery partners programme
benefit by having the GMC Inspire
skillset that allows them to differentiate
themselves in a crowded marketplace
and gain from the additional revenue
opportunities involved in technology
implementation without additional sales,
marketing or customer acquisition costs.
The programme’s overall aim is to help
GMC Software’s customers maximise the
value of their investment by speeding up
the integration of new and emerging CCM
technology into production.
Current GMC Software partners
include Accenture, Canon, eSignLive,
Guidewire, IBM, Kony, Ricoh, Xerox
among others. ¢
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