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nViso SA, a company that provides emotion recognition solutions, was in need of a high-performance cloud hosting infrastructure. The company wanted to extend its services to a global customer base. The challenge was to find a solution that could handle the demands of their growing customer base and the need for high performance and reliability.

The White Plains School District, serving over 7,000 students and employing more than 1,100 staff members, was facing a challenge with its outdated copper network. The district's local area network (LAN) was crucial in supporting a variety of technologies used in schools, from tablets and PCs to projectors and HVAC systems. However, the district was struggling with the need for a robust, reliable network infrastructure that could provide the bandwidth for these technologies plus a growing number of devices and applications. The district wanted to enhance its wifi network to improve mobile connectivity. But before doing so, the MIS group needed to refresh or replace the LAN. Upgrading the existing copper-based network was going to be too costly, and the district needed a new approach that could deliver scalability, reliability, and security while avoiding the high costs of a copper upgrade.

Financial Insurance Management Corp. (FIMC) wanted to deliver increased value to members by offering an enhanced, high-quality mobile experience. The company hoped that by providing mobile services, it would simplify the renewal process for members. In the past, members might not realize that their roadside assistance or discount services had expired until they tried to use them. At that point, they would have to use traditional means, such as email or a phone call, to contact FIMC to renew their service. FIMC wanted to streamline this process so that members could easily renew from any location, ensuring more continuous service. Additionally, FIMC wanted to deliver faster access to its benefits and promotions, helping members gain more value from their memberships and thereby increasing the likelihood that they would want to renew.

FindBrok, a company aiming to launch an international social and business network for finance and insurance professionals, needed a powerful development platform and a secure, reliable cloud-based hosting environment. The company was seeking support for its strategic approach and long-term business growth. It evaluated cloud hosting solutions, including Amazon and Google platforms, but determined that only the SoftLayer cloud offering met its requirements.

Duy Tan University (DTU) in Da Nang, Vietnam, needed to incorporate additional cutting-edge technology in classrooms to help students become more marketable in the IT industry. The university prides itself on the fact that 100 percent of graduates who majored in software technology find employment immediately upon graduation. Therefore, it is extremely important for the university to have cutting-edge technology in classrooms so that students are marketable in the IT industry. Man Nguyen Duc, dean of the DTU International School, explains that students are better able to acquire jobs when they have training and knowledge about products from well-known technology companies.

The HR services company, an IBM client, was facing the challenge of understanding the factors underlying personal employment choices. They wanted to offer their clients unprecedented insight into what motivates employees and prospective job candidates. However, their existing systems were not capable of handling the surging data volumes collected from a wide range of different data sources. With the total volume likely to keep on growing, the firm looked for a solution that could meet current needs and scale to meet tomorrow’s demands.

The Hershey Company in Brazil (Hershey’s Brazil) faces stiff competition from local chocolate manufacturers. To maximize sales to its customers—primarily food retailers and wholesalers—Hershey’s Brazil sought a better way to capture customer-specific data, such as profit-and-loss information and local patterns in demand, and use the insight to shape more effective sales strategies. Hershey’s Brazil wanted to better understand its customers in order to make the best business decisions and increase sales.

Historic Environment Scotland, a non-department public body with charitable status, is tasked with the responsibility of safeguarding and promoting Scotland’s heritage. The organization oversees more than 300 historic sites, including Edinburgh Castle, Stirling Castle, and Skara Brae Prehistoric Village. To help fund the conservation of these irreplaceable representations of Scotland’s built heritage, and ensure that appropriate numbers of visitors are allowed on-site at any given time, admission to many of the sites is controlled by ticketing. However, the organization was facing a challenge. It lacked visibility into its sites and the people visiting them, making it difficult to market effectively or plan personnel schedules to meet demand.

Hydrite Chemical Co., a leading US chemical producer, was facing challenges due to the rapid growth of its business. The company was finding it increasingly difficult to obtain a clear view of assets, processes, policies, and licenses across its different sites. All their sites had developed their own ways of managing assets, mainly using simple tools such as spreadsheets, calendar reminders, and small databases. Without a consistent set of systems, it was difficult to compare the same thing between two different sites. This lack of standardization and visibility was making it difficult for the company to demonstrate compliance with current laws and regulations, which involved regular audits by regulators and customers.

IFIM Business School recognized a global demand for big data and analytics capabilities, with the Indian market estimated to grow to USD1 billion by the end of the year, and a severe shortage of skilled manpower in this area. The school aimed to create a program that delivered the necessary hands-on experience to meet this demand. The challenge was to develop an intensive analytics program that would equip students with practical skills and real-world applications.

IGT partners with lotteries and their retailers to maximize lottery sales in a responsible way. Their goal was to be able to better compare retailer performance and understand the factors driving sales. Lotteries are big business, bringing in USD75 billion in the U.S. alone, with the proceeds benefiting a variety of good causes. IGT—a company that works with lotteries and retailers worldwide to responsibly grow lottery sales—saw an opportunity to drive sales even higher. Matthew Whalen, Senior VP and CTO, Lottery at IGT, says: “We realized that we were in a unique position: huge amounts of lottery sales data from our client base are at our fingertips.

Newborn babies, especially those born prematurely or who suffer a difficult labor or a stroke, can have neurological problems that are difficult to detect. Seizures can be one symptom of neurological dysfunction, and if not treated quickly, may cause further damage to the infant’s brain. Electroencephalograms (EEGs) can help detect these problems, but there are only a limited number of neurophysiologists in the world who have the expertise to reliably interpret neonatal EEG data and use it to monitor brain activity. This is a particular problem for newborns with neurological problems, which can be relatively common in babies that are born prematurely or suffer a difficult labor or a stroke. Seizures can be one symptom of neurological dysfunction – and when not treated quickly, may cause further damage to the infant’s brain.

In India’s hyper-competitive telecommunications market, it is critical that service providers maximize revenue from their current subscribers. Idea Cellular Ltd. wanted to transform its existing manual methods into a fully automated business process. Idea sought a solution that would improve customer service by creating and executing dynamic marketing campaigns designed to generate cross-sell and up-sell opportunities and retain customers by increasing interest in the company’s products and offerings.

Ilmarinen, an insurer, needs to store vital policy documents securely for more than 50 years. However, it also needs to keep this information easily accessible for use in day-to-day business processes. The pensions and investments sector is a document-heavy business. The term of an investment might be 20 years, while the management and payment of a pension might encompass 70 years or more – and over that time, hundreds of documents, letters, emails and other correspondence may need to be recorded and managed. As insurers become more focused on winning and retaining customer loyalty, it is vital to ensure that employees are able to navigate through this mass of documentation efficiently. To gain new insight into the right actions and offers for each customer, you need to build a 360-degree view of that individual from their document history. At the same time, from a legal perspective, all these documents need to be stored securely – often for many years after the pension or investment has ceased to be active.

The Automotive Group of Continental AG, a leading global automotive supplier, had inherited two separate SAP application suites due to corporate acquisitions. This increased support and development expenses. The company wanted to consolidate to a single global SAP ERP instance with multi-language support, but its existing software versions did not support the required Unicode character set. The company’s expansion into new markets has been fueled by a continuous corporate acquisition program across many countries. The integration of two business units (Continental Automotive Systems and Siemens VDO) resulted in the company inheriting two separate SAP application suites, neither of which was able to support multi-language operations. With global ambitions, it was essential to provide an integrated system for all Continental Automotive business units, regardless of their location and language.

Infosys, a global leader in consulting, technology, and outsourcing solutions, was facing significant challenges in application development and maintenance due to its distributed teams, changing business priorities and the need to stay in alignment with customer needs. The company used a mix of open source, home-grown and third-party applications to support application development projects. However, challenges resulting from distributed teams using manual processes increased as the company grew. It became more and more important for Infosys to execute its projects efficiently, so they could improve quality, reduce defects and minimize delays.

Irdeto, a global leader in digital platform security, was facing challenges in streamlining its sales processes. The company's sales teams were distributed worldwide, each with its own approach, incentives, and rewards. The lack of a centralized system led to inconsistencies and inefficiencies. Sales teams and managers were unable to see the approval process, who was responsible for incentives, or what compensation was based on. The company was using spreadsheets to calculate sales reps rewards and shared the file with the teams by email. Irdeto wanted to offer all international sales teams the same rewards, improve collaboration between teams, and provide clear compensation.

K. Raheja Corp., a leading real estate brand in India, was facing challenges in managing the massive amounts of paperwork generated by its operations. With each project involving complex processes, managed across many different departments and involving multiple stakeholders, meeting deadlines and regulatory demands was a challenge. The group was generating approximately 15,000 documents every month, most of which involve multiple levels of approval. The paper-based system was causing delays in locating individual documents and moving them through various levels of approval.

KLP, Norway’s largest mutual life insurance company, was facing a challenge in embedding sophisticated risk modeling technologies into its day-to-day decision-making process. The company had two existing risk modeling solutions, but they were not user-friendly and lacked flexibility in presenting results in an easily accessible or understandable way. This made it difficult for portfolio managers and risk analysts to get hold of the data they needed. KLP's senior managers decided to investigate cloud-based solutions to address this issue.

The Keller Graduate School of Management at DeVry University was facing a challenge in identifying students who were at risk of dropping out or performing poorly. The university's focus on independent learning made it difficult to spot struggling students early enough to offer them the necessary support. The university wanted to intervene early to prevent such students from becoming increasingly disengaged and eventually leaving their courses. The goal was to provide more personalized learning experiences by better understanding what works best for particular students, thereby optimizing the use of student care resources and providing an exceptional experience for the students.

Knorr-Bremse, a leading manufacturer of braking systems for rail and commercial vehicles, was facing a challenge. The company was experiencing significant growth, both organically and through acquisitions. This growth was leading to an increase in data volumes, which was slowing down its analytics capabilities and increasing costs. The company was using 60 SAP systems in a fully virtualized private cloud environment, with IBM DB2 managing the underlying data. However, as data volumes increased, the company found that its SAP Business Warehouse solutions were struggling to keep up with demand. The company needed a solution that would enable it to integrate acquired companies into its SAP application landscape, deliver comprehensive performance reports more quickly, and standardize processes across the group without slowing down decision-making or disrupting manufacturing and logistics workflows.

Kruger Inc., a diversified Canadian industrial products company, embarked on a project to enhance budgeting and forecasting in its containerboard division. The company realized that analytics could also help to drive operational efficiencies for the business. For Kruger’s containerboard division, 80 percent of costs relate to the raw materials required to manufacture its products. Controlling these costs requires a highly efficient forecasting process – as well as an efficient production line. The company needed a solution that could provide deep insight into both financial and operational data to meet these challenges.

LDB Group specializes in helping its clients understand their customers’ needs and desires. One of its key offerings is investigating customer experiences and identifying areas for improvement. When a client from the automotive industry asked LDB Group to study customer satisfaction, the firm saw huge potential in offering similar services to more clients. However, the challenge was to scale processes to handle information more efficiently. The company realized that if it launched customer satisfaction surveys as a new analytics service, it could provide additional value to its existing clients and present a more valuable offering to attract new business.

La Perla Global Management S.r.l., a leading player in the luxury lingerie marketplace, designs and produces hundreds of products. Optimizing, synchronizing, and reconciling its logistics and shipping operations was a daunting task. Every day, La Perla plans more than 60,000 items and 500,000 customer orders or forecast sales plans. To gain more control of planning and shipping and to meet customer requirements, the company sought an advanced solution with technology powered by the precision of mathematics.

Lion, a leading food and beverage company in Australia and New Zealand, aimed to transform its finance function from a business partner to a true value creator for the business. However, the company's current processes were preventing finance from effectively partnering with the business and becoming a value creator. The company's financial reporting process was particularly time-consuming and labour-intensive. The quarterly reports for its parent company, Kirin, contained 42 schedules in separate Microsoft Excel files. The figures had to be manually entered into the spreadsheets, constantly cross-checking to make sure no errors were introduced. During these reporting periods, the six-person group financial reporting team typically had to be supplemented by two additional team members, seconded from other teams. Even with this additional support, the team generally needed to work overtime to get the reports finished on time.

Nairobi, one of the world's fastest-growing cities, was struggling with managing its fleet of garbage trucks due to poor road conditions and traffic. The city had recently invested over USD3 million in new waste collection vehicles, but the expected improvements in waste management efficiency were not being realized. The city needed a cost-effective method of capturing data about road and traffic conditions that would not require the investment and maintenance costs of a traditional solution.

Car manufacturers and auto insurers are keen to understand how they are perceived in the market, so they can build on their strengths and address their weaknesses to sell products and services more effectively. However, gaining unbiased insight into customers’ opinions can be difficult and expensive. MOTOR-TALK, Europe’s largest online community for motoring enthusiasts, has a wealth of unbiased opinions from a wide range of automotive customers. However, the challenge was to transform the large volumes of unstructured data generated by the online community into valuable knowledge.

The insurer, the largest health insurer in its state, was facing inefficiencies in its project requirements formulation process. The company's business analysts, representing as many as 74 functional areas within the organization, would create new project requirements, obtain input from various stakeholders and then pass on the requirements to the project managers. The formulation of the requirements varied depending on best practices developed in each part of the company. This inconsistency led to increased project overhead, churn, and delays as project managers and others working on the project had to make sense of the diverse requirements.

Each year, more than two million people die due to food-borne illnesses, and the world discards more than USD75 billion worth of food. For food distributors such as US-based Mars, Incorporated, food recalls cost at least USD10 million each. Mars didn’t have a way to test its thousands of food ingredients, so its response to pathogens was mainly reactive.

Migros Zurich (GMZ) operates a vast network of stores, specialty markets, and food outlets, serving around 1.5 million customers. The company's reputation rests on its ability to provide high-quality goods and services at reasonable prices with clockwork efficiency. However, the company's maintenance staff needed a way to aggregate, consolidate, and analyze information from asset inventories, service requests, work orders, maintenance records, equipment service contracts, warranties, service level agreements, and service and technical documentation, much of it archived in physical form in the company's central offices. These records contained thousands of data points needed to gain a comprehensive understanding of the current condition of its resources and transform its maintenance practices from reactive to proactive. In addition, to promote efficiency in the field, the company needed a mobile solution that would provide field technicians with anywhere, real-time access to the company’s asset management system.