Middleware Consulting International

LONDON, 24 MAY 2022. EY and IBM today announce an alliance expansion through a new initiative to help businesses around the world address some of the most pressing workforce challenges in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, including employee recruiting, retention, upskilling and the need to transform HR systems technology at speed and scale.

With the aim to help organizations navigate this new talent landscape through digital innovation and greater resilience, EY and IBM have established a new Talent Center of Excellence (COE). The COE will create data-driven AI and hybrid cloud solutions that provide broad talent, HR, mobility, and payroll transformation services. Bringing together the EY Organization & Workforce, Mobility and HR Transformation business solutions with IBM Talent Transformation business and hybrid cloud and AI capabilities, it is the newest expansion of the EY-IBM Alliance and second COE established in the past year.

Andy Baldwin, EY Global Managing Partner – Client Service, says:

“The combination of EY and IBM broad talent consulting and technology solutions can help clients transform their workforce by addressing some of the most significant talent challenges facing the market today. Through this alliance expansion, EY and IBM are better equipped to help deliver value to clients by putting humans at the center of the experience and helping them overcome the urgent need to attract, retain and upskill their workforce while transforming their HR function.”

John Granger, Senior Vice President – IBM Consulting, says:

“Clients are demanding larger, more integrated solutions across the talent landscape that no one company can provide. The EY-IBM Alliance will provide consulting and technology solutions that infuse AI and automation into the talent process to help clients simplify and streamline the experience. The collaboration with EY is yet another example of IBM’s open ecosystem model designed to drive market-share for partners, bring value to clients and will further differentiate EY and IBM across the talent industry, resetting the standard for talent solutions globally.”

Further illustrating the depth of the EY-IBM Alliance in this space, EY has invested in the organization’s own Talent function. By leveraging IBM automation and intelligence technology, EY is transforming Talent from within to develop a leading class acquisition strategy, help in delivering a simplified user experience and enable the ability to better match available skills and talent to jobs.

This new COE follows the successful launch of the EY-IBM Center of Excellence for Financial Services, which has supported nearly 30 financial institutions with solutions including mainframe modernization, application modernization and cloud security. Both centers are enabled and supported by the IBM TechHub@EY, launched in April 2021, which has designed hybrid cloud solutions for more than 130 clients including asset performance management, carbon accounting, workplace insights and other platforms. The IBM TechHub@EY has also provided well over 23,000 hours of continued professional education to train and certify EY practitioners on IBM AI and hybrid cloud.

LONDON, 24 MAY 2022. EY and IBM today announce an alliance expansion through a new initiative to help businesses around the world address some of the most pressing workforce challenges in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, including employee recruiting, retention, upskilling and the need to transform HR systems technology at speed and scale.

With the aim to help organizations navigate this new talent landscape through digital innovation and greater resilience, EY and IBM have established a new Talent Center of Excellence (COE). The COE will create data-driven AI and hybrid cloud solutions that provide broad talent, HR, mobility, and payroll transformation services. Bringing together the EY Organization & Workforce, Mobility and HR Transformation business solutions with IBM Talent Transformation business and hybrid cloud and AI capabilities, it is the newest expansion of the EY-IBM Alliance and second COE established in the past year.

Andy Baldwin, EY Global Managing Partner – Client Service, says:

“The combination of EY and IBM broad talent consulting and technology solutions can help clients transform their workforce by addressing some of the most significant talent challenges facing the market today. Through this alliance expansion, EY and IBM are better equipped to help deliver value to clients by putting humans at the center of the experience and helping them overcome the urgent need to attract, retain and upskill their workforce while transforming their HR function.”

John Granger, Senior Vice President – IBM Consulting, says:

“Clients are demanding larger, more integrated solutions across the talent landscape that no one company can provide. The EY-IBM Alliance will provide consulting and technology solutions that infuse AI and automation into the talent process to help clients simplify and streamline the experience. The collaboration with EY is yet another example of IBM’s open ecosystem model designed to drive market-share for partners, bring value to clients and will further differentiate EY and IBM across the talent industry, resetting the standard for talent solutions globally.”

Further illustrating the depth of the EY-IBM Alliance in this space, EY has invested in the organization’s own Talent function. By leveraging IBM automation and intelligence technology, EY is transforming Talent from within to develop a leading class acquisition strategy, help in delivering a simplified user experience and enable the ability to better match available skills and talent to jobs.

This new COE follows the successful launch of the EY-IBM Center of Excellence for Financial Services, which has supported nearly 30 financial institutions with solutions including mainframe modernization, application modernization and cloud security. Both centers are enabled and supported by the IBM TechHub@EY, launched in April 2021, which has designed hybrid cloud solutions for more than 130 clients including asset performance management, carbon accounting, workplace insights and other platforms. The IBM TechHub@EY has also provided well over 23,000 hours of continued professional education to train and certify EY practitioners on IBM AI and hybrid cloud.

ARMONK, N.Y., May 24, 2022 — IBM today announced it will provide in-kind grants valued at $5 million to help address cybersecurity resiliency in schools worldwide. For the second year in a row, six school districts in the United States will be awarded these grants. This year the program is also expanding overseas with four additional grants in Brazil, Costa Rica, Ireland, and the United Arab Emirates. As part of each grant, sponsor teams of IBMers will help schools proactively prepare for and respond to cyberattacks.

In 2021, in the U.S. alone over 1,000 schools across the country suffered from a ransomware attack, according to Emsisoft research. Financially motivated cybercriminals are taking advantage of schools’ need for uptime, their scarcity of cybersecurity defense resources, and lack of expertise compared to other potential targets. Cybercriminals’ focus on schools is also increasing on a global scale. In a recent report, IBM Security X-Force observed globally that the percentage of ransomware attacks against the education sector more than doubled from 2020 to 2021, with most cyberattacks taking the form of adware (33%) or ransomware (22%) attacks.

“For schools, a large barrier to strengthening their cybersecurity posture often comes down to constrained budgets, which financially motivated threat actors bet on,” said Charles Henderson, Global Managing Partner and Head of IBM Security X-Force. “By pursuing targets with lower defenses, threat actors can reap quick rewards and yield a higher return. In the event of ransomware attacks, the extreme added pressure schools experience to pay a ransom to recover their operations is a profitable wager for the bad guys. As a leader in the security community, it’s our duty to help our educational institutions strengthen their cyber preparedness.”

The grant, created as part of IBM’s Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives, will be an in-kind contribution in the form of resources and hours performed by IBM Service Corps teams. Through IBM Service Corps, IBMers use their professional skills to help communities tackle complex challenges in education, humanitarian efforts, cybersecurity, and economic development. Through this grant program, volunteers will help schools establish programs to address cybersecurity resiliency and will provide services including developing incident response plans and ransomware playbooks. The programs will address the need for updating operating systems, providing cybersecurity training for staff, students, and parents, and implementing strategic communication plans to use in response to a cyber incident.

“Our access to IBM’s cybersecurity professionals allowed us to reframe our perspective on how vulnerabilities may originate, and how to educate our school community about cybersecurity safety practices,” said Ra’Chel Ford, Chief Operating Officer at KIPP Metro Atlanta Schools. “We thought cybersecurity concerns were limited to sharing passwords and email phishing, but we now realize that cybersecurity breaches come in many forms. Cybersecurity is now viewed as part of our School Safety Plan and Crisis Response Plan. Everyone plays a part – board members, families, scholars, staff, and vendors. This was one of the best decisions we made for our organization.”

Last year, IBM received more than 250 applications from school districts across the United States seeking to strengthen their security postures in response to the growing threats in the education space. After a careful review of applications, IBM selected six recipients based on their cybersecurity needs and experiences, community resources, and potential risks: Brevard Public Schools in Viera, Florida; Denver Public Schools in Denver, Colorado; KIPP Metro Atlanta Schools in Atlanta, Georgia; Newhall School District in Valencia, California; Poughkeepsie City School District in Poughkeepsie, New York; and Sheldon Independent School District in Houston, Texas. This year, IBM is increasing this program to a total of 10 grants, valued at $500,000 each ($5 million in total).

K-12 public school districts based in the United States that are interested in applying for IBM’s education cybersecurity grant can apply via IBM.com here: webportalapp.com/webform/ibm-cybersecurity. School districts in the United States can apply through June 21, 2022.

ARMONK, N.Y., May 24, 2022 — IBM today announced it will provide in-kind grants valued at $5 million to help address cybersecurity resiliency in schools worldwide. For the second year in a row, six school districts in the United States will be awarded these grants. This year the program is also expanding overseas with four additional grants in Brazil, Costa Rica, Ireland, and the United Arab Emirates. As part of each grant, sponsor teams of IBMers will help schools proactively prepare for and respond to cyberattacks.

In 2021, in the U.S. alone over 1,000 schools across the country suffered from a ransomware attack, according to Emsisoft research. Financially motivated cybercriminals are taking advantage of schools’ need for uptime, their scarcity of cybersecurity defense resources, and lack of expertise compared to other potential targets. Cybercriminals’ focus on schools is also increasing on a global scale. In a recent report, IBM Security X-Force observed globally that the percentage of ransomware attacks against the education sector more than doubled from 2020 to 2021, with most cyberattacks taking the form of adware (33%) or ransomware (22%) attacks.

“For schools, a large barrier to strengthening their cybersecurity posture often comes down to constrained budgets, which financially motivated threat actors bet on,” said Charles Henderson, Global Managing Partner and Head of IBM Security X-Force. “By pursuing targets with lower defenses, threat actors can reap quick rewards and yield a higher return. In the event of ransomware attacks, the extreme added pressure schools experience to pay a ransom to recover their operations is a profitable wager for the bad guys. As a leader in the security community, it’s our duty to help our educational institutions strengthen their cyber preparedness.”

The grant, created as part of IBM’s Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives, will be an in-kind contribution in the form of resources and hours performed by IBM Service Corps teams. Through IBM Service Corps, IBMers use their professional skills to help communities tackle complex challenges in education, humanitarian efforts, cybersecurity, and economic development. Through this grant program, volunteers will help schools establish programs to address cybersecurity resiliency and will provide services including developing incident response plans and ransomware playbooks. The programs will address the need for updating operating systems, providing cybersecurity training for staff, students, and parents, and implementing strategic communication plans to use in response to a cyber incident.

“Our access to IBM’s cybersecurity professionals allowed us to reframe our perspective on how vulnerabilities may originate, and how to educate our school community about cybersecurity safety practices,” said Ra’Chel Ford, Chief Operating Officer at KIPP Metro Atlanta Schools. “We thought cybersecurity concerns were limited to sharing passwords and email phishing, but we now realize that cybersecurity breaches come in many forms. Cybersecurity is now viewed as part of our School Safety Plan and Crisis Response Plan. Everyone plays a part – board members, families, scholars, staff, and vendors. This was one of the best decisions we made for our organization.”

Last year, IBM received more than 250 applications from school districts across the United States seeking to strengthen their security postures in response to the growing threats in the education space. After a careful review of applications, IBM selected six recipients based on their cybersecurity needs and experiences, community resources, and potential risks: Brevard Public Schools in Viera, Florida; Denver Public Schools in Denver, Colorado; KIPP Metro Atlanta Schools in Atlanta, Georgia; Newhall School District in Valencia, California; Poughkeepsie City School District in Poughkeepsie, New York; and Sheldon Independent School District in Houston, Texas. This year, IBM is increasing this program to a total of 10 grants, valued at $500,000 each ($5 million in total).

K-12 public school districts based in the United States that are interested in applying for IBM’s education cybersecurity grant can apply via IBM.com here: webportalapp.com/webform/ibm-cybersecurity. School districts in the United States can apply through June 21, 2022.

ARMONK, N.Y., May 19, 2022 — New market research commissioned by IBM revealed that global AI adoption grew steadily over the last year, to 35 percent of those surveyed in 2022, further underscoring that AI growth is poised to accelerate as it continues to mature, becoming more accessible and easier to implement.

Experience the interactive Multichannel News Release here: https://www.multivu.com/players/English/9002053-ibm-global-ai-adoption-index-2022/

Other data points from the “Global AI Adoption Index 2022,” conducted by Morning Consult on behalf of IBM, reveal this growth was due to companies recognizing the value of AI as they emerged from the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and invested in their digital transformation, while dealing with talent and skills shortages. In fact, the study shows that AI adoption was up 4 percentage points compared with 2021.

For the first time, the report also polled companies about their plans to use AI in their sustainability initiatives and found that AI is poised to play a significant role. 66% of IT professionals surveyed said that their company is either currently applying AI, or plans to apply AI, to accelerate ESG initiatives.

Highlights from the “Global AI Adoption Index 2022” include:

• Global AI adoption is growing steadily, and most companies already use or plan to use AI: Today, 35% of companies reported using AI in their business. Compared with 2021, organizations are 13% more likely to have adopted AI in 2022. Additionally, 42% of companies report they are exploring AI. Large companies are more likely than smaller companies to use AI. Chinese and Indian companies are leading the way, with nearly 60% of IT professionals in those countries saying their organization already actively uses AI, compared with lagging markets like South Korea (22%), Australia (24%) the U.S. (25%), and the U.K. (26%). IT professionals in the financial services, media, energy, automotive, oil, and aerospace industries are most likely to report their company has actively deployed AI, while organizations in industries including retail, travel and government/federal services and healthcare are the least likely.
• Setting clear data and AI strategies are key for horizontal deployment: A major explanation for gradual AI adoption is the need to implement a successful data management strategy and applying AI to that data achieve business goals. Companies that have not deployed AI are three times as likely to say that they have little to no confidence their company has the proper data management tools. Today, 37% of companies are developing an AI strategy, 28% already have a holistic strategy in place, and 25% have a strategy that is focused only on limited or specific use cases.
• Automation is helping address skills gaps, labor shortages: More than costs, lack of tools, or project or data complexity, the skills gap remains the biggest barrier to AI adoption. At the same time, AI is also helping organizations address skills shortages, for example by automating tasks for skilled workers so they can be more productive, or by using AI-assisted learning or employee engagement. Almost one-in-four companies are adopting AI because of labor or skills shortages, and 30% of global IT professionals say employees at their organization are already saving time with new AI and automation software/tools.
• A growing emphasis on trust – but few concrete actions: Establishing trustworthy, responsible AI practices and AI maturity go hand-in-hand: The more likely a company is to have deployed AI, the more likely they are to value the importance of trustworthiness. IT professionals at businesses currently deploying AI are 17% more likely to report that their business values AI explainability than those that are simply exploring AI. But while growing majorities of business leaders say that trustworthy AI is critical, a majority organizations have not taken key steps to ensure their AI is trustworthy and responsible, such as reducing bias (74%), tracking performance variations/model drift (68%), and making sure making sure they can explain AI-powered decisions (61%)
• Building more sustainable operations: AI is poised to play a growing role in the sustainability initiatives of organizations around the world as more than two-thirds of businesses either use or plan to use AI today as part of their sustainability initiatives. One-in-five companies are already adopting AI because of environmental pressures.
• Popular use cases like automation, security drive adoption: Organizations are applying AI in a wide variety of use cases today, with the most advanced adoption happening in areas like IT operations, security and threat detection and business process automation. Today, already a third of companies are already using AI for IT Operations (AIOps) to automate key processes, which helps them maintain application performance while also making resource-allocation more efficient. A third of companies deploying AI are applying such as natural language processing to fields like marketing, sales and customer care.

“More than one-third of organizations polled in the IBM Global AI Adoption Index 2022 say they are using AI today to respond to a myriad of different factors and pressures,” said Tom Rosamilia, Senior Vice President, IBM Software. “They’re looking to AI to help them address skills and labor shortages, respond to competitive pressures and, increasingly to respond to environmental pressures as well. Most respondents said they either are already using or plan to use AI as part of their sustainability initiatives. These trends all point to the growing role that AI is playing both within organizations but also in society.”

While AI investment continues to grow, barriers to adoption remain, particularly for smaller organizations who are significantly less likely to take advantage of AI. The survey determined top three barriers to AI adoption for businesses are: limited AI expertise or knowledge (34%), high prices (29%), and lack of tools and platforms for developing AI models (25%).

IBM is helping to address these barriers and deliver the benefits of AI to more people and organizations across industries with AI that is human-centered and designed for the needs of businesses. IBM is continually drawing on the latest innovations in AI from IBM Research to deliver new enterprise-ready capabilities, automate technical and manual processes like IT operations and develop new ways to operationalize and help ensure AI ethics are observed. Additionally, IBM Consulting brings deep technology, industry and process design expertise to co-create solutions with customers that embed AI into core business processes and create intelligent workflows at scale.

ARMONK, N.Y., May 19, 2022 — New market research commissioned by IBM revealed that global AI adoption grew steadily over the last year, to 35 percent of those surveyed in 2022, further underscoring that AI growth is poised to accelerate as it continues to mature, becoming more accessible and easier to implement.

Experience the interactive Multichannel News Release here: https://www.multivu.com/players/English/9002053-ibm-global-ai-adoption-index-2022/

Other data points from the “Global AI Adoption Index 2022,” conducted by Morning Consult on behalf of IBM, reveal this growth was due to companies recognizing the value of AI as they emerged from the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and invested in their digital transformation, while dealing with talent and skills shortages. In fact, the study shows that AI adoption was up 4 percentage points compared with 2021.

For the first time, the report also polled companies about their plans to use AI in their sustainability initiatives and found that AI is poised to play a significant role. 66% of IT professionals surveyed said that their company is either currently applying AI, or plans to apply AI, to accelerate ESG initiatives.

Highlights from the “Global AI Adoption Index 2022” include:

• Global AI adoption is growing steadily, and most companies already use or plan to use AI: Today, 35% of companies reported using AI in their business. Compared with 2021, organizations are 13% more likely to have adopted AI in 2022. Additionally, 42% of companies report they are exploring AI. Large companies are more likely than smaller companies to use AI. Chinese and Indian companies are leading the way, with nearly 60% of IT professionals in those countries saying their organization already actively uses AI, compared with lagging markets like South Korea (22%), Australia (24%) the U.S. (25%), and the U.K. (26%). IT professionals in the financial services, media, energy, automotive, oil, and aerospace industries are most likely to report their company has actively deployed AI, while organizations in industries including retail, travel and government/federal services and healthcare are the least likely.
• Setting clear data and AI strategies are key for horizontal deployment: A major explanation for gradual AI adoption is the need to implement a successful data management strategy and applying AI to that data achieve business goals. Companies that have not deployed AI are three times as likely to say that they have little to no confidence their company has the proper data management tools. Today, 37% of companies are developing an AI strategy, 28% already have a holistic strategy in place, and 25% have a strategy that is focused only on limited or specific use cases.
• Automation is helping address skills gaps, labor shortages: More than costs, lack of tools, or project or data complexity, the skills gap remains the biggest barrier to AI adoption. At the same time, AI is also helping organizations address skills shortages, for example by automating tasks for skilled workers so they can be more productive, or by using AI-assisted learning or employee engagement. Almost one-in-four companies are adopting AI because of labor or skills shortages, and 30% of global IT professionals say employees at their organization are already saving time with new AI and automation software/tools.
• A growing emphasis on trust – but few concrete actions: Establishing trustworthy, responsible AI practices and AI maturity go hand-in-hand: The more likely a company is to have deployed AI, the more likely they are to value the importance of trustworthiness. IT professionals at businesses currently deploying AI are 17% more likely to report that their business values AI explainability than those that are simply exploring AI. But while growing majorities of business leaders say that trustworthy AI is critical, a majority organizations have not taken key steps to ensure their AI is trustworthy and responsible, such as reducing bias (74%), tracking performance variations/model drift (68%), and making sure making sure they can explain AI-powered decisions (61%)
• Building more sustainable operations: AI is poised to play a growing role in the sustainability initiatives of organizations around the world as more than two-thirds of businesses either use or plan to use AI today as part of their sustainability initiatives. One-in-five companies are already adopting AI because of environmental pressures.
• Popular use cases like automation, security drive adoption: Organizations are applying AI in a wide variety of use cases today, with the most advanced adoption happening in areas like IT operations, security and threat detection and business process automation. Today, already a third of companies are already using AI for IT Operations (AIOps) to automate key processes, which helps them maintain application performance while also making resource-allocation more efficient. A third of companies deploying AI are applying such as natural language processing to fields like marketing, sales and customer care.

“More than one-third of organizations polled in the IBM Global AI Adoption Index 2022 say they are using AI today to respond to a myriad of different factors and pressures,” said Tom Rosamilia, Senior Vice President, IBM Software. “They’re looking to AI to help them address skills and labor shortages, respond to competitive pressures and, increasingly to respond to environmental pressures as well. Most respondents said they either are already using or plan to use AI as part of their sustainability initiatives. These trends all point to the growing role that AI is playing both within organizations but also in society.”

While AI investment continues to grow, barriers to adoption remain, particularly for smaller organizations who are significantly less likely to take advantage of AI. The survey determined top three barriers to AI adoption for businesses are: limited AI expertise or knowledge (34%), high prices (29%), and lack of tools and platforms for developing AI models (25%).

IBM is helping to address these barriers and deliver the benefits of AI to more people and organizations across industries with AI that is human-centered and designed for the needs of businesses. IBM is continually drawing on the latest innovations in AI from IBM Research to deliver new enterprise-ready capabilities, automate technical and manual processes like IT operations and develop new ways to operationalize and help ensure AI ethics are observed. Additionally, IBM Consulting brings deep technology, industry and process design expertise to co-create solutions with customers that embed AI into core business processes and create intelligent workflows at scale.