Big Blue's New Social Network and Mobile Tutors

Estimating the growth of social media and mobile channels equals a $70 
billion global opportunity across insurance, banking and other consumer-facing
 industries, IBM has formed a new consulting practice to offer navigation
 expertise for companies looking to embrace the new technologies, many of 
which are offered in some form by IBM itself.

Called Smarter Commerce, the practice will advise institutions on how 
emerging channels can be monetized through sophisticated development 
techniques such as matching customization to  price elasticity—IBM's 
research has found that if banks can properly tailor products and services
 to customers can charge up to a ten percent premium for those services.

Some of the expertise involved in the consultations will include how to 
leverage new mobile and social technology as part of merchant loyalty and
 discount programs, as well as overall customer relationship expansion. IBM
 says that will require the ability to analyze massive amounts of disparate
 data in real time, perform predictive analytics, collaborate with retailers
and consumers and process a higher volume of transactions quickly.

"The digital and physical worlds are converging [in payments], and there
will be new competitors to banks that will be entering the market. Some
 payment schemes will be more open moving forward, enabling new types of
competition for banks," says Gerard Hergenroeder, a global payments 
executive for IBM.

There's also monetizing going on for IBM, which has spent more than $2.5
 billion in the past few years acquiring new social and mobile technology via
 acquisitions such as Sterling Commerce and CoreMetrics.
"With this bigger
 portfolio we wanted to have a dedicated practice to help clients implement
 these technologies," says Paul Papas, a global leader for master commerce
for IBM.

This story has been reprinted with permission from Bank Technology News.