When Riswan Khalfan, chief information officer at TD Securities, set out to improve the performance of the bank’s options-trading system last year, he couldn’t find ready-to-use technology suitable for the job. So he agreed to let his company become a test subject for a research project at IBM called ”stream” computing. The technology, developed over half a decade by a team of 70 scientists and engineers at IBM Research, allows companies to analyze data as they are being received—rather than having to place them first in a database. In TD Securities’ case, stream computing lets it handle 5 million pieces of options trading data per second, analyze them on the fly, and make automated trading decisions. That compares with the 1 to 2 million per second rate the bank typically handles with its current trading system. “In this business, quicker decisions are better decisions,” says Khalfan. “If you fall behind, you’re dealing with stale data and that puts you at a disadvantage.” The bank is now considering switching its entiretrading system to the new technology. Stream computing is just one part of IBM’s biggest foray into business consulting since it acquired PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting seven years ago. The company is creating a new unit, IBM Business Analytics & Optimization Services, that will advise corporations on how to better analyze data and make smarter decisions. The group’s staff of 4,000 consultants will mine IBM’s research and software divisions for algorithms, applications, and other innovations to do the job.

Questions

1. What is business analytics consulting?

2. In what different ways can it help improve a company’s performance? 

3. Why is competition so fierce in the business analytics business?