AB

18 Focus | Interview
leaders, as IBM becomes a globally integrated enterprise, there
will be greater opportunities to move in and out of finance, into
the business, into operational, sales and consulting roles.’
Operating in 170 countries, IBM is, says Hill, a company
that looks to continuously transform and innovate, providing
solutions to support a vast, diverse client base, tackling their
most critical business challenges. The future for IBM is digital
intelligence, and it sees the next decade as a dawn of a new
era. Even though IBM does not break out its revenues along
country lines, Hill is clear that the UK and Ireland contributes
significantly to the company’s overall performance. IBM
continues to invest in this region; it has built a ‘SoftLayer’
cloud data centre in the UK as part of a US$1.2bn investment
in expanding its global cloud footprint, while the IBM London
analytics centre puts the UK centre stage in one of its strategic
imperatives: to use advanced analytics expertise to address the
complex business challenges facing clients.
Perhaps the most public face of that technology for IBM is its
association since 1990 with the Wimbledon tennis championship,
where it provides scores, statistics and analysis of matches
through its Slamtracker. Less high profile, but perhaps even more
important than keeping track of Andy Murray’s progress, anyone
completing an online transaction or using a cash machine does
so using IBM software developed in Hursley Park in Hampshire.
Such developments are evidence of IBM’s high ambition
to be at the forefront of a new era of cognitive computing.
And to help achieve that, Hill’s desire is to continue creating a
smarter finance function. ■
Peter Williams, journalist
For more information:
See IBM’s CFO study at bit.ly/surveycfo
Accounting and Business 07/2016