After lunch at the analyst summit and it’s time for a customer panel involving BMW, Business Analytics Services and Omnicom Group hosted by Les Rechan of IBM. BMW’s initial analytics work was around diagnostic data analysis in the quality area and has grown into a larger corporate analytics with over a hundred projects centered around customer satisfaction. Omnicom Group is a decentralized holding company with hundreds of ad agencies and other companies around the world. Their initial analytics effort was around financing, changing the way they handled forecasting and financial planning. Now they have 150+ planning implementations, are focused on rolling out mobile and broad more general use of business intelligence not just planning.

Key points from the discussion

  • Critical to show management the power of business analytics, especially by showing the success of those who use analytics to drive better decisions.
  • BMW focus on lots of small analytic “apps” rather than larger efforts as this drives self-service and empowers people to solve their own problems.
  • Speed is critical. Getting answers, decisions, quickly is essential as most people don’t ask for data or analytics until they need to make a decision.
  • Omnicom found that creating a set of common components for the 50-60% of shared needs helped roll out in a very distributed company.
  • Central groups don’t have to  be large to have an impact given effective use of external consultants and people in specific silos.

BOSTON, MA – May 4, 2026 – Blue Polaris announced it has been awarded the North America Winner of the 2026 IBM Partner Plus Awards for the Transformational SaaS Application category at IBM Partner Plus Day during Think 2026. This award celebrates IBM business partners who demonstrated measurable improvements through efficiency, cost savings and productivity through IBM SaaS deployments.

 

“This recognition underscores the meaningful impact and innovation our partners are delivering across the IBM Ecosystem,” said Nicholas Rogers, GM of Americas Ecosystem at IBM. “We are proud to recognize Blue Polaris as a North America winner and celebrate the work they have done to help clients scale and accelerate AI outcomes through IBM services and solutions — over the past year and into the future.”

 

The IBM Partner Plus Awards recognize partners who deliver exceptional impact aligned with IBM’s strategic priorities. Thirty-four winners were selected from hundreds of global submissions across all geographies and seven categories. 

 

Partners eligible to win an award are part of IBM Partner Plus, a program designed to help deepen partners’ technical expertise, accelerate time to market and win with clients with AI and hybrid cloud. For more information on IBM Partner Plus, please visit www.ibm.com/partnerplus.