Adobe and IBM team up to target financial services clients

Tech giants Adobe and IBM have partnered up to accelerate digital transformation and strengthen real-time data security for enterprises, with a focus on regulated industries. The partnership aims to enable companies to deliver more personalised experiences across the customer journey, driving improved engagement, profitability and loyalty. Additionally, as part of the partnership, IBM has named Adobe its “Global Partner for Experience” and will begin adopting Adobe Experience Cloud and its enterprise applications to transform its own global marketing.

The partnership will be focusing on three areas in the initial period, namely deployment flexibility with hybrid cloud, adobe enabled for financial services, and Adobe and IBM services. Under deployment flexibility with hybrid cloud, the three companies will enable brands to manage and deliver their content and assets within any hybrid cloud environment, from multiple public clouds to on-premise data centers. By certifying and delivering Adobe Experience Manager 6.5 - part of Adobe Experience Cloud, to run on Red Hat OpenShift, an open source container platform, IBM will offer clients the flexibility to host, access and leverage data in the environment of their choice.

Under adobe enabled for financial services, Adobe joins IBM’s partner ecosystem as a partner providing CX solutions for the IBM Cloud for financial services. Through this, IBM will extend Adobe Experience Manager to professionals in this industry with the aim of helping them as they meet their security and regulatory requirements when delivering personalized experiences to their customers.

Lastly, under Adobe and IBM services, IBM iX, the business design arm of IBM services, will extend its offerings across all of Adobe's core enterprise applications. With broader, integrated support for clients across Adobe Creative Cloud, Adobe Experience Cloud, and Adobe Document Cloud, IBM iX will accelerate how global brands use data to design, implement, and scale personalised customer experiences to instill trust across every corner of its business.

These focus areas come as the three brands recognise that as companies undergo digital transformations and move core workloads to the cloud, the entire C-suite faces a re-framing of their roles to meet customer demands – all while keeping security front and center. CMOs and chief digital officers – particularly those working in regulated industries such as banking and healthcare – are finding that with the emphasis on data-driven marketing, they are now becoming stewards of critical enterprise and customer information. For these executives, the need to protect data while delivering meaningful customer experiences is paramount.

Anil Chakravarthy, executive vice president and general manager, digital experience, Adobe said companies were accelerating their efforts to engage customers digitally even more so now, than before. “We are excited to partner with IBM and Red Hat to enable companies in regulated industries to meet this moment and use real-time customer data to securely deliver experiences across any digital touchpoint, at scale and compliant with regulations,” Chakravarthy added.

Bridget van Kralingen, senior vice president, IBM global markets said businesses across industries were operating in an experience first world where it was possible to gain immense value from data if trust and technology flexibility were central to the equation. “It is with these principles as the focus of our partnership – bringing Adobe’s marketing expertise, IBM’s industry domain knowledge and the open innovation of Red Hat –that will give clients the confidence to use their data for new competitive advantage,” van Kralingen added.

Ashesh Badani, senior vice president, cloud platforms, Red Hat said being competitive in the digital economy required delivering innovation quickly. “Through this collaboration, Adobe, IBM and Red Hat are enabling organisations to deliver great digital experiences in any environment with flexibility and speed across the hybrid cloud, whether in on-premises data centers or across multiple public clouds,” Badani added.

Separately, Adobe partnered with Software AG last year to bring together customer data from across multiple enterprise systems into a centralised and actionable real-time customer profile, enhancing customer experience management for clients.

Related articles:
Adobe and Software AG partner to enhance CX management
Adobe adds Simon Tate to management
Adobe unveils its Digital Economy Index as the "first real-time digital economy barometer"