At the IMPACT 2009 conference, IBM today announced new products and services designed to help clients and partners build deeper relationships with their customers, increase productivity and work in a more intelligent way.

IBM's comprehensive smarter work approach takes advantage of today's increasingly instrumented and interconnected world. By improving collaboration between people and transforming business processes that are critical to success, organizations can become more agile and responsive to rapidly changing market conditions and better able to pursue new revenue opportunities.

Inefficient business processes and barriers to collaboration can hamper business success, especially in a challenging economic environment. According to IBM, businesses waste 5.3 hours per employee due to inefficient processes. Two-thirds of employees believe there are colleagues who can help them do their jobs better, but don't know how to find them. In addition, 42 percent of people are forced to make decisions with the wrong information at least once per week, while 91 percent of CEOs surveyed by IBM said they needed to restructure the way their organizations work.

"Working smarter means becoming more productive and cost-efficient by taking advantage of the tools and information that can yield the greatest benefits in a competitive environment. Through the Lotus and WebSphere software portfolios, IBM is committed to bringing new collaboration and business process management capabilities to the market to better enable customers to work smarter," said Tom Rosamilia, general manager, IBM WebSphere. "With today's announcements, IBM is providing the tools and strategies to help our clients and partners quickly reap the benefits of increased agility."

For more information on all of the new products and services announced today or for details on how IBM is helping clients and Business Partners to make smarter, faster decisions by using SOA, visit: http://www.ibm.com/press/impact2009