IBM to bring 500 jobs to new Ohio analytics center

ANN SANNER,Associated Press

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — IBM Corp. offi­cials encour­aged busi­nesses to bring them their tough­est prob­lems, as they announced plans Thurs­day to open an advanced ana­lyt­ics cen­ter in Ohio focused on data crunch­ing and con­sult­ing services.

The new cen­ter in sub­ur­ban Colum­bus is expected to bring 500 jobs over the next three years.

Among other duties, work­ers at the cen­ter will build com­puter appli­ca­tions and mod­els to allow busi­nesses to bet­ter draw con­clu­sions from vast amounts of data. For instance, the center’s employ­ees could take chunks of infor­ma­tion from an insur­ance com­pany to ana­lyze why cus­tomers might be choos­ing to jump to a competitor.

Mike Rhodin, an IBM senior vice pres­i­dent, said the cen­ter was spawned through an idea from area clients includ­ing Nation­wide Insur­ance, Hunt­ing­ton Bank, Car­di­nal Health and Lim­ited Brands Inc.

“The amount of data that’s being gen­er­ated by the world around us is explod­ing, it’s expo­nen­tial, it’s greater than expo­nen­tial,” Rhodin said. “And as that occurs, the lan­guage of busi­ness in the future is going to be analytics.”

The new center’s impact will extend into edu­ca­tion: IBM also is part­ner­ing with nearby Ohio State Uni­ver­sity to more eas­ily attract and train work­ers who are skilled in analytics.

The com­pany is work­ing with the uni­ver­sity on new busi­ness and tech­nol­ogy cur­ric­ula for under­grad­u­ates and help­ing to beef up its cur­rent course­work for busi­ness grad­u­ate stu­dents. IBM has already uploaded soft­ware for fac­ulty to use in the classroom.

The col­lab­o­ra­tion helps IBM cre­ate a pipeline of prospec­tive employ­ees. And the com­pany envi­sions hav­ing intern­ships for stu­dents and offer­ing courses and sem­i­nars taught by IBM leaders.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich touted the part­ner­ship between the uni­ver­sity and IBM as a model. He said the state is focused on try­ing to link the needs of busi­nesses to academia.

“It is a huge chal­lenge for us,” Kasich said. “Frankly, it needs to start all the way in the first grade.”

Kasich said he expects to use IBM’s expan­sion to lure other com­pa­nies to the state and get them to see there’s more to Ohio than man­u­fac­tur­ing. And the first-term Repub­li­can used his chance at the podium to send a blunt mes­sage to busi­ness leaders.

“If you have a com­pany, if you want to strike it rich — come to Ohio,” he said. “We’re open for busi­ness, and you’re going to have an excit­ing time.”

IBM worked with Job­sO­hio, the state’s pri­vate job-creation entity, on incen­tives to expand in the Colum­bus area. Kasich told reporters the deal included a tax credit but said the state would see a pos­i­tive return in the first year.

Posted by AP News on Nov 30 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.