How Does Marriott International Plan to Use the IBM Cloud Platform?

IBM (IBM) today announced a deal to help Marriott International (MAR) offer faster digital services to its guests.

The global hospitality company said it plans to migrate many of its core IT systems and applications to the IBM Cloud platform over the next few years. Additionally, Marriott will deploy IBM analytics software-as-a-service (SaaS) called Big Insights so it can collect and leverage big data to find new ways to better serve its guests.

“IBM Cloud provides the analytics to see early-stage data patterns and the scale and flexibility to enable timely, innovative new services that will meet guests’ expectations in a predominantly digital world,” Bruce Hoffmeister, Marriott’s global chief information officer, said in a prepared statement.

Robert LeBlanc, IBM Cloud’s senior vice president, added that he believes the IBM Cloud will enable “Marriott’s transformation and global expansion.”

Marriott owns and operates more than 3,900 properties in 72 countries and recorded $192 million in net income during the third quarter of last year, and leveraging the IBM Cloud could help this hospitality company use big data to bolster its customer satisfaction levels.

IBM was the top-ranked cloud services provider (CSP) on last year’s Talkin’ Cloud 100, and Big Blue’s total cloud revenue for fiscal year 2014 reached $7 billion, which represented a 60 percent year-over-year increase.

Click here for Talkin’ Cloud’s Top 100 CSP list

However, IBM’s reputation has taken a hit over the past few weeks after news surfaced that the cloud computing giant was embarking on massive layoffs.

The VAR Guy last month reported that IBM was preparing to lay off up to 26 percent of its global workforce (or roughly 100,000 workers), and the layoffs appeared to have already begun in Australia.

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