Corinne Koppel, SVP, IBM Consulting, Americas, highlights IBM’s strategic investments to enhance go-to-market strategies, the Future of AI and quantum computing technologies, and more in this catch-up…
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Hi Corinne, tell us about your journey and your role at IBM.
I lead the global Oracle practice for IBM Consulting. IBM Consulting is a 160,000-person strong global consultancy in the heart of a technology company. My team brings deep industry and functional expertise on Oracle technology, specializing in differentiated solutions for supply chain, finance, HR, data, integration, cloud and generative AI, which enables us to meet our clients where they are in their transformation journey. I took on the role earlier this year and it’s been incredibly exciting to be leading this team at a time when generative AI is changing almost everything about how businesses work. I have over 20 years of Oracle and consulting experience, having past roles focused on technology-driven transformation, quality assurance and modernizing consulting delivery methods, and there has never been a more exciting time to be in this business.
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Highlight some of the strategic investments made to enhance IBM’s go-to-market strategies in Oracle consulting.
At IBM Consulting, we’re continuously focused on expanding our expertise and capabilities to better serve clients.
Recently at Oracle CloudWorld, IBM announced the intent to acquire Accelalpha, a global Oracle services provider with deep expertise helping clients digitize core business operations like supply chain, logistics and finance, and accelerate adoption of Oracle Cloud Applications. Accelalpha provides Oracle Cloud Applications consulting across advisory, implementation and managed services to clients across North America, Europe, Asia, the Middle East and South America, with a focus on distribution, industrial and financial services sectors.
We also announced the launch of new services to help Oracle clients extend the value of generative AI, including expanding our network of consultants to support Oracle clients. That now includes thousands of consultants worldwide who are certified across core Oracle technologies – like OCI Generative AI, OCI AI Services, and OCI Data Science – as well as deeply skilled in the IBM watsonx AI and data platform and generative AI technologies from other IBM strategic partners.
I’m incredibly excited about this because it demonstrates how we’re improving how we serve enterprise clients in this critical moment when they are both excited about the possibilities with AI, but also grappling with how to maximize ROI while managing the cost of compute, get the right AI skills in place, scale AI responsibly and more.
Clients today expect more from their consulting providers – more clarity about the outcomes they’re driving, more cost savings and so on. We’re meeting those expectations with help from our AI-powered delivery platform IBM Consulting Advantage. IBM Consulting Advantage empowers IBM consultants with AI assistants, assets and methods so they can deliver better outcomes for clients, faster. For example, we use IBM Consulting Advantage to accelerate clients’ migration to Oracle Cloud. IBM consultants use an asset-first migration approach to support clients from discovery and design to build, migrate, test and deployment.
In what ways are AI and hybrid cloud technologies transforming client engagement and business outcomes at IBM Consulting?
Hybrid cloud and AI are the two most transformational technologies of our time. They’re key to enabling businesses to scale, improve their productivity and seize new market opportunities. Adoption of hybrid cloud architectures continues to grow, but the complexity is also growing as businesses deploy generative AI across multiple clouds. Our clients are very excited to leverage the recently announced Oracle Database@AWS in addition to Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure. Enterprises are looking for a consulting partner that can help them stay ahead of the curve and manage that complexity while still delivering the fundamental technology services that run their business, from customer service to procurement to recruitment. IBM Consulting helps them navigate those critical technology decisions, mapped to the business outcomes they need to drive.
How do you see AI and quantum computing technologies shaping the future?
AI is having an incredible moment today as businesses are starting to see how it can drastically improve productivity but also create new business models and revenue streams. Quantum computing has incredible potential too, especially in fields like materials science and chemistry. However, both technologies could also carry risks if not developed and implemented responsibly, and if businesses are not thinking ahead about their implications. For example, as quantum computers continue to advance, they will reach the ability to break the most widely used cybersecurity protocols in the world. At IBM, we bear significant responsibility to develop new technologies ethically and deploy them with transparency and trust, and we build the expertise our clients will need both today and in the future to navigate these opportunities and challenges.
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How does IBM’s Oracle consulting practice help clients boost their digital transformation while maintaining efficiency and security?
I speak to clients every day who are pushing their organizations to innovate and be more efficient so they can drive growth and competitive advantage. But they’re also challenged by securing identities, data and workloads across their hybrid cloud footprint.
One common place we start with clients is the business case. We help them develop a robust business case for their technology investments, ensuring that digital transformation initiatives drive real business outcomes like efficiency, cost savings and so on. A key part of this is understanding a client’s industry context and their particular challenges with security, governance and more. For example, manufacturing was the industry facing the most cyberattacks in 2023 for the third year in a row, according to the 2024 IBM Security X-Force Threat Intelligence Index. Because we understand their industry context as well as the technology landscape and business workflows clients are transforming, we can help them navigate complexity, establish cyber-resiliency and build the IT foundation that works for them.
What are the biggest challenges clients face in adopting hybrid cloud platforms, and how can companies overcome them?
There are a variety of challenges to adopting hybrid cloud platforms, from the complexity of integrating workloads scattered across multiple clouds to building in security and compliance to obtaining – whether hiring or from third parties – the skills you need to build and maintain these architectures.
Our point-of-view about how to address this challenge is what we call “hybrid by design.” That means taking a strategic approach to structuring your hybrid, multi-cloud IT estate by aligning technology with business goals. It’s a simple idea, but when you can consistently align your hybrid cloud architecture to the business goals you need to achieve, the path to scalability and ROI suddenly becomes much clearer.
A few thoughts on the future of technology-driven transformation in consulting.
Generative AI has brought incredible change for the consulting profession. Consider a world where IBM’s 160,000 consultants are supported by 1.6 million AI-powered digital workers, and the kind of new speed and value that would bring for client delivery in projects from IT modernization to business process operations. That isn’t a gaze into the future — it’s already happening today with IBM Consulting Advantage. At the end of the day, the consulting profession will always be about human relationships, and these AI capabilities will free up our consultants’ time from manual work and further boost their existing expertise so they can do what they do best — listen to business leaders, help them define their core challenges, and build the future together.
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Corinne Koppel is a seasoned executive with over 20 years of experience in Oracle and Consulting, driving clients’ business growth with technology-driven transformation. As the Senior Partner and Practice Leader, Oracle for IBM Consulting, Corinne leads the expansion of IBM’s Oracle consulting business, nurturing talent, driving strategic investments, and enhancing go-to-market strategies. She and her team provide compelling solutions to help clients solve complex business challenges, share thought leadership about the future of business and help drive the success of clients’ transformation programs. Prior to her current role, Corinne held various leadership positions such as Managing Director leading Accenture Technology CFO & Enterprise Value Network and Oracle Practice Leader for Accenture across Europe.
IBM is a leading provider of global hybrid cloud and AI, and consulting expertise. We help clients in more than 175 countries capitalize on insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs and gain the competitive edge in their industries. More than 4,000 government and corporate entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial services, telecommunications and healthcare rely on IBM’s hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to affect their digital transformations quickly, efficiently and securely. IBM’s breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions and consulting deliver open and flexible options to our clients. All of this is backed by IBM’s legendary commitment to trust, transparency, responsibility, inclusivity and service.
