IBM on Wednesday agreed to acquire OpenPages, a private company that develops risk-management and compliance software. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Big Blue’s latest acquisition beefs up its business-analytics portfolio in a strategic area. Growing volumes of data, disconnected systems, and ever-changing regulatory compliance challenges demand a comprehensive view of risk exposure — and getting that view demands business analytics.
A recent IBM study of 1,900 global CFOs and senior finance leaders revealed that risk management has risen in priority by 93 percent since 2005. The survey also noted that two out of three companies had encountered material-risk events within the past three years.
“Unforeseen risk can hurt a company’s bottom line as well as its brand reputation,” said Rob Ashe, general manager of business analytics at IBM. “Integrating risk-management systems across once-divided units and functions is essential to seeing the bigger picture.”
Improving Business Decisions
IBM expects the acquisition to advance its business-analytics strategy to help businesses address complex enterprise-wide risk management and compliance challenges. Ashe said adding OpenPages to the IBM mix will provide a holistic and consistent approach to risk management that helps companies combine risk-management insight with performance management to drive better decision-making.
Consider the capabilities: OpenPages software helps businesses develop a compliance and risk-management strategy across a variety of domains — including operational risk, financial-controls management, IT risk, compliance, and internal audits — so CFOs and CIOs can better understand how risks can impact future performance. OpenPages software also works to highlight inconsistencies in risk and performance goals, giving business leaders a clearer view of the business opportunities and risks associated with various activities.
“OpenPages should be a very good addition to IBM’s information-management quiver,” said Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT. “It’s a strong company. It’s got some large enterprise customers, many of which are already…