IBM intros analytics services for global workforce management

Big data is often touted as a new source of wealth for leading to better business decisions, and it shouldn't be forgotten that those decisions can often benefit internal units.

For that purpose, IBM has introduced a pair of new analytics services for both building and managing global workforces.

Stemming from Big Blue's $1.3 billion acquisition of Kenexa last year, the platforms are based on the new subsidiary's recruiting and performance management solutions. 

IBM has been busy over the last several months building on top of Kenexa's portfolio. These analytics products follow the debuts of other social business and cloud products that were unveiled back in January.

The key characteristics to IBM's latest data-minded introductions is that they tap both external (i.e. social) data as well as internal metrics with the hopes of drafting more comprehensive profiles of individual employees and the teams they serve.

Here's a rundown on each option:

• Survey Analytics: Uses text and visual analytics software to automatically extract and display over one million pieces of anonymous, unstructured data derived from employee surveys. This system also scans human resources data broken down by employee demographics and then refashions the results on a dashboard, which includes a "heat map" of trends broken down by department.
• Retention Analytics: Applies predictive analytics software to social as well as enterprise HR and CRM data and then identifies high-attrition segments within the company for the purpose of retaining high-value talent.