IBM And The Weather Company Work To Integrate Weather Insights Into Business

By Christine Kern, contributing writer

Collaboration creates a true cloud service.

IBM and Weather Channel parent The Weather Company are joining forces to integrate real-time weather insights into business operations. The alliance will offer analytics that integrate historical and real-time weather data; cloud and mobile app development tools, and advice from thousands of IBM experts. 

“There’s an opportunity to inform all business operations and decision-making with real-time actionable insight delivered securely via the cloud and extracted from all this data collected from sensors all over the planet,” Bob Picciano, senior vice president, IBM Analytics. Said in the release. “The Weather Company and IBM partnership can be a catalyst to making critical business systems even smarter.”

Businesses typically treat every day as the same, but IBM knows that weather can impact business results by as much as $500 billion annual nationwide, and this collaboration with The Weather Company provides data that can help retailers better predict customer buying patterns, fulfillment disruptions, and other operational impacts caused by weather events. According to the press release, “Combining weather data with traditional business data and rich data from an unprecedented number of Internet of Things (IoT) enabled systems and devices will fundamentally transform enterprise decision-making.”

Data from The Weather Company’s business unit, WSI, already informs apps for Apple, Google, Microsoft and thousands of other companies, according to NewsLedge.

IBM will soon combine Watson data analytics and cloud services with the 10 billion forecasts produced every day by The Weather Company’s business-to-business unit, WSI. WSI data already informs weather apps for Apple, Google, Microsoft and thousands of companies including retailers and airlines. 

IBM and WSI will deliver new cloud services to businesses through Watson Analytics for Weather,  Cloud and Mobile App Developer Tools, and Business and Operational Weather Expertise.

In just one example of how this collaboration can help retailers predict consumer needs, each winter, retailers in snowy areas see patterns in which storm forecasts drive spikes in sales of groceries, shovels, sand, salt and cold-weather gear. Yet those same weather events typically hamper retail sales as consumers stay inside. But differences can be profound – during the January 2014 polar vortex, areas with greater than 10°F drops in temperature saw sales fall 15.5 percent while areas with a less than 10°F drop saw sales fall only 2.9 percent. The ability to better understand and predict the impact of such weather events allows retailers to adjust staffing and supply chain strategies as needed – regionally and nationwide.

“This deal combines the capabilities of the world’s largest and most advanced commercial weather company with the leader in big data and analytics. Together, we’ll help businesses and governments transform their decisions and operations around weather fluctuation at a scale that hasn’t been possible until now,” said David Kenny, chairman and CEO of The Weather Company. “This is a watershed moment for businesses that have long been impacted by weather but haven’t had the rich data or enhanced decision-making ability to drive positive business outcomes. The combination of our new high-resolution forecasting capabilities with IBM analytics opens up a world of possibilities for the enterprise.”