OREANDA-NEWS. April 07, 2017. IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced today that for the sixth time, its consulting organization was named the industry's top producer of thought leadership in a White Space Report by Source Global Research, a leading research and strategy firm for the global management consulting industry.

According to the most recent White Space report evaluating the quality and impact of 25 major global consulting firms in the world, IBM remains the leader for the consistent high quality of its thought leadership. The White Space rankings are based on four evaluation criteria - Resilience, Differentiation, Appeal, and Prompting Action. This is the sixth out of seven evaluation periods that IBM has remained in the top spot.

IBM Institute for Business Value (IBV), part of the company's consulting unit, IBM Global Business Services, creates innovative thought leadership on behalf of IBM and provides practical insight for business leaders to stay current on industry trends. The report highlighted Japan ascending: Four steps to reignite growth and vitality in the Japanese economy as an example of IBM’s differentiated approach. Source Global Research commended IBM’s thought leadership, “which is clearly different to competitor content and challenges the reader’s thinking,” and for providing recommended next steps for executives to take with their businesses.

“Consultancies are frequently challenged to not only drive an individual to actually read a piece of their thought leadership, but to have the right tone and research to establish the credibility required to engage target readers and encourage them to keep reading until the end.” said Rachel Ainsworth, Head of Thought Leadership at Source Global Research. “IBM’s Institute for Business Value continues to top our list for their industry thought leadership because they clearly and consistently create content relevant to targeted executives and C-Suite.”

IBM-produced thought leadership, that according to Source, leads all 25 major global consulting firms in appealing to individuals, making them want to read a piece of content and then continue reading past the introduction. The content was also lauded for resilience in its research methodology or, “author credibility established and underpinned by appropriate research and analysis,” as well as, “prompting action," by way of detailing future courses of action. This acknowledgment of IBM's thought leadership is a result of IBM's continued commitment to providing clients with insight on issues like changing industry dynamics due to business transformation.

“When it comes to the competition, C-suite and business executives need data-based thought leadership to stay current on industry trends so they can better foresee how it will impact their share of the market,” says Peter Korsten, Vice President and Global leader thought leadership and eminence, IBM Global Business Services. “The blockchain series we recently produced is a great example of an emerging technology reinventing how trusted transactions are conducted and recorded across all industries including healthcare, financial markets, government, retail and more. The IBV reports aim to keep executives abreast of the latest innovations and technologies that may impact their bottom line.”

The IBV blockchain series outlined how this new technology will impact financial services, healthcare, supply chains, electronics, and banking and is now being used in real business use cases. The highly cited report has been used extensively by researchers, industry analysts and thought leaders during this early period of blockchain adoption.  IBM has worked with more than 400 clients across financial services, supply chains, IoT, risk management, digital rights management and healthcare to implement blockchain applications delivered via the IBM Cloud.