IT giant IBM has extended its consulting services by offering its clients a simpler, direct access to analytics assessments and other click-to-buy services.

IBM said the offering – named IBM Global Business Service Online – makes it the ‘first major’ IT consultancy to offer both new and existing clients this kind of immediate access to its capabilities and expertise.

According to IBM it is no longer the sole responsibility of the CIO to make IT purchases.

As technology becomes a more integral part of an organization’s strategy, a wider set of C-suite executives are looking for services to support company goals.

IBM’s Global Business Service Online will extend its offerings to new buyers through a fast and seamless digital delivery model.

Clients in the US and UK will have direct access to the services via Global Business Services Online.

"This is a new model of engagement that expands our consulting capabilities to provide broader access to our world-class consultants and their expertise," said Sarah Diamond, general manager and global consulting leader, IBM Global Business Services.

"IBM’s Global Business Services Online anticipates the demand for fast and simple access to digital solutions that are focused and easy to implement for any size business."

Ramki Desiraju, Global Lead Account Partner & VP, IBM Global Business Services, talking to Datacenter Dynamics said: "The buying process within corporates and medium-sized businesses is changing and often moving down the procurement chain. That's why we are allowing credit card payments for many services on this site."

"New clients can get started quickly with analytics assessments and a range of other offerings to drive growth or improve engagement with their customers," Desiraju said.

IBM said the digital offerings are available now to manage a variety of business actions, including migrating mobile applications, analyzing social media presence and application development and testing.

The five digital offerings include –

- IBM Social Media Analytics and Customer Insights – This will help customers analyze social media to grow revenue, optimize marketing spending, improve the customer experience and enhance brand value by shaping social opinion. By providing front-end access to a dashboard, clients can track positive and negative sentiment across multiple touch points.

- IBM Continuous Delivery Maturity Evaluation – IBM clients will receive an analysis of their current development environment and a clear recommendation for capability improvements aligned to their specific business goals, as well as a recommended roadmap based on proven best practices. IBM will bring together the infrastructure, skills and tools to support the full application life-cycle across all major platforms and operating systems.

- IBM Mobile Applications Migration to Worklight – Through a combination of services from IBM Interactive Experience and development, clients can migrate mobile applications from one platform to another in order to upgrade to the latest version. IBM said the solution allows clients to respond quickly to fast-changing customer and market expectations, as well as access real-time intelligence and actionable insights.

- IBM Technical Healthcheck for SAP Applications – For clients currently implementing SAP, this solution performs upgrade support for SAP apps and performs a comprehensive health assessment to pinpoint any performance issues.

- IBM Performance Roadmap for Oracle Applications – Enables clients to assess the value of existing Oracle applications and provides a roadmap for improved ROI (Return on Investment) as well as a strategy that IBM said effectively uses cloud, analytics, social and mobile technologies. The assessment is designed to measure the maturity level and complexity of the client’s oracle landscape and identify potential areas of improvement.