More Philippine companies across more business segments are looking to invest in software solutions for their ever-growing data infrastructures, technology giant IBM said.

IBM said the pace of data growth is fueling the need for organizations to boost the speed at which they generate insights from their data and confidence that their decisions will yield the best outcomes.

Companies across industries, such as manufacturing, automotive and real estate, understand that operating without full knowledge of the information available to them means operating with blind spots.

Industry leaders are looking to quickly gain access to greater depths of data -- and more cost-effective ways to synthesize that information -- more than ever before, the vendor also said.

In a related note, IBM said hundreds of SAP clients are now reaping quantifiable benefits from moving to IBM's DB2 database software to support their SAP business applications.

IBM said with higher transactional performance, advanced analytics and lower cost, DB2 is becoming the preferred database software for business applications across all industries.

IBM said Norkis Group of the Philippines, US-based Coca-Cola Bottling Co. and Rossi Residencial of Brazil recently upgraded to SAP applications on IBM DB2.

These companies have been able to reduce their IT costs and improve efficiency while shifting their focus to delivering the business analytics capabilities needed to make smarter business decisions.

The Norkis Group, a leading conglomerate in the Philippines, best-known for motorcycles, multipurpose cabs, light van and small car production and distribution recently replaced its diverse, decentralized systems with SAP ERP and SAP Customer Relationship Management applications, supported by IBM DB2.

To capitalize on economies of scale, and to develop and share efficient business processes for their manual data collection from across their 300 branches locally which used different sales and accounts systems , a standardized processes for all of its financing and sales outlets was needed to also help them grow.

In addition, the integration of all business functions into a single, centralized system would enhance group-wide productivity and flexibility, generating higher levels of business performance visibility at senior executive level, with the ability to forecast demand, increase on-time delivery, reduce credit investigation lead-times and make realistic and achievable commitments.

"Norkis Group selected the IBM DB2 database, based on its advanced integration with SAP applications. DB2 offers excellent performance alongside enterprise-strength backup and recovery solutions. It is able to handle the very large data sets that we expect to generate, and gives us room to grow as the business itself expands," Ronald Alfeche, IT head of Norkis, said.

The second-largest bottler of Coca Cola products in the US, Coca Cola Bottling Co. recently moved its implementation of the SAP ERP application to IBM DB2 in order to derive greater performance and lower software and hardware costs.

By choosing DB2, it reduced its storage needs by approximately 40 percent. In addition, the client drastically reduced the time of batch runs by more than 65 percent and in turn, improved its supply chain efficiency overall. The company expects significant savings over the next five years because of the value realized with IBM DB2.

IBM also noted positive feedback for its ongoing partnership with SAP. "Several clients here and around the world running SAP applications on DB2 software have benefited from our collaborative relationship," said James Velasquez, Country General Manager, IBM Philippines. "Many of the DB2 features that were jointly developed by IBM and SAP specifically for SAP environments have resulted in outstanding performance and lower costs for companies of all sizes."