WASHINGTON, DC--(MARKET WIRE)--Apr 14, 2008 -- IBM (NYSE:IBM - News) today released a report outlining new risks to people, cargo, global financial and information flows, and modes of transport. The report highlights the complexity and vulnerability of these systems, and provides recommendations for the future.

Based on research and interviews with more than 200 former and current government officials and policy experts, "Global Movement Management: Strengthening Commerce, Security and Resiliency in Today's Networked World," provides detailed recommendations for policymakers, companies, and governments to enhance global economic security and resiliency. The authors challenge public and private organizations to focus on key similarities in their operations and to align their policies and investments in a way that makes performance, security and resiliency a joint effort.

"Our findings indicate that a better understanding of emerging risks makes it possible to improve security and resilience without harming commercial interests," according to W. Scott Gould, Vice President Public Sector Strategy, IBM Global Business Services. "More than ever, governments and businesses need to work together to strengthen critical economic flows -- immigration, cybersecurity, travel, transportation, cargo -- against the risks they face in a world characterized by globalization, technology change, and mutual interdependence."

Presenting a new approach that can guide the formation of policies, plans, and implementation efforts, the report introduces three key ideas:

 
--  Intelligent Immunity - Make critical economic systems more resistant
    to disruption through a strategy built on resilience that addresses
    terrorism and other threats to global economic systems.  Security policies
    need to do more than simply prevent attacks; the best security policies
    will allow organizations to isolate disruptions and recover from them
    quickly.

--  Strategic Human Capital - Transform the relationships between
    individuals and their organizations to enhance the individual employee's
    understanding of his or her role in improving performance and reducing
    risk.  Empowering front-line employees through strategic investments in
    training and education can be the best defense that many organizations have
    against the threats they face.

--  Leverage Data and Skills Through Technology - Build technologies that
    ensure that people have the right information at the right time to do their
    jobs better and to keep their organizations secure.  New tools and
    standards for information sharing and privacy protection will be required
    to help these new technologies become as cost effective and ubiquitous as
    web browsers and HTML were for the development of the worldwide web.

The report addresses how risk has changed in the 21st century, noting that today, technology and globalization allow individuals and individual events to create disruptions and damage on a scale never before seen. As a result, organizations are increasingly faced with the need for dramatic changes in the level of information sharing and public and private collaboration.

In addition, the authors call attention to the lack of sufficient international coordination to make economic systems more secure and resilient. Their findings suggest that a new effort is needed to energize and provide direction for governance efforts. Such an initiative would augment the efforts of existing security and commerce organizations around the world, while creating a leading new forum for public and private cooperation.

The report is available on www.ibm.com, and is authored by IBM strategy consultants W. Scott Gould, Vice President, Public Sector Strategy, Daniel B. Prieto, Vice President, Homeland Security and Jonah J. Czerwinski, Managing Consultant, Homeland Security.

About the Authors

Mr. Gould is a former Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Secretary for Administration at the U.S. Department of Commerce, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Finance and Management at the Treasury Department and Deputy to the Director of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. Gould is a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. He is a former member of the National Security Agency Technical Advisory Group and the Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award Board of Overseers.

Mr. Prieto is a member of the Markle Foundation Task Force on National Security in the Information Age and a visiting scholar at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation. Previously, he has served as Research Director of the Homeland Security Partnership Initiative at Harvard University's Kennedy School, as a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and as a professional staff member of the Committee on Homeland Security in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Mr. Czerwinski is a 2008 Senior Fellow at the Homeland Security Policy Institute of The George Washington University, he serves on the Homeland Security Advisory Council's DNDO Working Group, and is a member of the Nuclear Defense Working Group of the Center for the Study of the Presidency (CSP). He was director of Homeland Security Projects at CSP from 2004-2007. Czerwinski offers online analysis of homeland security issues on www.HLSwatch.com.

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