ARMONK, N.Y. — Walgreens is leveraging the IBM Cloud to optimize field service at its nearly 8,200 drug stores nationwide.

IBM said Friday that, under a new agreement with the pharmacy chain, it will deploy IBM retail analytics at Walgreens stores to help improve the efficiency of field service support. The IT giant noted that its ability to integrate hardware and software from various vendors under one roof can sharpen technology operation across the store.

In addition, IBM Cloud will be used to assess support levels needed at each Walgreens store, based on the locations’ service request history. That information could lead to better anticipation and coordination when the retailer dispatches field technicians, so they arrive at the right time to address an issue, according to IBM.

Such data-driven insights can help to identify the most frequent service calls at a given store and consolidation those requests into one service call to minimize repeated instances of system downtime, IBM explained.

“Extending our multivendor services capabilities to support Walgreens stores sets an exciting new benchmark in an evolving retail industry, but it does not stop there,” Martin Jetter, senior vice president of IBM Global Technology Services, said in a statement.

IBM noted that tools to help unearth insights in data are not only helping companies enhance IT efficiency and spur business growth, but these solutions also are changing the way IT professionals approach tech support in the field. Data insights are enabling more proactive, predictive solutions that isolate the root cause of a disruption to head off repeated problems and free up valuable time for IT professionals to focus on higher-value initiatives, IBM said.

“As a cloud services integrator, IBM is always driven by the desire to think differently about the way we manage our clients’ services and underlying infrastructure in any business,” according to Jetter, “and we are well-suited to help them achieve the results they are looking for.”