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Posts Tagged ‘IBM’

IBM posted 18.2% market share in Infrastructure Services

December 13th, 2011

In 1H IBM witnessed significant traction beyond Telecom across sectors including Financial Services, Education, Manufacturing and from customers in tier two and tier three cities.

IBM today announced that it continues to gain market share and is the #1 player in Infrastructure Services with 18.2% market share, 8 percentage points ahead of its nearest competitor according to 1H 2011 IDC Asia/Pacific Half Yearly Services Tracker. Extending the leadership position in overall Services in 1H 2011, IBM has a 11.9% market share, two times its nearest competitor.

Strategic Outsourcing (SO) contributed significantly to the rise in the market share of IBM Global Technology Services (GTS), the Infrastructure Services business arm of IBM, in 1H11 by growing to 31.0% share, 13.9 percentage points ahead of its nearest competition. As per IDC, IBM’s SO revenue grew at 21%, which is 2% more than the industry average of 19%. IBM maintained its market leadership in Integrated Technology Services (ITS) and Maintenance & Technical Support Services (MTSS) in 1H11. This was driven by a rapid growth in managed services. As per IDC, IBM has a 10% market share each in ITS and MTS, around 5% and 4% points ahead of its nearest competition respectively.

In 1H IBM witnessed significant traction beyond Telecom across sectors including Financial Services, Education, Manufacturing and from customers in tier two and tier three cities.

Commenting on the company’s continued strong growth and market dominance, Ashish Kumar, General Manager, Global Technology Services, IBM India/ South Asia, said, “It’s a matter of great pride for IBM to not only be the market leader but to have increased its lead over competition. We will continue to redefine infrastructure landscape with our broad based skill sets spanning industries with technologies like Green Data Centers, Integrated Managed Services, Cloud, Smarter Planet solutions, etc thereby transforming business models and further consolidating our leadership position in the market.” Adding further, Ashish said, “With outcome based models becoming very popular, clients are looking for partners with experience and proven track record. The key differentiator between IBM & any other Services company is a big portion of $ 6 Bn investment in R&D is being spent on Services advancing our capabilities for innovative industry solutions.”

“Continued focus on the market and new initiatives give leading vendors the edge to retain existing customers as well as new client’s acquisition. The key is customer centric approach and to focus energies around themes which will rule the market growth in immediate future like managed services, flexibility through cloud, mobility, infrastructure services, consolidation etc” says Nirupam Chaudhuri, Research Manager – Software and Services, IDC.

Source:http://www.indiainfoline.com/Markets/News/IBM-posted-18.2-percent-market-share-in-Infrastructure-Services/5309186806

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BPOs seek level playing field with foreigners in procurement process

November 24th, 2011

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Kenyan Business Processing Outsourcing (BPOs) and IT service firms want the current procurement rules changed to boost competitiveness citing dominance by international counterparts.

They want the government to make it mandatory for international firms to partner with local companies when bidding for IT project tenders, a move expected to encourage skills transfer and boost chances of getting a piece of the multi-million shilling ICT funds.

Mr Nik Nesbitt, the chief executive of Kencall, says lack of financial and technical capability has made it difficult for Kenyan firms to clinch the tenders on their own.

“Local BPOs lack the experience being enjoyed by our competitors from countries like India and this is why we are asking the government to change the procurement rules and make it a must for the foreign firms to partner with the locals,” said Mr Nesbitt.

“We require a radical surgery on government policies in order to grow the BPO/IT sector, otherwise growth will be very slow,” he said.

The only Kenyan BPO firm that has managed to secure a government tender to digitise States law and the Judiciary documents is Digital Space, but only after partnering with DPH of India.

The push by the local BPO firms is mainly targeting tenders in the Ministry of Registration and Immigration of persons, department of births and deaths and that of Land. Already the Lands ministry has started its tendering process.

It comes just when a survey released by the Kenya ICT Board , dubbed Julisha notes that the country has been unable to develop an adequate pool of skilled IT personnel due to lack of big IT projects. “The common view was that there may not be enough big IT projects that can churn out a pool of skilled personnel— consequently there are not enough projects that allows professionals to exhibit or develop their skills,” read part of the Survey.

Mr Nesbitt’s position to compel the foreign firms to partner with the locals is supported by Mr Henry Njoroge, chief executive officer of Xtranet and Techno Brain BPO.

Mr Njoroge told the Business Daily that while the government may be encouraging partnerships, making it a requirement through changing the procurement rules will ensure that local firms are included in the large ongoing projects.

“What the government should do is come up with new procurement guidelines that stipulate that since technology is at the heart of Vision 2030, any company that is doing a government project that has never been done before must partner with a local company. All tenders should demand a partnership document with a local company,” said Mr Njoroge.

In the current situation, major outsourcing contracts from multinationals, similarly, are unlikely to land in the hands of local companies, primarily because the clients are extending their business to firms they have worked with in other markets, analysts say.

This year, foreign firms Accenture, IBM, Payment Solutions, SPANCO, and Tech Mahindra have won outsourcing contracts worth millions of shillings from the public sector and multinationals.

Payment Solutions Ltd, a South African firm, recently won a government tender to manage the public sector payroll in a bid to ensure civil servants do not commit more than two-thirds of their salary to paying debt.

IBM Corp, a US-based firm, and two Indian outsourcing firms — Tech Mahindra and SPANCO — have signed a Sh40 billion deal with telecoms giant Airtel to set up a five-year call centre service in Kenya and 15 other countries in Africa where Airtel operates.

Source:http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/BPOs+seek+level+playing+field+with+foreigners/-/1248928/1278168/-/d8yo5dz/-/

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Infosys, Wipro, IBM in fray for $600-mn Indus Tower deal

November 7th, 2011

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Indian information technology (IT) services biggies Infosys, Wipro and IBM are in discussion with tower infrastructure company Indus Tower for a contract, potentially in the range of $500-600 million (Rs 2,430-2,916 crore).

Sources close to the development confirmed the tower infrastructure company had been evaluating IT services vendors. “So far, Wipro, Infosys and IBM have responded to the request for proposals (RFPs). The contract will be for eight to 10 years,” said a senior executive of a company familiar with the details.

Indus Tower is a joint venture between Bharti Group, Idea Cellular and Vodafone Essar. It owns 110,000 towers and has operations in 16 of the 22 telecom circles.

Indus Towers is looking for a partner to provide end-to-end IT solutions. This will cover areas such as infrastructure management, application development and other related managed services.

“Discussions are on. They are looking at several options. They are yet to decide whether they want to go in for a complete end-to-end outsourcing deal or go in for infrastructure outsourcing and even application development maintenance services. Or, go in a phased manner,” said another senior executive in the know.

Emails to Indus Tower and Wipro did not elicit any response. When contacted, a Infosys spokesperson said, “We do not comment on market speculation.”

Analysts tracking the industry said if the deal goes through, it will yet again set industry standards. “Like the Bharti-IBM deal, which was a trend-setter, this deal, too, has potential to do that. This will be a significant deal, as Indus is one of the largest players in Indian telecom space,” said Alok Shende, founder director at Ascentius Consulting.

In June, IBM had signed a five-year integrated managed services (IMS) agreement with Viom (earlier known as Quippo-WTTIL), a joint venture between the tower arm of Tata Teleservices and Srei group’s Quippo. While financial details of the deal were not disclosed, IBM was to provide technical support system to revamp Viom’s IT infrastructure for its operations through India.

IBM in 2009, had also managed to bag Bharti Airtel’s IT requirement for its tower company, Bharti Infratel.

The only other winner of big deals in the Indian telecom space has been Bangalore-based Wipro. In 2009, its India business, Wipro Infotech, had managed to bag a $500-million strategic outsourcing contract from Uninor. Before that, in 2008, Wipro had also managed to bag a $600-million deal from Aircel.

Source:http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/infosys-wipro-ibm-in-fray-for-600-mn-indus-tower-deal-/454740/

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IBM Continues India Expansion with New Office in Indore, Madhya Pradesh

November 1st, 2011

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IBM-1.50% today announced the opening of a new branch office in Indore, Madhya Pradesh in central India as part of the company’s continued geographic expansion initiative to increase its presence in key growth markets and support its global growth strategy.

The new office is one of IBM’s 15 branches across the country and is part of IBM’s ongoing investment in India covering the creation of new facilities, offices, training and recruitment, sales and marketing and corporate citizenship. IBM currently is focused on increasing its presence in smaller cities across the country to meet the growing needs of clients and partners and to establish a footprint in over 40 Indian cities by 2013.

“IBM is a partner to innovative and high-growth companies across India. By strengthening our presence in the Madhya Pradesh region we are able to offer the most advanced technologies and solutions to our local partners and clients – helping them to do things smarter and break away from the rest of the pack,” said Nipun Mehrotra, Vice President, General Business and Geographic Expansion, IBM India/South Asia.

IBM is engaged with clients and partners across multiple industries in the region such as automotive, pharmaceutical, food production, software development, retail, textile and public sector. IBM’s customers in the region include food manufacturers Sonic Biochem and Everfresh Bakeries as well as textile manufacturing company Pratibha Syntex.

IBM’s partnership with Sonic Biochem Extractions – an important manufacturer and exporter of soya products – includes a 10-year outsourcing contract under which IBM is responsible for the hosting and management of Sonic Biochem’s entire IT infrastructure including servers, storage, network equipment and security solutions.

“IBM has been instrumental in our business transformation – improving our agility, increasing the visibility of data and enabling our business leaders to make better and faster decisions,” said Kamal Matta, Chief Technology Officer at Sonic Biochem.

With the new office in Indore, IBM is strengthening its ability to deliver more advanced and high-value solutions such as information management, security and networking, cloud computing, business analytics, strategic outsourcing and hosting services. By working with its business partners in the region, IBM is also able to offer many express offerings tailored to the emerging enterprise segment.

Source:http://www.marketwatch.com/story/ibm-continues-india-expansion-with-new-office-in-indore-madhya-pradesh-2011-10-31

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IBM renews Westpac outsourcing agreement

October 20th, 2011

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IBM has renewed its strategic information technology outsourcing agreement with full service bank Westpac New Zealand for a further five years, CBR Online reports.

The responsibility of Westpac’s IT infrastructure services, including mainframes and midrange systems, storage, security, data centre raised floor services, data centre network services, workplace services, and workplace printing will be taken by IBM.

As per the new contract, IBM will deploy new technologies to improve customer service and sustainability, and upgrade existing systems, BBR states.

IBM said it would also provide a range of advanced technologies, which, together with the existing environment, will create additional synergies, flexibility and choice for users.

Westpac GM, customer and technology services, Jim Stabback said Westpac is pleased to renew what has proved to be a successful and constructive long-term relationship. It supports the bank’s strategy of making it easier and faster, and providing an experience that delights its customers.

According to MenaFN, financial details of the new agreement were not disclosed. Also, new IBM z196 mainframes will provide greater resilience and increased capacity to support Westpac’s continued growth, while virtualised midrange servers and storage solutions will reduce CPU power demands and the overall data centre footprint. In addition, enhanced security and data centre network technology will continue to ensure a highly secure and resilient network.

The deployment of the IBM technology will support the low-risk transformation to new data centre facilities.

Source:http://www.itweb.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=48347:ibm-renews-westpac-outsourcing-agreement&catid=69

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Westpac New Zealand and IBM Sign Five Year Services Deal

October 17th, 2011

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IBM IBM +1.99% today announced that Westpac New Zealand has renewed its strategic information technology (IT) outsourcing agreement for a further five years to 2017. Under the new contract, which expands on an agreement first signed in 2000, IBM will deploy new technologies to improve customer service and sustainability, and upgrade existing systems.

IBM has prime responsibility for Westpac’s key IT infrastructure services, including mainframes and midrange systems, storage, security, data center raised floor services, data center network services, workplace services, and workplace printing.

Under the new agreement, IBM will provide a range of advanced technologies which, together with the existing environment, will create additional synergies, flexibility and choice for users. New IBM z196 mainframes will provide greater resilience and increased capacity to support Westpac’s continued growth while virtualized midrange servers and storage solutions will reduce CPU power demands and overall data center footprint. In addition, enhanced security and data center network technology will continue to ensure a highly secure and resilient network. The deployment of the IBM technology will support the low risk transformation to new data center facilities.

The new IBM agreement represents a solution that underpins the Westpac NZ IT strategy providing a robust and resilient platform for the future, including an upgrade of the underlying IT Infrastructure. It provides the upgrade path for Westpac’s workplace environment, ensuring the latest technology is deployed and there is a migration path to the latest operating systems. New automation tools for provisioning and managing the overall IT environment will be implemented, improving the time to market for new IT solutions in the Bank as well as ensuring the systems remain stable and secure.

The agreement, signed in September 2011, supports the Bank’s technology transformation program and will deliver greater consistency across Westpac NZ vendors and the Westpac Group.

“Westpac is pleased to renew what has proved to be a successful and constructive long term relationship. It supports the Bank’s strategy of making it easier and faster and providing an experience that delights our customers,” said Jim Stabback, General Manager Customer& Technology Services, Westpac.

“The new agreement builds on our mutual experience since 2000 and will lead to an even closer alignment of IT services with the needs of Westpac’s employees and customers as our collective team works together to deliver on the bank’s IT vision,” said Andrew Fox, General Manager, Global Technical Services, IBM New Zealand. “The ongoing investment by Westpac in advanced technologies will positively differentiate its brand in many ways such as higher energy savings and improved customer service.”

Today’s announcement with Westpac is another example of how IBM Global Services teams with its clients to solve business problems and help them capitalize on new opportunities. Clients today are looking to IT service providers for more than just cost cutting. Global clients need help finding ways to better leverage IT into their business to stimulate growth and prepare for the future. By tightly weaving together business insights, an industry-leading software portfolio, world-class technology research and operations expertise, IBM is redefining what it means to design, deploy and deliver IT services on a global scale. As a result, IBM Global Services clients achieve faster return on investment while freeing up resources to focus on innovative projects.

Source:http://www.marketwatch.com/story/westpac-new-zealand-and-ibm-sign-five-year-services-deal-2011-10-14