In what could be the first major management change in three years, IBM’s India MD Vanitha Narayanan may be stepping down next month. Former Microsoft India MD Karan Bajwa is likely to be the new chief, multiple sources told BusinessLine .

Narayanan has over 28 years of experience working for IBM in several countries and was the Managing Partner for Global Business Services (GBS) before taking over as the company’s India chief. She is now expected to return to the US and take up a global role at IBM. Bajwa who’s previously worked with IBM from 2001 to 2006 in Singapore, spearheaded Microsoft India’s transition to cloud and was credited for aggressive growth of its cloud platform Azure and Office 365. Microsoft has seen its fastest revenue growth in India under Bajwa.

Changes expected

Bajwa has already joined IBM and is understood to be working with Narayanan on the transition. There are several leadership changes expected as Bajwa brings in his fresh style of working to IBM, which has been struggling to grow its cognitive and cloud businesses in India. The first major casualty has come from IBM’s cloud division. Vivek Malhotra, Director and head at the Cloud business unit at IBM India has quit the company. Sources say Bajwa, who’s been looking at weak links at IBM to revamp the company, since he joined in July this year, wasn’t happy with IBM’s cloud business performance and therefore Malhotra was asked to go on a very short notice. “Karan’s aggressive sales approach will definitely help IBM to catch up in the cloud space at least. The changes can already be felt within the company,” said a person aware of the development.

Cloud and cognitive computing have been two major focus areas for IBM in India for the last two years but the growth in the two businesses has been unable to match that of competition like Microsoft and Amazon Web Services.

IBM declined to comment on the development.

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