IBM says it is committed to domestic business and telecom and banking will be major focus areas for the company in India.
As the American technology giant completes 100 years and looks ahead, it is betting big on the Indian market.
“IBM is fully focussed on domestic business unlike other companies and we will continue to invest in the Indian market. Other companies are now trying to do that, but the gap is huge. We have bagged big wins like the ones with Bharti-Airtel, Vodafone, Idea and SBI,” said Mr Shanker Annaswamy, Managing Director, IBM India. IBM is keen to tap into the Indian market beyond the metro towns, he said.
centennial celebrations
As value-added services and Wi-Max open up in the Indian telecommunications market, they present both challenges and opportunities for IBM, said Mr Annaswamy, speaking to reporters in connection with IBM's centennial celebrations. Banking and financial services are focus areas, he added.
“After core banking, the next big wave in banking will be around data warehousing and insights. This will help Indian banks compete with global banks.”
IBM is helping SBI set up an ‘information management' system and it hopes to replicate this with other banks as well. “Rural and mobile banking are also opportunities.”
Infrastructure
The company is also gung-ho about infrastructure (particularly airports) and the public sector. It works with Delhi and Hyderabad airports.
“As more modern airports come up, IBM can bring in its expertise. When it comes to the public sector, we have to be selective and bring a value proposition,” said Mr Annaswamy. In the PSU space, IBM provides the IT backbone for the Central Board of Direct Taxes.
IBM's roadmap for 2015 includes focus on growth markets such as analytics, next generation data centre and cloud and smarter planet.
Opportunities for the ‘Smarter Planet' initiative exist in India too, said Mr Annaswamy – be it smarter buildings, water management or smarter energy.