IBM inks deals with 'growth market' clients

IBM has entered into new client agreements in growth markets across the Asia Pacific region, reflecting the company’s strategic focus on technology and services designed to help businesses solve complex business problems, as well as tough industry and societal issues.

To tap market opportunities in high potential markets worldwide, IBM has formed a “Growth Markets” organization based in Shanghai with regional headquarters in Dubai and Sao Paulo. It covers about 50 countries across Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe and Latin America. The Philippines which grew in the first three quarters of 2008, is part of IBM’s Growth Market organization.

“Last quarter, we contributed significantly to the development of the country as we continued to help local businesses compete in this increasingly globalized marketplace. We provided our clients strategic IT and business solutions to enable transformation, growth and innovation,” said James Velasquez, country general manager, IBM Philippines.

“As we’ve reported in recent quarters, IBM has a diverse portfolio of business both geographically, and across industries which helps IBM minimize the impact of market turbulence,” he added.

Officials noted that in the third quarter, IBM won the kind of deals that help solve complex business problems, as well as tough industry and societal issues.

Philippine National Bank (PNB), a global Filipino bank, signed a three-year contract renewal in September. As part of the agreement, IBM will provide remote and onsite help desk and IT equipment support services for PNB’s hardware. This project ultimately will help achieve excellence in IT operations by creating a stable, dynamic, flexible and efficient IT environment for PNB.

Bharti Platinum, India’s largest private telecom services provider, inked a strategic outsourcing agreement last month to further enhance its customer service experience for its top-end “Platinum” customers. The six-year contract for outsourcing of its contact services to IBM’s managed business process services (MBPS) unit will involve augmentation of Bharti Airtel’s sales, customer service, and back office capabilities.

IBM Daksh Business Process Services, a wholly-owned subsidiary of IBM also will provide a suite of services covering both voice and such backoffice operations as customer service, collections, customer retention and other relevant customer services for Bharti Airtel’s Platinum customers from its centers.

Also, Kookmin Bank, Korea’s largest financial services institution, awarded a contract to IBM in September to implement its Next Generation Banking System (NGBS). To be completed in 2010, this bank-wide NGBS project will consolidate all of the company’s different business units around the world, providing a highly flexible platform to transform Kookmin Bank into a leading global bank. This implementation agreement includes 20 projects in such areas of Application Integration, Application Management Service and System Integration.