IBM has announced that IBM Consulting is the new brand name of its global professional services business, previously known as IBM Global Business Services. In a conversation with CXOtoday, Kamal Singhani, Country Managing Partner, IBM Consulting, India-South Asia, explains how this move has opened the door for many organizations in India and globally, seeking people and business partners to help them co-create and co-execute and co-operate their future operations. Excerpts.
What does this change to IBM Consulting add to the bigger IBM brand?
Now more than ever, enterprises seek people and business partners to help them co-create, co-execute and co-operate their futures. As a result, they are leveraging a hybrid cloud and AI to transform every aspect of their operations, navigate change with speed and agility and transform the ecosystems in which they operate. As a result, IBM faces a unique opportunity to be business transformation-led and technology-driven.
With a newly sharpened focus, IBM Consulting is poised to seize this significant marketplace opportunity and more clearly establish our presence in the consulting category. Our ambition is to establish a distinct brand strengthened by the IBM primary brand.
How is IBM Consulting different from IBM Services or IBM Global Business Services?
IBM has renamed its Global Business Services unit to IBM Consulting and launched it in the market as a hero brand. IBM Consulting represents our path forward with a sharper focus, helping our clients thrive as modern businesses built on modern IT. We bring end-to-end capabilities, ecosystem partnerships, and the understanding that modern businesses need to move fast and with increased empathy in the market. That means recognizing that customer expectations are higher than ever before. Customers want to engage with companies who deliver value for them in new and different ways, prioritize trust and transparency and have a meaningful purpose and values that they align with.
The full breadth of IBM Consulting services includes strategy, experience, business process design and operations, data and analytics, systems integration, application modernization, hybrid cloud management,and application operations. With this brand launch, the names IBM Services and IBM Global Business Services will be discontinued in the market. In addition, all our external and internal content and presence will be renamed IBM Consulting.
What does it mean for the larger scheme of things?
The new brand IBM Consulting signals our commitment to clients. We will navigate the present and future together in an open, collaborative manner and leverage the full capabilities of IBM software and infrastructure as well as our robust partner ecosystem. No other consulting provider offers the scientific advantage our clients gain from having access to IBM Research and our close connection with IBM technologies like the Red Hat hybrid cloud platform and IBM AI and automation software.
IBM Consulting thus provides services and value at every level of the IBM technology stack. This allows us to meet clients in their journey and makes it easier for clients to consume different pieces of our cloud and AI portfolio.
What is the go-to-market strategy for IBM consulting in India?
India is at the core of IBM’s growth and talent strategy. At IBM Consulting, we understand what clients across the length and breadth of India’s business landscape need the most. We help them create their business and process design for the digital world and develop cloud and enterprise applications using IBM hybrid cloud and AI technologies.
Our strategy has four key pillars;
- To design industry-specific solutions and deliver assets that can help our clients in their digital transformation and process outsourcing initiatives
- To continue investing in talent and developing skillsets across key areas such as hybrid cloud, AI, intelligent workflows and application modernization.Then, leverage these acquired skills to unlock new avenues of business growth
- To strengthen our business partner ecosystem through strategic collaboration with hyperscalers as well as cloud solutions & service providers
- To continue investing in client relationships and boost the hyper-growth in global captive centres (GCCs). We have been focused on hybrid GCCs that are a combination of physical and virtual formats through which digital transformation is delivered and sustained by leveraging the latest IBM technologies and solutions through our partner ecosystem
In India, we are the digital transformation solutions partner for some of the biggest brands, including Parle, State Bank of India, Amul, IOCL and others. As a result, they are tapping into the immense capabilities of hybrid cloud and AI. Our BFSI, retail and Global Captive Centers (GCCs) are currently the fastest-growing focus areas for IBM Consulting in India.
How will this move to contribute to IBM’s overall corporate strategy?
IBM brings a rich heritage of technology innovation, purpose, and trust. IBM Consulting builds on this, focusing on commitment, openness, and acceleration to outcomes that come to life through our employees. It’s at the top of the stack in IBM’s strategy underpinned by Red Hat Hybrid Cloud Platform, IBM Software & IBM Infrastructure as a foundation. IBM Consulting is a growth vector for the company. We work directly with clients to apply hybrid cloud and AI technology to achieve their digital transformation goals.
