Looking for a New Name?

Which name is dear to the Indian customer–IBM India or IBM Global Services

India? Media reports hint at a possible name change once the two Indian entities

merge. Though the merger itself was a foregone conclusion, changing nothing on

the ground for the company or its customers, the possible name change may be

intriguing. Sources at Sun Microsystems, arch-rival of IGS globally, put it thus–"IBM

Global Services is not an India-friendly brand."

"It makes no difference to me. It’s been just IBM for me since

2000," said Shabir Shariff, CFO of Himalaya Drugs, who also takes care of

the company’s IT strategy. "Whenever I want something, I have always

called up my support contact in IBM and my requirement is taken care of. I never

knew that two separate entities existed." IBM would love to quote Shariff

in its marketing pitch, we hint, but the Himalaya CFO confirms they already do!

The two entities have always worked closely, with IBM Global Services India

extending support to products shipped by IBM India. IGSI brings more to the

table. It is bigger in terms of revenues than IBM. Going by 2001-02 figures (DQ

Top 20 estimates) IGSI posted sales of Rs 1,012 crore, a growth of 31% over the

previous year. It was the largest MNC software exporter with a turnover of Rs

733 crore. IGSI gave IBM’s outsourced services in the Indian market a

mega-thrust, with major clients such as Tisco, Ballarpur and Asea Brown Boveri.

IBM seems to have finally brought about a long-awaited move by merging the

two entities. In simple terms, the move saves the headache of maintaining two

books of accounts, filing different sets of statutory statements with government

agencies such as FIPB and RBI, does away with revenue transfer between IBM India

and IGSI everytime a service pack is shipped with a Thinkpad. In short, life

becomes easier.

In terms of operations, IBM was already operating as a single unit... so much

so that the company requested Dataquest to consider the two entities as single

entity for its Top 20 ranking exercise. Whether the merger involves any shuffles

in the team structure is not clearly known. IBM officials declined to comment on

the reported merger or discuss other issues. In February, PwC India’s

consulting partner Amitabh Ray replaced Dr Uday Shukla as director of IGSI. This

followed IBM’s takeover of PwC globally to form a business consulting services

group that works in tandem with IGSI.

CIOL Bureau