"We are Remaking Enterprise IT" - Shailesh Agarwal, Director - Strategy, IBM ISA

IBM is morphing into a Software and Services company having shed most of its hardware assets with the exception of mission critical hardware in UNIX and trying to have a differentiated hardware play through systems like Watson and other datacenter technologies.

In an exclusive interview to DATAQUEST, Shailesh Agarwal, Director - Strategy, IBM ISA, talks about the market forces that is shaping the IT industry and how companies like IBM are manifesting opportunities out of this technology disruption.  

How do you see IBM in India at this point in time?

The world and India specifically is at the cusp of change. We are seeing historic shifts today that are transforming businesses and creating a need for technologies that can help organizations, ecosystems (that we operate in) and the society (we are part of). Today, the IBM strategy stands for transformation and growth – which is based on data, cloud and engagement. Our strategy globally and in India revolves around closely connecting to the national agenda of the markets we operate in. We do this by leveraging high value technologies like cloud, data, mobile and social to transform our clients, ecosystem and society that we operate in.

We continue to see strong momentum in the marketplace, which is driven by the three strategic imperatives, which shape our approach as we continuously transform ourselves and align the company for higher value. We are making markets by transforming industries and professions with data. We are ‘Remaking Enterprise IT’ for the era of Cloud and we are enabling ‘Systems of Engagement’ for enterprises.

In India, our approach has been to deepen our engagement with clients with our industry and technical expertise, add value on a long-term basis to clients in their businesses and expand our presence across the country and improve our reach.

We are transforming the customers’ business landscape to effectively consume and benefit from shifts in technology specifically to better engage with their customer, generate insights from the data and operate with enterprise security at its core. We recognize the transformation that our clients are going through – with Line of Business (LoB) getting deeply engaged in technology decision with a very outcome based approach to technology deployment.

At the same time we continue to deepen our commitment to delivering on the promise of ‘Smarter Planet’ for new constituencies and new line of business executives (CFOs, CHROs, CMOs, etc.) as well as IT executives across a broad range of industries. We also recognize that the vertical boundaries between industries are becoming blurred (telecom learning from retail and banking learning from telecom) giving us huge opportunity to deploy our industry expertise across different industries. We continue to leverage our industry domain expertise to solve real business problems with measurable outcomes. For instance the scaling of financial services, enabling financial inclusion, is again a huge segment of the market we are focused on. Whether it is an innovation on your credit score, or innovation on validating the clients, we are working towards enabling financial inclusion in the country. IBM's in-depth understanding of the business challenges and dynamics of the banking industry is reflective in its longstanding partnerships in the BFSI segment. Our recent engagement with JFS is an example of that.

Given the current market conditions how are you building your ecosystem? 

Actually it is a transformation that is currently underway in the industry is the ecosystem evolution, wherein new partners and new partnering models are emerging. While Client, Partner and Competitors were three different sets, not long ago, this boundary has become blurred – requiring maturity – both from people and systems to be able to leverage this new ecosystem. The guiding principle is to build strong relationships based on transparency and rules of engagement with much multiple relationships can co-exist.

On the SMB segment and how it is panning out?

The market shifts and technology leverage, specifically cloud and cloud-based solutions, now enable us to offer enterprise class solutions to the smallest of the clients. Digital sales framework aids this outreach. Both cloud base deployments and digital sales present us an opportunity to significantly enhance our customer footprint.  IBM is also investing heavily in nurturing innovation across this ecosystem, be it Academia, Startups, Developers or ISVs. Last year, IBM introduced BlueMix, a platform to help build the next generation of cloud applications and services at the juncture of mobile, social and big data. Embracing this platform is helping this ecosystem expedite their journey from ideation to service launch, a very compelling reason for rapid adoption.

Today one hear a lot about Smart Cities- what is IBM agenda here? 

Well, Smarter Cities - Smarter Planet” and ‘Smart Cities’ have been IBM’s global priority for a longtime. Whether ‘smarter’ means helping a bank to retain more customers through world-class mobile solutions or a hospital group to deliver highly individualized care coordinated with social services or a local government to anticipate and alleviate traffic congestion before it happens or a retail chain to provide a seamless customer experience across multiple channels. Whatever it is, IBM is developing and investing in a portfolio of replicable industry solutions to help clients achieve their goals and drive important outcomes for their customers. Programs like ‘Smarter Cities Challenge’ had the IBM team working with Chennai Municipality on recommendations to improve their revenue collection leveraging technology. IBM in India is committed to Government vision of building 100 smarter cities by leveraging our best of breed solutions and capabilities.

How are you leveraging your competencies to deepen mandates here in India?

Well, if you see the past, our early success in telecom – the transformation roadmap for Airtel with $1 billion deal,   the co-creation of industry leading telecom solutions, partnership with other leading telecom players and redefining traditional business models like transforming conventional businesses like Dairy (AMUL), and deals in verticals like Jewelry etc has given us huge traction in the market.
 So clearly we have shaped technology trends over last several years , leading transformation . Now the next leap is with Watson and cognitive computing 
  IBM continues to invest in India and we look forward to continuing to help our clients to innovate and grow. 
For instance to expand our cloud portfolio, IBM announced a $1.2 billion investment, wherein we will deliver cloud services from 40 data centers across 15 countries including India in 2014. We announced the IBM cloud center in Mumbai with a significant investment and commitment to our clients in the region. Later, in the year, we will also have a SoftLayer Datacenter in India.

Talking about some hot tech areas, how do you see areas like ‘Analytics’ evolving? 

With Analytics, IBM leverages both cognitive computing and predictive analytics to help companies predict and respond faster to opportunities. Watson software and services team in India, established in 2012, is the first facility outside of US. The lab team in India collaborated closely with global labs to bring out the first commercial solution, Watson Engagement Advisor.

The ‘Business Analytics Optimization Centre of Competence’ has over 9,000+ practitioners around the world focusing on analytics based solutions including 4,200+ in India Global Delivery center to support clients with advanced analytics skills.

Can you give more insights into the Customer Experience Lab in India?

The ‘Customer Experience Lab in India’, focuses on Social, Mobile and Big Data innovations to help C-Suite Leaders. The Lab focuses on First-of-a-Kind Solutions, bringing together IBM Research and Business Consultants to drive customer-centric transformations. In less than a year after launching the IBM Customer Experience Lab in India, our research scientists and business consultants have worked together with over 100 clients to co-create a variety of new technologies and services, to transform the front office, revolutionizing how companies interact and engage with customers.

Instances like MobileFirst are an apt example. We have done extensive work on WorkLight development and on Mobile application development on cloud. Meanwhile

IBM and its education partners are rethinking the classroom of the future, which will shift from a one-size-fits-all model to a truly personalized environment. IBM Research – India is the global hub for IBM’s R&D works in Education, with a special focus on the concept of personalized education.

Let me tell you that IBM Interactive Experience labs will play a lead role in this transformation. IBM has committed more than $100 mn globally to expand its consulting services capability to help clients with experience design and engagement. As part of the investment, IBM will open 10 new IBM Interactive Experience labs around the world and plans to add 1,000 employees to create new, personalized models of engagement through data and design. Located in Bangalore, Beijing, Groningen, London, Melbourne, Mexico City, New York, Sao Paulo, Shanghai, and Tokyo, the new labs provide clients with the opportunity to work side-by-side with researchers and consultants as well as experts in experience design, mobile and digital marketing.

Any update on the IBM Client Centre in Delhi? 

In 2014, IBM launched a new state-of-the-art Client Centre in Delhi to help clients address business challenges in their industries, through Cloud Computing, Analytics, as well as Mobile and Social technologies, by providing a collaborative, customized and digitally immersive environment. Designed to provide full access to IBM’s technology and thought leadership capabilities, the Centre offers an ideal environment for clients, Business Partners and IBM experts to meet and access knowledge, skills and innovation. The Centre uses technology to create a digital immersive environment - an effective platform for storytelling and collaboration - using the best of IBM and partner technology to create a customized experience for each client. IBM's solutions are delivered from a private cloud hosted using IBM PureFlex and IBM Storage systems. They are based around IBM software solutions - including WebSphere, DB2, Worklight and the Intelligent Operations.

On the road ahead: how do you see FY 16?

We will continue to focus on industries such as Telco, BFSI, Chemicals & Petroleum, Industrial Products & Natural Resources & Software Industry. IBM is also focused on playing a key role in realizing the government's vision on Digital India & Smarter Cities. Going forward we are also focusing on Real Estate, Retail, M&E.