IBM has announced the opening of a branch office in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, in South India, as part of the company's continued geographic expansion initiative to increase its presence in key growth markets. In 2011 IBM has opened six new branch offices in India as it expands its reach to smaller, rapidly developing cities as part of its plan to establish a presence in over 40 cities across India/South Asia by 2013.

 Visakhapatnam is an important port city in South India. It has experienced rapid economic growth in recent years due to the development of petroleum, steel, fertilizer and IT industries. IBM has been present in Visakhapatnam since 2007 through its global delivery centre that provides IBM services to clients around the world. The opening of the new branch office in Viskhapatnam will give a boost to IBM’s business in the region enabling it to strengthen its relationships with clients and partners and provide solutions and services in high growth areas such as information management, IT security, cloud computing and business analytics.

The small and medium sized enterprise (SME) sector is one of the fastest growing segments of the Indian economy from which IBM is experiencing strong demand. IBM is working to spur innovation in this sector by providing advanced technologies, once reserved for larger enterprises with large budgets, through its increased local presence and relationships with local business partners. To support its regional expansion initiative, IBM has been actively recruiting new business partners across the country - in 2011 over 1000 new business partners from India/South Asia registered via IBM's PartnerWorld program.

IBM is already working with clients in Vishakhapatnam, across a number of industry sectors. For example, IBM isproviding solutions for EISAI Pharmaceuticals and Phoenix IT Solutions, a fast emerging software company. EISAI Pharma, the India arm for EISAI group, Japan, has engaged with IBM across hardware, software and services. IBM has provided an enterprise resource planning solution for EISAI’s India operations and has helped simplify and streamline the management of EISAI’s desktop computing environment using IBM’s Smart Business Desktop solution.

IBM’s software solution has helped Phoenix IT in winning significant central and state-level business contracts. “Partnering with IBM has played an important part of our business growth this year. IBM has helped us to standardize and consolidate our business operations, allowing us to innovate and achieve an industry leadership position,” said Murali Krishna, CEO, Phoenix IT Solutions.

The new office in Visakhapatnam was inaugurated today by Mr. Sanjit Lamba, Managing Director, EISAI Pharma India

ITVoir NewsDesk