Now IBM Entering Smaller Cities of India

With the aim to spread its tentacles in the smaller cities of India, tech company IBM announced Wednesday the opening of three regional offices as part of the company’s on-going geographic expansion in the country.

The new offices in Dehradun (North India), Guwahati (Eastern India) and Raipur (Central India) provide IBM with a footprint of 18 branch offices across India to date, says the company.

IBM is currently focused on increasing its presence in smaller, rapidly developing Indian cities as part of its plan to establish a presence in 40 Indian cities by 2013.

The company is planning to meet emerging demand for information management, security, cloud computing and business analytics solutions as businesses and government organizations in these regions turn to IT to reduce costs and gain competitive advantage, says IBM.

Meanwhile, as a key part of its growth strategy, IBM is focusing on the Indian education system with partnerships and academic initiatives especially to support the growth of open source technologies.

For example, IBM says it is partnering with the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Guwahati to foster innovation and promote local technology talent.

“We recognise the role of technology and innovation in driving economic and societal development,” said Dr Gautam Baruah, Director IIT Guwahati, who inaugurated IBM’s Guwahati branch office (pictured above).

IBM believes that small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have long been the engines driving economic growth across India and play a key role in regional development. So, the company is working with its business partners to provide SMEs with the tools they need to use technology effectively.

“These are dynamic times for Indian regional development and there is tremendous market potential in these cities that we are expanding into,” said Nipun Mehrotra, VP, General Business, Geographic Expansion, IBM India/South Asia.