It is official now. In calendar year 2007, for which comparative data is available, IBMs India (domestic market) revenue grew the maximum among major markets in dollar terms, finally overtaking the China growth. With global delivery too ramping up fastoverall headcount increased by close to 20,000CEO Sam Palmisanos big bang announcement of $6 bn two years ago seems a fairly realistic assessment of the Indian potential. And the India team led by Shanker Annaswamy has delivered on most fronts.

In the domestic market, FY 08 saw IBM finally increasing the gap between itself and the #2 in strategic outsourcing. For example, in Q3 (OND) alone, it signed up $1.4 bn worth of new services contracts. In SOA, where it has taken a leadership position, combining its middleware offering with its services, it had significant success with users such as Tata Sky, BSNL, and Airtel. Continuing its success story in the government sector, after the deal with CBDT, it bagged major contracts from Indian Railways and the Ministry of Social Welfare.

In telecom, Vodafone came into its fold, after IBMs earlier successes with Bharti and Idea. The company also got an entry into BSNL with an SOA deal for the latters broadband services business. It is trying to replicate the telecom transformational outsourcing approach in selected new verticalsreal estate, insurance, travel and transportation, and media and entertainment. In real estate, after the DLF deal, IBM has already signed a few more. It has also bagged an outsourcing deal with a major new insurance player.

Rank-5
l Start-up Year: 1992 l Products & Services: IT services, BPO, servers, storage, middleware, and systems software l Employees: 75,000 l Address: No 12, Subramanya Arcade Road, Bannerghata Road, Bangalore-560029 l Tel: +91-80-22063000 l Fax: +91-80-22063871 l Website: www.ibm.com/in
Highlights n  won a $45 mn, 5 yr services agreement to modernize CBDT IT infrastructure completely n The momentum continues with 43% growth in JFM 08 quarter over last year Strengths p  Clear leadership in strategic outsourcing. Replicated in new verticals after success in telecom p Has the most robust global delivery in India among non-Indian players p Now getting established as a serious services players too in SMB segment Weaknesses q  In a competitive labor market, the image of a hire-and-fire employer is a liability q The volatile currency does affect its global delivery in India		Shanker Annaswamy, MD Rajesh Nambiar, VP & GM, Global Delivery Robert Parkar, CFO, India/South Asia Pari Sadasivan, VP, HR P Gopalakrishnan, VP, India Software Lab Gurudutt Banavas, director, India Research Lab Pavan Vaish, head, IBM Daksh

In the SMB segment, it has finally managed to get in as a services player, SOA being the bridge. To accelerate this business, IBM expanded its direct presence from 14 locations the previous year to 27 in FY 08. It also brought in the IBM Global Finance arm to provide strategic financing.

On the global delivery front, while it got some negative press after reportedly asking a number of fresh recruits to leave, overall growth was good. IBM added new domain capabilities to its global delivery taking the total number of domains handled in India to 17. IBM today stands way above any other company in Indian IT as an equal-opportunity, according to Dataquests own research.

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