IBM India to get its first local head
By siliconindia staff writer   |   Monday, 03 May 2004, 19:30 IST
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BANGALORE: For the first time in the history of IBM India , a local man may be made a foreign country head. IBM India MD Abraham Thomas is tipped to take up a senior position in Singapore soon, reports Economic Times. By all accounts, a charge of guard is imminent at IBM India. Usually, a country head is moved within two years at IBM and by that account, Thomas has overstayed in India already by a year. Thomas is the man who is considered the turnaround man for IBM in India. Under him, IBM India doubled its revenues to over $650 million. The number of employees also grew from just 4,500 to 15,000. Hundreds are joining the company every month. During the last three years, IBM India's operations grew many-fold in organic and inorganic ways. Bucking market trends, IBM sales in the domestic market grew by 16 per cent in 2002-03. Analysts say Thomas, who hails from Singapore, provided that new-found aggression to the computing behemoth. The company did a complete turnaround in the systems and personal workstation markets. It clinched key accounts in BFSI, manufacturing, BPO and telecom areas. IBM India fortunes have been on the upswing for the last couple of years. But the company, which has been growing at a slow rate since it came back to India in 1992, seems to have moved into top gear from the beginning of the year. Taking over of Daksh, the third largest BPO firm in India, was the last thing that made people aware how far the sleeping giant has traveled over the last couple of years. In March, Bharti awarded a 10-year IT management deal worth $700-750 million to IBM. Pegged as one of the largest deals in the domestic IT market, the figure for the first five years is estimated to be in the range of $250-275 million, and for the 10-year period, the total deal is likely to be in the range of $700-750 million, according to terms agreed upon between Bharti and IBM. In addition, Bharti would transfer about 200 employees to IBM. IBM had for long been lagging behind other rivals in price strategy. But its acquisition of Daksh is expected to give a boost to the company’s ability to deliver low-cost services from India.

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