IBM eyes data, AI, and cloud for its services unit in 2020

IBM is betting on a three-pronged strategy for its services unit in 2020. The roadmap extensively banks upon newer age technologies - data, Artificial Intelligence, and cloud. The company plans to pass on its expertise and accomplishments thus far to its clients through its services vertical.

"In the last couple of years we have made huge strides in building new age solutions and technology and then a bundle sorts around analytics, as well as cognitive and cloud as a play into this. Now, as we go along, and as we look forward, it's important that we don't only limit ourselves to this, but we think the next step forward in cloud, Cloud computing and cognitive Enterprise," Kamal Singhani, Managing Partner, Global Business Services, IBM India/South Asia told Hindustan Times.

IBM is also looking at opportunities in a market which is otherwise going through a slowdown. For these efforts, the company is looking to help its customers transition from what it describes as "classical IT" to "business IT."

Lingraju Sawkar, General Manager, Global Technology Services, IBM India/South Asia, explains this with the example of the auto industry which has been in a crisis for months. Referring to an auto company in the country, Sawkar said, "A unique approach that IBM took for this specific automaker, we relooked at how they engage with their customers, and how technology could become a platform through which they remain connected with their customers over a period of time, enabling both the automaker and the customer to be in constant connection through the lifecycle of the vehicle as well as the lifecycle of usage patterns." 

"This gave rise to a unique connected cars project with the automaker. And that connected car project has a lot of good technology net around including IoT, cloud analytics, data and others. All this pulled together became a unique differentiator for the automaker," he added.

It is worth noting that IBM has entered into a 10-year partnership with Maruti Suzuki India Limited to use its technology-based solutions for projects such as connected car. IBM will design, develop and manage connected car platform commercially called 'Suzuki Connect'. IBM's solutions for Maruti are comprised of IoT CVI SaaS platform, IBM Cloud, Global Technology Services (GTS) Managed Services and IBM Security Services.