IBM Cloud Continues to Expand Footprint in India

IBM Cloud is changing not just business, but also, society. IBM’s cloud is the platform for the next era of business as it can help companies do things never done before. It enables you to make architectural decisions and determines how a company runs, said Ginni Rometty, IBM’s chairman, president and CEO.

Today, with 55+ cloud centers in 19 countries; IBM Cloud is the leader in Enterprise Cloud. There are currently 4,000 different start-ups utilizing on IBM Cloud.  IBM runs more than 100 billion transaction a day on IBM systems and offers 160+ cloud services across cognitive, IoT, blockchain, data, etc.

The reality is that no one has more experience and knowledge across industries than IBM. We offer a balanced platform, anchored by public, private and hybrid offerings, combined with the ability to deliver higher value cognitive services. AI, IoT, data analytics and blockchain, for us, are not added features, but are core to our cloud platform.

What differentiates IBM Cloud?
IBM Cloud is built as one architecture, with three pillars that underscore why the IBM platform is for the new era of business. Our key differentiators are having:

* Enterprise strong because you got to be strong public cloud but designed for industries, choice and consistency, industrialized hybrid and more secure than even on-prem and very solid roadmap and pipeline of innovation for the future. IBM cloud platform delivers the scale and security required by businesses of all sizes.

With over 51 data centers present in 20 countries, IBM is one of the few cloud platforms with the largest footprint. IBM hybrid cloud let customers run sensitive workloads on-premises while moving a few applications to the public cloud.

* IBM Cloud offers data-first architecture that doesn’t use customer data stored in the cloud for commercial purposes. IBM Cloud is better at keeping local data local, as required by some countries’ privacy and sovereignty laws. IBM Data first approach has two big tenets to it - one is Data diversity and other is Data control. IBM gives its customers access control, data locality – who is using it, where and how and data isolation.

To us - Cognitive is not a feature, It is foundational to IBM Cloud and IBM. It is embodied in IBM Watson. Cognitive is not just about looking at the data and understanding it. It is about having all the senses that human beings have– the ability to look at images, we can describe what is inside the image, whether it is melanoma – we can describe it with 95% of accuracy. In speech recognition, Watson is 5.5 percent accurate which is almost equal to human accuracy.

With a vision to be the preferred digital transformation partner for its clients, partners and the ecosystem in India, IBM is at the forefront, helping businesses bring their technology aspirations to life. Today, all the conversations with businesses are ‘Cloud First’ – from solution to Delivery. Outlined are some recent examples of clients who have adopted IBM Cloud to fuel their digital transformation journey in India.

* Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management, Kerala and IBM India develop real-time water quality measurement system on IBM Watson IoT platform. The Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management – Kerala (IIITM-K) has partnered with IBM to develop a real-time water quality management system - 'Swatchpaani'.

The system, powered by IBM’s Watson Internet of Things (IoT) technologies and IBM Cloud, will continuously monitor water quality and measure temperature, pH and the presence of various metal/non-metal substances in the water to ensure standard levels are not exceeded as prescribed by agencies.

* ABOF selects IBM Cloud and Cognitive solutions to enhance customer experience – Aditya Birla Online Fashion ( ABOF ), leading online fashion retailer selected  IBM  to deliver a personalized and convenient shopping experience powered by IBM Cloud and Watson. With this new feature, shoppers can now interact and ask natural language questions about ABOF’s unique product assortment, receiving custom responses to their inquiries.

The customer engagement is conducted through a simple question and answer interface leveraging Watson’s Natural Language Classifier, as well as Retrieve and Rank delivered on the IBM Cloud. IBM Global Business Services and IBM Research worked with abof to introduce the service and help create a more engaging and intuitive shopping experience for customers.

Pace Automation Ltd., a leading ‘Solution as a Service Company’ announced a strategic partnership with IBM to offer ‘RetailSmart’, an end-to-end fully integrated solution that will enable local ‘Kirana’ (unorganized) stores to become ecommerce ready.

Powered by IBM Cloud, the solution allows Kirana stores to deliver a convenient online shopping experience to consumers and pay safely using a convenient payment mode (irrespective of the size of the purchase).

To bridge the gap, Pace Automation Ltd. has developed a unique solution, ‘RetailSmart’ on IBM cloud to digitally enable Kirana stores across the country. By implementing the solution, a Kirana store automatically becomes a part of the SmartKirana Network, hosted on IBM Cloud from Chennai datacenter. The network digitally interconnects all Kirana stores in the country.

* Titan Co. Ltd taps IBM Cloud and Watson Customer Engagement to help increase annual sales from its 11 million and growing loyalty customer base: Titan Co. Ltd, India’s leading manufacturer of watches and other fine personal accessories, is using IBM Watson Customer Engagement and cloud-based solutions to help increase annual sales from its 11 million loyalty customer base, while attracting new consumers to Titan’s unique line of products.

Titan is currently leveraging IBM Watson Customer Engagement solutions to serve as the backbone of its online platform, enabling the company to tailor online campaigns that are unique to their customers – not just taking into account preferences and past purchases (what they spent previously, what deals sparked action), but also leveraging analytics to examine their real-time behavior (i.e. what items are being looked at most, what channels are customers buying through, why cart was abandoned, etc…), so campaigns can be tailored on the fly to help drive a purchase

* YES BANK implements multi-nodal blockchain solution in India: YES BANK, India’s 5th largest private sector bank implemented a multi-nodal Blockchain transaction to fully digitize vendor financing for Bajaj Electricals.

The implementation has been done on a blockchain-based smart contract written by fintech start-up Cateina Technologies. YES BANK will leverage IBM Watson Conversation, a cloud-based cognitive service, to enhance the digital experience of partners, corporate clients and developers collaborating with them on the integrated Blockchain – API Banking platform.

* Aegon Life selects IBM Cloud to enhance customer experience: IBM is providing Aegon Life Insurance Co. Ltd with a hybrid cloud solution, hosted from its datacenters in New Mumbai and Bangalore. This is enabling Aegon to launch new products to the market with speed, while improving the efficiency of its IT operations.

As a part of the agreement, IBM is also helping them maintain continuous business operations and improve overall business resiliency via the IBM Cloud through the IBM datacenter in Mumbai, while creating a scalable IT service platform for Aegon Life India’s infrastructure and applications environment.

* IBM collaborates with DHFL to digitally transform its customer experience: Dewan Housing Finance Corp. Ltd (DHFL), one of India’s premier housing finance companies, is leveraging IBM technologies including IBM Cloud and Analytics, to create a digital enterprise and accelerate its growth strategy.

DHFL is using IBM’s technology that will enable business transformation for better customer engagements, reduce turnaround time, improve efficiency, and increase productivity. Specifically, IBM is working with DHFL to deploy comprehensive business solutions that leverage the power of:  IBM Design Thinking, Watson Analytics, IBM Connections, IBM Managed Security Service and IBM Digital Experience platform

* Mahindra and IBM to develop blockchain solution for supply chain finance – November 2016: The Mahindra Group, one of the largest diversified multinational group of companies based in India, is working with IBM for the development of a blockchain solution that has the potential to reinvent supply chain finance across India by enhancing security, transparency and operational processes.

This cloud-based application, one of the first projects of its kind in India outside of traditional banking, is designed to transform supplier-to-manufacturer trade finance transactions through a permissioned distributed ledger. The blockchain-based supply chain finance solution will enable all parties involved in the transaction to act on the same shared ledger, with each party updating only their part of the process, ensuring efficiency, consistency, trust and transparency, while safeguarding sensitive information.

* Introducing IBM Watson powered Robot 'Chintu' at MIT Tech Fest in Pune: The students at MIT Pune have been using Watson APIs powered by IBM's Cloud platform and have hit the ground running with speed within weeks.  

Drawing from Watson's domain knowledge, Chintu will assist senior citizens in conducting everyday tasks such as reading the newspaper / book, provide mood based entertainment services for song and dance and generate reminders on their daily medication.