IBM India launches consulting research collaboration initiative
By Our Convergence Bureau | 03 Nov 2003
Mumbai:
IBM today announced the launch of On Demand Innovation
Services (ODIS) at its India Research Laboratory, for
the first time, providing customers in India access to
a dedicated team of researchers who specialise in high-end
business transformation and technology consulting.
ODIS is a global initiative from IBM that will be staffed with 200 IBM Research consultants worldwide and serve as a channel for over $1 billion worth of innovations over the next three years. Working in partnership with IBM business consulting services, IBM Research will bring a wide array of innovations, tools and expertise directly to customers through ODIS.
"In the ''on demand'' era, businesses will differentiate themselves through their ability to sense and respond to marketplace changes," says Sharat Bansal, country leader, IBM Business Consulting Services, India. "This initiative sees IBM Research and IBM Business Consulting Services collaborating to create the technologies to help businesses become on demand and apply them innovatively to solve client problems."
The services-focused research arm represents a significant development in the way IBM promotes and delivers innovation. "ODIS represents the next logical step in how we conduct research," says Dr P S Gopalakrishnan, director, IBM India Research Lab. "We see this as an opportunity, not only to combine our technology expertise with business model innovation, but also to find exciting new problems to challenge our researchers."
The initiative will help IBM business consulting services consultants in India tap into a base of more than 3,000 researchers worldwide, using the India Research Lab as a primary point of access.
Through ODIS, consultants and researchers in India are already teaming to build a pipeline of projects that help clients solve complex business issues. For example, the team is conducting research on intelligent forms processing to enhance and extend the efficiency of account opening for a bank.