IBM eyes smaller cities for growth

IBM has chalked out plans to expand its business development processes to smaller cities in the country over the next couple of years.

IBM has chalked out plans to expand its business development processes to smaller cities in the country over the next couple of years.

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The company plans to spread its footprint to 45 cities of India. At present, a large part of the company’s business comes from the metropolitan cities such as Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore.

“Business activities of small and medium business enterprises are increasing at a fast pace in smaller cities of the country and it is logical for us to expand our footprint across the country,” said Nipun Mehrotra, vice president, general business, IBM India and South Asia. He said with the growth of Indian economy, the small and medium enterprises would flourish and opportunities would increasingly come up in cities such as Ranchi, Ludhiana, Tirupur and Jharsuguda, among others.

The small and medium business enterprises have been growing at around 15-17%. The IT services availed by smaller enterprises include security solutions, data centre management and optimal utilisation of infrastructure.

“A smaller business enterprise faces the same challenges and risks as that of a larger company and their ambitions too are similar. By availing IT services, a small enterprise could gain up to 20% on their revenues,” said Mehrotra

With increased automation of companies, opportunities have increased for IT service vendors. In fact, Indian IT services companies such as Infosys, Wipro and HCL Technologies too have been increasing their business presence in the domestic market.