IBM claims largest technology services company — in India

IBM has done something that I personally never thought they would be able to get away with by their competitors — become the largest technology services company in India with a current 10% market share.

It just goes to show that you can never count IBM out and once the management puts their mind to something, focus and dollars start to happen.

IBM now has 53,000 employees in India, up from 23,000 in 2004. In Business Week’s a Red Hot Big Blue in India, “the company is so well entrenched in the subcontinent that in 2006, Chief Executive Samuel J. Palmisano was voted ‘IT leader of the year’ by Nasscom, India’s software industry association.”

For cubicle warriors, the importance of the employee count and the integration of operations with the rest of IBM translates into a reduction in 20,000 employees in the U.S., Europe, and Japan.

Don’t think of this as a condemnation of big business and outsourcing. It isn’t.

Instead, look at what IBM is doing at the strategy level and apply it to your situation:

• High cost employment areas versus low cost employment areas
• Skilled labor pool available
• A large market for services available in a country (India) all by itself.
• Global integration of operations. Instead of having two data centers in a particular country, why not have two data centers on two different continents?

If a company’s management is smart enough to integrate operations around the planet to meet customer needs, what does it say about the need to hone our job skills, develop and live our personal brand, and be working our career management skills all the time?

Scot

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