Luis Pineda, president and country general manager of IBM Philippines, discusses the growth of the company during the inauguration of their new office at the Cebu Business Park.(CDN/Junjie Mendoza)
IBM Philippines is looking to expand its services and product offerings in the Philippines while taking advantage of key technological shifts in the industry.
Luis Pineda, president and country general manager of IBM Philippines, identified three major, converging technological shifts – data, cloud and engagement.
“Data has grown tremendously in recent years and is now the world’s new natural resource. Cloud is changing the face of business and IT processes, and is the path to new business models. Engagement refers to social media and mobile that give people greater access to knowledge,” he said during IBM’s 50th anniversary celebration in Cebu yesterday.
Maximizing these shifts and investing in them will lead to greater expansion and transformation in the company, he added.
IBM is also encouraging businesses to incorporate these new shifts into their core systems to be more competitive.
“The Philippines is growing very aggressively as opposed to other stagnant economies. We would also like to help accelerate and sustain that growth,” Pineda said.
In Cebu, IBM offers services in sales and distribution, global IT services delivery, and global process services.
Pineda said they hope to further improve and expand their global IT services delivery, especially in line with software services support.
“We would like to go beyond BPO, and go into deeper type work,” he said.
The company has partnered with the University of San Carlos, University of Cebu, Cebu Institute of Technology and University of San Jose-Recoletos, to maximize on their IT students.
“Our number of clients in Cebu is also increasing daily,” Pineda said. It hopes to incorporate its technology into all industries in Cebu, including the academe and the government.
Watson Analytics, IBM’s cognitive system, is one of the company’s achievements. It is a computer that learns, Pineda said.
Watson takes whatever information is available on a certain topic, for example, retail, healthcare or financing, and learns the material. It is then able to predict or infer based on the data it possesses.
Pineda also mentioned the Smarter Cities project, which they hope to do with government units within this year. They also hope to put up research and development centers in Cebu.