COIMBATORE, India and ARMONK, N.Y., June 8, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced the opening of a new branch office in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu as part of the company's continued geographic expansion initiative to increase its presence in key growth markets and support its global growth strategy.

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Today IBM is one of the top technology companies operating in India and the largest IT services provider in the domestic market. The new office opening is part of IBM's ongoing investment in the country covering the creation of new facilities, offices, training and recruitment, sales, marketing and corporate citizenship. IBM is currently focused on increasing its presence in smaller cities across India to meet the growing needs of clients and partners and to establish a footprint in over 40 cities across the country by 2013.

"With over 230 IBM branches in 55 growth market countries, we are actively strengthening our ability to provide high-value solutions to our clients and partners in the fastest growing markets in the world," said Bruno Di Leo, General Manager, IBM Growth Markets Unit. "India has long played a valuable role in IBM's business. As we expand our operations into new territories, it continues to provide a valuable source of growth and skills for the company."

The new office in Coimbatore complements IBM's existing office in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. The increased presence in the region will benefit IBM's clients and partners spanning multiple industries including healthcare, government, banking, textile, engineering and manufacturing. IBM's existing customers in Coimbatore include Suguna Poultry, Lakshmi Vilas Bank and Karur Vysya Bank.

"Both IBM and Karur Vysya Bank have been involved in exceptional client service for close to a century. Our bank's association with IBM spans over a decade during which time our performance and profitability have grown manifold," said S Sekar, Deputy General Manager, IT Department, Karur Vysya Bank. "IBM has helped us with data center infrastructure services, inter branch communication and most recently with the implementation of IBM's latest Power Systems and enterprise storage. IBM has been instrumental in our business transformation - improving our agility, increasing the visibility of data and enabling our business leaders to make better and faster decisions."

Coimbatore has over 25,000 small, medium and large enterprises and is well known for its culture of entrepreneurship. The city has experienced rapid economic growth in recent years due the development of the local textile, manufacturing and IT services industries. With the new office IBM is strengthening its ability to deliver more advanced and high-value solutions to its clients such as information management, security and networking, cloud computing, business analytics, strategic outsourcing and hosting services. By working with its business partners in the region, IBM is also able to offer many express offerings to the SME segment to help them increase productivity, improve customer service and track business performance.

Another critical component of IBM's strategy is the effort to cultivate local technology talent. To do that, IBM has begun partnering with local colleges and universities such as Karpagam College of Engineering and Sri Krishna College of Engineering & Technology as part of a global academic program to help teach students the information technology skills they need to be competitive in the workplace.

The new office was inaugurated this week at a ceremony for customers and partners in Coimbatore.

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MEDIA CONTACTS

In India:
Sowmya Ramachandran
IBM India
+91 9845181220
soramach@in.ibm.com

In the UK:
Jonathan Batty
IBM Growth Markets Unit
+48 69393 5403
Jonathan.Batty@pl.ibm.com

In the U.S.
Bruce McConnel
IBM Media Relations
804-402-2229
wmcconn@us.ibm.com

SOURCE IBM