INDORE, India, Oct. 31, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced the opening of a new branch office in Indore, Madhya Pradesh in central India as part of the company's continued geographic expansion initiative to increase its presence in key growth markets and support its global growth strategy.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20090416/IBMLOGO )

The new office is one of IBM's 15 branches across the country and is part of IBM's ongoing investment in India covering the creation of new facilities, offices, training and recruitment, sales and marketing and corporate citizenship. IBM currently is focused on increasing its presence in smaller cities across the country to meet the growing needs of clients and partners and to establish a footprint in over 40 Indian cities by 2013.

"IBM is a partner to innovative and high-growth companies across India. By strengthening our presence in the Madhya Pradesh region we are able to offer the most advanced technologies and solutions to our local partners and clients - helping them to do things smarter and break away from the rest of the pack," said Nipun Mehrotra, Vice President, General Business and Geographic Expansion, IBM India/South Asia.

IBM is engaged with clients and partners across multiple industries in the region such as automotive, pharmaceutical, food production, software development, retail, textile and public sector. IBM's customers in the region include food manufacturers Sonic Biochem and Everfresh Bakeries as well as textile manufacturing company Pratibha Syntex.

IBM's partnership with Sonic Biochem Extractions - an important manufacturer and exporter of soya products - includes a 10-year outsourcing contract under which IBM is responsible for the hosting and management of Sonic Biochem's entire IT infrastructure including servers, storage, network equipment and security solutions.

"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," said Kamal Matta, Chief Technology Officer at Sonic Biochem.

With the new office in Indore, IBM is strengthening its ability to deliver more advanced and high-value solutions 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 tailored to the emerging enterprise segment.

About IBM
For more information on IBM visit: www.ibm.com/smarterplanet

Contacts
Meghala Nair
IBM India
+91- 9886356229
megnair1@in.ibm.com

Jonathan Batty
IBM Growth Markets
+48 69393 5403
Jonathan.Batty@pl.ibm.com

SOURCE IBM