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

Under the new agreement, IBM will become a strategic partner of the CESCE Group and will help manage its business model transformation. IBM will manage CESCE's IT infrastructure and data center with the aim of standardizing CESCE services and optimizing cost.

"The agreement with IBM confirms our strategy for innovation, a key aspect to generate competitive advantage and provide better service to our clients," said Alvaro Bustamante de la Mora, President, CESCE. 

Within the new framework, a number of annual meetings will take place with the participation of mathematicians from CESCE Group and researchers, industry experts, consultants and technical architects from IBM. One of the first areas of focus will be Big Data and the adoption of data analytics solutions, as well as assessing their impact on business outcomes.

Unified corporate platform

With this agreement, CESCE will have a unified and international corporate platform encompassing the whole Group's data, allowing the company to use the same names and segments for the entire business. 

"We are very satisfied that a company like CESCE has trusted IBM to participate in such an important project with the opportunity to realize innovation as a competitive advantage," said Marta Martinez Alonso, General Manager, IBM Spain, Portugal, Greece and Israel. "Our intent is to offer our very best expertise and technology to CESCE and help make its business model transformation and international growth a reality." 

CESCE Group, an industry leader in risk management, is comprised of CESCE, a credit and guarantee insurance company; INFORMA D&B, a financial, sales and marketing information company; CTI, technology and management services; and CESCE International, with presence in 10 countries in Europe and Latin America. 

The agreement expands IBM's current projects with CESCE which include the implementation of IBM's business intelligence software, as well as the temporal merge of IBM and IECISA for the modernization of their financial and purchasing processes, through an SAP platform. 

For further information, please contact:

David Herrera 
IBM Spain External Relations 
Tel: +34 91 3977006  
e-mail: davidh@es.ibm.com

SOURCE IBM