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IBM to open biz analytics center in Thailand

Big Blue intends to deliver high-value analytics offerings via the center to customers in Thailand and other Southeast Asian countries, as it looks beyond commodity products to improve profit.
Written by Kevin Kwang, Contributor

IBM has revealed plans to set up a business analytics innovation center in Thailand, which wil provide high-value analytics products to local customers as well as those in the Southeast Asian region.

The Bangkok Post reported Thursday the IT vendor will be looking to push its enterprise analytics software to customers as part of its focus to provide innovative technologies and high-margin products. It will be moving away from commodity products because of fierce price competition, it added.

Parnsiree Amatayakul, managing director of IBM Thailand, said the company plans to open the business analytics center in the country in June to improve its local capabilities. The center will also serve other Southeast Asian markets, she added in the report.

Besides analytics, social business and social commerce are the company's other main focus areas for the year, Amatayakul said.

Last August, IBM opened its Supply Chain Analytics Center of Competency (CoC) in Singapore. The CoC was to create analytics-based offerings that can improve supply chain efficiencies of organizations by enhancing visibility as well as better prepare for and tackle volatility throughout the process chain.

Growing local talent pool

Amatayakul added that government, telecommunications, banking, manufacturing and retail sectors remain the highest IT spenders in the country. To address the needs of these customers, Big Blue has been actively working with local educational institutions to build up the necessary talent pool.

The IT vendor has worked closely with Thai academics to train analytics-skilled professionals to teach 30,000 students within two years, she added. 

With these efforts, IBM plans to grow the Thailand unit's annual revenue for this fiscal year at a higher rate than the country's GDP (gross domestic product) growth in 2013, the report noted.

A separate report by Thailand Business News last month stated the Bank of Thailand had revised the country's GDP growth projection to 4.9 percent due to rising exports, private consumption and investments.

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