Rzeczpospolita daily (March 11) – interview with Ales Bartunek, CGM IBM Poland and Baltics by Dariusz Wolak
IBM will expand in Poland. The company intends to finance the technology investments of their clients.
Warszawa, Poland, Poland - 11 Mar 2011: Interview with Ales Bartunek, Country General Manager IBM Poland and Baltics, about IBM's strategy in Poland published in Rzeczpospolita daily on March 11. IBM opened 4 new branches in Poland in 2012 and soon will open new one in Gdansk. Bartunek stresses the importance of modern solutions such as cloud computing and Big Data.
IBM is providing IBM Business Partners worldwide with $4 billion in financing for credit-qualified clients over a period of 12 months. This financing, through IBM Global Financing, can make obtaining credit easier and more accessible to enable IBM's global partner ecosystem and their clients to acquire advanced technologies such as cloud, analytics and PureSystems.
Link do wersji polskiej i skanu wywiadu w PDF - na dole strony.
Link to Polish version and to the scan in PDF at the bottom of this page.
translation in EN:
Having a new CGM in IBM Poland, should we expect a change in company strategy for Poland? How important is Poland for IBM?
Poland is considered as a Growth Market by IBM and Growth Markets are one of the key growth plays in our 2015 business strategy. This is why IBM is commited to further develop its presence in Poland. In 2012 we opened 4 new regional sales branches in Poland – Wroclaw, Katowice and later on in Krakow and Poznan and in September 2012 we opened IBM Security Operations Center in Wroclaw – it is the 10th IBM Global Security Operation Center and employs world class analysts who are monitoring and reacting to various customer cyber security threats. In addition to threat analysis, the Wroclaw center provides other services including device management and health monitoring.
We will continue to expand in Poland this year – soon we will open our brand new regional sales branch office in Gdansk.
Poland’s 38-million strong consumer market is the biggest in CEE and one of the biggest in Europe. Poland is very well located in the center of Europe and Polish workforce has very high quality of work standards.
There's a big number of very well educated and creative Poles in many Polish cities and we also see openness for cooperation with business from best local universities and academia.
What are the main tasks assigned to you as a new CGM of IBM Poland? Is it restructuring or rapid growth in sales? Anything else?
Having a wealth of experience working for IBM in CEE, I would like to start with ensuring that we have effective transfer of know-how within IBM. Working for international corporation gives you a great opportunity to use knowledge of our experts from all around the world. Having an experience from leadership role in IBM CEE structures, I understand the importance of this – both for corporation and for local branch.
We need to work together – with our Business Partners and within IBM, which means also cross-brand cooperation. It is significant especially in services part of our business and when it comes to our strategic plays, which shape the future of technology – cloud computing, smarter planet and analytics.
I know IBM Poland very well, I have been working for years with many Polish managers and I know one thing – I am joining highly skilled, committed and dedicated team. I look forward to supporting the success of our clients and partners in Poland and Baltics.
Where IBM is looking to increase its revenues in our country? By offering products or services? In public or in private sector?
Companies in all industries are facing increasingly data-intensive business challenges and grappling with making sense of the growing volume and velocity of data from a variety of sources. In fact, more than 2.5 exabytes of new data are generated every day and 90% of all worldwide processed data was produced in the past two years. This global data volume is expected to increase to up to 25 zettabytes by 2020.
This type of data-intensive environment is creating new challenges for companies and public institutions that are demanding technologies that will help them address these issues. As a result, advanced technologies, such as Big Data analytics and cloud, are becoming more and more pervasive. Whether it is a hospital looking to sift through massive amounts of data to identify a more effective drug treatment for an individual patient or a retailer looking to target its individual customers for future sales by analyzing buying patterns, analytics is helping uncover deeper insights.
Nowadays we are focusing on our four complementary growth initiatives—business analytics, cloud, growth markets and Smarter Planet—target opportunities that are changing the global IT landscape.
Additionally, the use of mobile devices is changing the way business we do business. With 10 billion mobile devices forecasted by 2020, the proliferation of mobile technology is fundamentally changing the way people think, work, act, and interact. In fact, already, 90% of mobile users keep their device within arm’s reach at all times, and complete many kinds of transactions across these smart devices. Whether making a purchase, banking or getting directions, they simply expect that their devices will work in real time -- both in their personal and professional lives.
Does IBM plan to change the way of cooperation with Polish distributors / partners? Are you planning to limit or rather to expand the list of partners?
Definitely expand. IBM aims to meet the needs of our clients and global ecosystem of partners by helping them acquire technologies that will help them differentiate their business, provide them with financing options that will enable them to acquire these advanced technologies quickly and easily, and ultimately bring new efficiencies to drive business growth.
IBM is announcing that it is providing its global ecosystem of partners with $4 billion in financing for credit-qualified clients over a period of 12 months. This financing, available through IBM Global Financing, can make obtaining credit easier and more accessible to enable IBM's global partner ecosystem and their clients to acquire technologies such as cloud, analytics and PureSystems.
Over the last two years IBM has made $5 Billion available in financing for SMBs. This effort is paying off for both -- small and midsize businesses and IBM. In the last two years alone, more than 8,500 global companies have turned to IBM Global Financing to gain access to capital for leveraging Big Data and analytics technologies. By giving SMBs access to financing options that brings these technologies within their reach in an affordable way -- Big Data/analytics capability is making its way to smaller companies quickly. It’s a trend that’s only going to grow for small businesses.
For the last 19 years IBM was a world leader in patents. Was it also in 2012?
Yes. We can now officially say that we received a record 6,478 patents in 2012 for inventions that will enable fundamental advancements across key domains including analytics, Big Data, cybersecurity, cloud, mobile, social networking and software defined environments, as well as industry solutions for retail, banking, healthcare, and transportation. These patented inventions also will advance a major shift in computing, known as the era of cognitive systems. Patent leadership is significant, but what's really important is the fact that IBM--through its long-term commitment to R&D, invention and innovation--is shaping the future of IT. We are particularly pleased that Poland plays a significant role in this process and several of these patents are originated from IBM Poland Software Labs.
Like the Centennial, IBM's patent milestone presents an opportunity to expand the conversation beyond patents and examine the nature of innovation.
How innovation and investment in R&D reflects in IBM's business, including in Poland?
IBM invests more than $6 billion annually on research and development and employs about 3,000 researchers worldwide. At the same time IBM is 100 years old! That in itself indicates a culture of innovation; it shows resolve. IBM has had to constantly re-create itself to keep abreast of trends in the industry. IBM continues to make stuff that matters. Real stuff, not just cool gadgets that twinkle and make you look hip when you pull them out. Any time you use WiFi, or get money from an ATM, or swipe your credit card, or use a GPS system, you have IBM to thank for it. IBM technology is everywhere. Our company works on innovations that make the world better for us all.
That's part of the theme behind IBM's Smarter Planet play. It's not just a marketing slogan. With the world becoming more instrumented, interconnected and intelligent, there is a need for smarter systems to help achieve economic growth, near-term efficiency, sustainable development and societal progress. IBM is building these systems.
Examples from Poland? There are plenty of them. We have implemented many solutions for companies like Bumar, BC&O (previously known as Kolporter Holding), Weltbild Media or ICM cnter at University of Warsaw solutions that have become official smarter planet references.
But let me give you another example. Last year Poland was a host of Euro 2012 tournament. We were wondering what people will say about Poland. Here in Polish IBM Software Lab we have developed a solution which enables our experts to monitor and analyze social media sentiment around the tournament, the country itself and the host cities. You can read our reports on http://ibm.com/pl/analizy2012 blog. Now we plan to do it one more time around CEBiT 2013, as Poland will be a partner country of this event.
What trends will dominate the IT market in 2013?
A recent global survey of 1,144 businesses by the University of Oxford and IBM shows 63% of respondents are gaining a competitive advantage by using Big Data (analytic) for their organizations. Additionally, cloud continues to gain momentum as companies are looking for more efficient and economical ways to tackle complex, data intensive business challenges. According to IDC, public IT cloud services spending will reach almost $100 billion in 2016.
Are there any differences between Poland and other countries in terms of trends on IT market? What customers are looking for? Is the slowdown affects the expectations and needs of customers?
According to the IBM CEO study, for the first time in history, a majority (71 percent) of global CEOs consider technology as the number one factor to impact an organization’s future over the next 3 years. CEE CEOs continue to see market factors as the top external force impacting their organization while technology becomes increasingly important (now on the 3rd place moved from 5th in 2010).
At the same time, according to CIO Study, 78% Polish CIOs believe that investment in Business Analytics will increase their organizations’ competitiveness. Insight and intelligence is main focus over the next 5 years for 61% of Polish CIOs. We have noticed some interesting differences between Polish and global CIO’s when we asked about the main plans CIOs to increase their organizations’ competitiveness. While many of Polish CIOs plan to invest in virtualization (81% comparing to 68% globally), they are more skeptical about cloud (49% comparing to 60% globally). There were no surprises in other priorities – analytics and mobile solutions are at the top of the list – both for Polish and global CIOs.
The most surprising were the outcomes of CMO Study. 77% Polish CMOs report, that they feel not well prepared for the data explosion. And at the same time only 46% Polish CMOs report, that they are not prepared for social media boom, comparing to 68% global CMO’s. And where this data explosion comes from? Mainly from social media. Good news is that Polish CMO’s know what to do - 76% of them plan to increase usage of technology in social media.
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