IBM announces appointment of company veteran Sandip Patel as new India MD

Patel succeeds Karan Bajwa who has decided to pursue opportunities outside of IBM

Global tech major IBM on Wednesday announced the appointment of Sandip Patel as the new managing director for India and South Asia. Patel, who has been with the US-headquartered company since 2002, succeeds Karan Bajwa who has decided to pursue opportunities outside of IBM.

The company also said that its Asia Pacific CEO, Harriet Green, has also decided to retire from the firm. Brenda Harvey, who is currently working as general manager for US Public Market at IBM, will replace her.

As the MD of IBM India and South Asia, Patel will be responsible for all strategic and operational matters related to sales, marketing, services and delivery operations in this region, which includes Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka. He will also be driving Indian unit's contribution to the IT firm's research and development efforts.

Prior to this, Patel was working as a global general manager at IBM responsible for the insurance industry, located out of Boston, Massachusetts. A chartered accountant by education, he also worked with PriceWaterhouse Coopers and Coopers & Lybrand in previous stints before joining IBM in 2002.

Bajwa's departure came at a time when the company's India unit is facing growth bumps due to disruption in telecom industry. Bajwa joined IBM in 2016 from Microsoft India, where he was heading the India unit.

Apart from telecom, IBM India has huge exposure to the banking and finance and government sectors in the country. The company works as a key IT vendor for country's largest bank, State Bank of India and Bank of Baroda among others.

In FY19, the India unit of IBM reported a 12 per cent decline in net profit at Rs 2,426.40 crore. IBM India’s revenues from operations during this period also dropped 2.85 per cent to Rs 26,542 crore, compared with Rs 27,323 crore posted in previous fiscal year.

IBM India has four primary business segments such as hardware, software, financing and sale of services which include software exports. India is home to IBM’s biggest employee base with an estimated 130,000 staffers working out of its various centres in the country. The company’s global employee count is estimated to be around 380,000.