IBM eyes India for new consulting practice

The ‘Big Blue’ is pushing for migration of its high-end consulting talent from the Americas and the European Union to India. The company’s Global Business Services division in India is setting up a high-end consulting and client partner practice for the banking and financial markets (FM) industry, which will be staffed predominantly by consultants recruited from the US, Canada, UK and mainland Europe, industry sources said.

The new practice will be established by IBM India under the umbrella of a Global Banking and FM (GBFM) Centre of Excellence (CoE), sources told Business Standard.

The primary focus of the GBFM CoE will be on risk and compliance consulting factored against Basel II and AML (anti-money laundering) norms for banking and financial institutions. “The CoE will focus initially on emerging markets in the Asia-Pacific and African region,” sources said.

IBM said in a statement that the new CoE would enable the company’s clients in the financial services industry to build and deploy next-generation core banking systems and new services based on open technologies.

“Those with consulting experience in any of the ‘Big Four’ consulting firms would be preferred,” HR sources said. Preference is also being given to consultants with experience in working with big banks in the US and EU, sources said.