IBM, Cadbury complete 10 yrs of tie-up in India

MUMBAI, INDIA: IBM today announced that it has completed ten years of partnership with Cadbury India Limited for providing IT Infrastructure to the country's leading confectioner. The deal, which was signed in September 1999, is the longest running strategic outsourcing contract for IBM in India, and amongst the earliest in the industry, according to a press release.

As part of this engagement, IBM has setup and implemented a host of IT services including a disaster recovery solution, SAP migration and up-gradation, wireless LAN, enterprise-wide email systems and a video conferencing solution.

IBM has also helped Cadbury India rollout a global project to align its standard operating environment on end-user machines. Cadbury India, which owns brands like Cadbury Dairy Milk, 5 Star, Perk, Éclairs, Celebrations and Bournvita has a value market share of over 70 per cent in chocolates, the release said.

Commenting on the occasion, Anand Kripalu, president, Cadbury Asia and M.D. for India said, “When the partnership was inked in 1999, IT was managed in-house. Since then IBM has been an effective partner providing great service.”

Shanker Annaswamy, managing director, IBM India Pvt. Ltd. said, “Cadbury India is one of the earliest accounts for IBM. By outsourcing its IT infrastructure support to IBM as early as in 1999, Cadbury started a trend which was emulated by many other companies in India. Today IBM is seen as an extension of Cadbury India IT team.”