New Egyptian facility to transform digital client engagement
IBM (NYSE: IBM) today launched the IBM Middle East and Africa Digital Sales Center in Cairo. The center, which represents a $3 million investment by IBM, is part of a broader three year agreement with the Egyptian government in which IBM will create jobs and work with clients to transform using cloud, Big Data and analytics, mobile and social technologies.
The first IBM digital center of its kind in the region, this is the sixth IBM facility in Egypt. It is part of a collaboration agreement between IBM and the Egyptian Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA). In addition to new roles at the Digital Sales Center, IBM plans to hire more than 800 people across its network of delivery centers in the country over the next three years, serving clients around the globe.
IBM's new center in Cairo is the latest in a series of the company's investments across the African continent. The new center is designed to transform the way IBM digitally engages with clients and business partners across 70 countries in the region.
A specialized IT sales force will provide services to IBM clients in Arabic, English, French and Portuguese, using IBM's innovative technologies. Clients will experience increased personalization, innovation and efficient collaboration through digital and social platforms.
For example, clients will be able to engage with IBM representatives via an online interactive video chat through IBM's SoftLayer cloud as well as their mobile devices to continue the conversation in text chat or webcam discussion. The representative utilizes IBM business analytics in a real-time evaluation of information from all relevant sources and expertise to support the creation of the client's cloud solution.
With these enhanced digital engagements, social media tools and processes within the center, representatives also will be able to collaborate more easily with their peers and IBM industry specialists. This will enable more positive results, innovation and increased client satisfaction, leading to the creation of higher value solutions.
Dr Noha Adly, First Deputy to the Minister of ICT, said, "The announcement reinforces Egypt's position as a growing market in the field of service delivery and the job opportunities brought by foreign direct investments, which in turn are driving growth in the local economy."
"Today's announcement with IBM reflects the powerful mix of competitive advantages that Egypt is offering to the world," said Hussein El Gueretly, CEO, ITIDA. "Egypt is well known for its low cost, skilled talent pool, famous for its accent-free multi-lingual capabilities, as well as its strong technical competencies. We are fortunate to have over 35 universities and 100 institutes that graduate over 450,000 thousand students annually."
Opening the Center in Cairo, Bruno Di Leo, Senior Vice President IBM Sales and Distribution, said, "Cairo joins Dublin and Dallas as home to the most innovative IBM sales centers worldwide. The center will allow us to engage clients across any channel in a very modern, rapid and fluid way. I envision the center becoming a key driver of digital innovation in Egypt and across the region."
Last year, IBM and ITIDA embarked on a project to provide cloud computing expertise to 100 Egyptian software companies to help drive innovation and new cloud development skills in the country. The goal is to boost Egypt's efforts to become a center of cloud computing excellence in the region. IBM's support has already helped several of the first recipients successfully market and sell their products.
IBM has been present in Egypt since 1954 and has been serving clients across Africa since the 1920s. The company has expanded its presence and investment in recent years and now has a presence in 24 African countries. In 2013, IBM announced its first Research laboratory in Africa, which was its twelfth worldwide.
