IBM India and the Indian School of Business (ISB) entered into a collaborative research agreement in Asia, with the aim to perk up the competitiveness of the services sector in the region.

N Viswanathan, Executive Director of the Centre for Global Logistics and Manufacturing Strategics (GLAMS) at the ISB, said that this association spans joint research and backs up companies to redesign their project management structure, lessen attrition, and harness the power of technology, in improving supply chains.

Besides, it will also study mathematical modelling techniques and social networks to permit organisations to improve the way the people work.

The six-member team, three each from ISB and IBM, would carry out the research, and the size of the group would be increased, if required.

The different tools used by the research team includes innovative modelling and forecasting techniques, data mining, social network analysis and stochastic optimization.

ISB is the first B-school in Asia to work with IBM on this joint research.

Initially, the study will concentrate on Indian companies and later on extend to Asian companies.

While lecturing on the need of research for the service division, Mr. Rao stated, “The services sector contributes to over 50 per cent of the GDP of the Indian economy and is closely integrated with the agriculture and manufacturing sector. Through our collaborative research with IBM, I hope we will be able to make substantial contributions towards making the Indian economic growth more inclusive.”

Describing the connection with ISB as strategic, Dr. Gurudath Banavar, the Director of IBM India Research Laboratory, said, “At IBM, we define innovation as the intersection of invention and insight. Today, innovation is a dual-value proposition, a balanced foundation of open and proprietary collaborations.”

Mr. Banawar also said that the research would give priority to 'service-supply' chain and the group would carry out research without concern over intellectual property management issues.

At a press meet at ISB, its Dean, M. Ram Mohan Rao, said that the open collaborative research will help accessing data to know how some of the projects have been victorious and what rides their expansion and how best to improve performance.