Link - economictimes.indiatimes.com/Infotech/Hardware/Procure-now-pay-later-option-clicks-for-IBM/ articleshow/4660143.cms (link resides out of ibm.com)
IBM sees more Indian companies opting for longer credit terms apart from other finance options, as country’s top enterprises including Sistema Shyam Telecom and Kotak Bank seek to cope with tightened information technology budgets.
“Through IBM Global Finance, we are offering customers to ‘procure now and pay later’ option, wherein they are able to convert their capex into operational expenditure,” said Mukul Mathur, director — Systems and Technology Group, IBM India and south Asia. “In this environment, we find more customers opting for such options than before,” he added.
Some customers, including a large Indian phone firm, are also attempting to fund their new technology investments by opting for ‘buy-back’ scheme, wherein a vendor such as IBM takes back older IT assets, and brings down total upfront cost.
“Longer credit periods and leasing options are provided by some other vendors too, but we opted for IBM because the company was able to bundle everything and bring our total costs by almost 20-30%,” said a senior executive at a financial services firm. He requested anonymity because he is not authorised to talk about procurement details with media.
IBM, which competes with HP and Sun Microsystems (acquired recently by Oracle) in the Indian market, has been able to bundle its offerings across computer storage, servers and other software, and offer them with lucrative finance options to customers. According to research firm IDC estimates, global IT financing and leasing will exceed $100 billion this year, up from $88 billion in 2008.
Meanwhile, IDC said that IBM led the overall Indian server market (UNIX), with almost 39.2% revenue share during quarter ended March this year. The research firm added that IBM also maintained its lead over rival EMC in the external storage market with almost 33% share.