[Sydney, AUSTRALIA] The IBM Sydney e-Business Innovation Centre has opened its doors for business this week, aiming to provide industry specific solutions to help companies use e-business for improved profitability.
From the centre in Pyrmont, the initiative undertaken by IBM Global Services will bring together skills, knowledge and experience to allow customers to actually see how e-business solutions work in practice.
In July of this year, IBM Global Services announced its intention to establish an Asia-Pacific centre for e-business in Sydney by the end of the year, placing the spotlight on Sydney as the e-business hub of the region.
The IBM facility has the support of the Federal and State Governments, and will invest more than $23 million over the next three years establishing the technology and communications infrastructure for the centre, which is intended to increase IT and e-business skills in Australia.
The centre is expected to create 490 jobs over the next five years, of which 340 will be new and the remainder filled by current IBM Global Services e-business professionals.
The centre will focus on the skill areas of e-commerce, Customer Relationship Management, Supply Chain Management and Business Intelligence, and is expected to position IBM to increase the deployment of these skills to high profile IT projects.
The Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Senator Richard Alston, said the centre would position Australia at the leading edge of global e-commerce development.
The Government has contributed $3.2 million towards the establishment of the IBM e-Business Centre for Innovation, money which will assist IBM Global Services Australia to conduct the training that is expected to benefit the Australian information communications and technology (ICT) sector.
“ICT is among the fastest growing sectors in the global and Australian economies,” Senator Alston said. “We can ensure that Australia remains at the leading edge of international developments in ICT, and therefore continues to generate the jobs of the future, by increasing our skills and expertise and by raising our regional and global profile.”
