bangalore ibm turns 100 today very few companies manage such longevity less so now when changes in market and technology environments are so rapid anticipating and managing those changes is complexand yet thats what the 100billion computing giants done and its been visible in india too over the past decade in its phenomenal success in turning the country into its primary global delivery services centre replicating the model pioneered by indian software companies and its equally extraordinary accomplishment in winning by far the largest share of the indian it services markettoi reported last year that ibm is one of indias biggest employers perhaps bigger than even infosys though lower than tcs ibm does not divulge country numbers we had said the employee strength could be upwards of 12 lakh wikipedia now puts it at over 13 lakh just a little less than a third of ibms global employee strengthin the domestic services market ibm is estimated to have an over 50 share with tcs hp wipro and hcl at a fraction of that its landmark deals with airtel in 2004 and with vodafone idea and bsnl subsequently to manage their entire backend it operations reflected a vision that many others lacked the economist magazine said last week that the secret of ibms longevity has less to do with machines or software than with strong customer and societal relationships when toi spoke to ibm india md shanker annaswamy last week thats exactly the sense he conveyed ibm stays connected to the community my role as also that of others in my position is to develop strategies that have an impact on the national agenda the idea is to have an impact on telecommunication healthcare banking it not only helps india to move forward i participate in the growth agenda ibms large services organization works closely with customers to cocreate products and new business models the airtel model of it outsourcing for instance was novel at the time and thanks to that model ibm technology now supports over 400 million mobile subscribers in indiaannaswamy lists a number of community connect programmes we identify projects that can have a lasting impact on society and our best qualified people will go and give their time skills and tools to make an impact we have a vibrant ondemand community for this they have had a big impact on many ngos and institutions this centennial month more than 50 of ibm indias employees will pledge 8 hours of their time for such projectstheres also the corporate service corps under which employees are pulled out from their jobs for 46 weeks and sent to different countries to work with governments academic institutions and ngos over 1000 ibm india employees have participated in projects in indian cities as also in countries like ghana kenya vietnam south africa malaysia and brazil in ahmedabad the team has worked with the state governments tribal development department in brazil it has worked with the city of rio de janeiro on how best