IBM opens competency center with Indian institute

Bangalore - IBM India recently launched the Business Intelligence Competency Center (BICC) at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM).

Established in 1973 by the Government of India, the IIM is a management education institute whose students are drawn from all over India.

The competency center, called the IIM Bangalore Laboratory for IBM Business Intelligence Competency, will allow institute students, along with IBM experts identify best practices and benchmarks; develop prototypes; and showcase the finest business intelligence based applications in relationship management.

It will create course-ware which will be incorporated into the institute's curriculum for the class of 2000 - 2001.

Moreover, it will function as a center for executive development in business intelligence for executives and managers of Indian industry.

The center will be equipped with IBM's business intelligence tools such as IBM Intelligent Miner, Visual Warehouse and IBM DB2 OLAP Server.

Products and solutions at the center are to showcase the company's technological prowess in the area of business intelligence.

"As businesses expand to become multi-dimensional with unprecedented access to global markets, accelerating the pace of business decisions becomes a critical challenge," said Dr. M. Rammohan Rao, director of IIM. "IBM's Business Intelligence competency center is an important milestone in our endeavor towards imparting advanced management education to face such challenges."