Building on ASEAN partnerships imperative for Kyndryl

“Kyndryl is technology agnostic, and our Partner Ecosystem is a core path for us” says Andrew Lim, MD for ASEAN and Korea at Kyndryl.

Kyndryl recently reported revenues of US$15.1 billion for its fiscal year ended March 31, 2025. While it represented a 6% year-on-year decline, the IT infrastructure services provider also reported a pretax income of US$435 million.

Interestingly, its AI platform Kyndryl Bridge and consulting services Kyndryl Consult are showing positive signs of growth around the world. In Southeast Asia, both Kyndryl Bridge and Kyndryl Consult have seen increased opportunities among customers as well.

Andrew Lim, MD for ASEAN and Korea at Kyndryl shares with CRN Asia more about their offerings in the region as well as the relationship they have with vendors and local partners in the region.

Apart from managed services, what else is Kyndryl looking to focus on?

Managed services are our bread and butter. It's a big part of our business. We continue to do well in this space. We continue to innovate. If you look at what we have done with Kyndryl Bridge, for example, it creates that full observability solution. The solution that can help utilize AI to help operations and to help identify potential problems up front. That is the continuous investments that Kyndryl Corporate is making through Kyndryl Bridge. I think this is definitely a differentiation.

In ASEAN, we already have around 15 customers that are on Kyndryl Bridge. And as we onboard more, I think we'll continue to drive the necessary insights to help our customers be in the forefront in terms of their critical systems operating environment.

Kyndryl Bridge is more than just a monitoring tool — it’s a game-changer in IT operations and digital workplace management. It provides full-spectrum visibility by connecting and correlating digital experiences, device and application data with complex IT infrastructure. This enables teams to proactively identify and fix issues before they impact employees or the business. From network performance to application health, Kyndryl Bridge brings observability to the forefront of Digital Workplace Services. I think this is definitely a differentiation.

While managed services are still a big part of our business, we constantly invest in our project services side, which we call Kyndryl Consult. Kyndryl Consult is a business unit within Kyndryl that we are growing globally and in Asia, accelerating our customer’s digital transformation and aligning business outcomes with the technology that drives them. With a long history in the industry, the Kyndryl Consult team is well-equipped to advise clients on all areas of their enterprise infrastructure, ensure it is optimized for success, enables a culture of innovation, and gain visibility from a sustainability perspective.

Our intention is to be able to drive more of that in the marketplace. So project services are an important part of how we will go to market. We build our teams.

In ASEAN, we have extended beyond just data center services, cloud services, and digital workplace services, which is really our strength. We have now built a team of application services. We continuously provide application services for our clients. Data is also a very important piece of portfolio that we are growing.

We're also looking to add more capabilities in cybersecurity and resiliency, because we see a need in the marketplace. We'll see more and more of these needs as clients go to a hybrid environment, especially for countries like Malaysia and Indonesia.

As they go to a hybrid environment, the more there is a need for them to better secure their assets.

Can you tell us more about the relationship Kyndryl has with vendors in the region.

As you know, we spun off from the whole IBM ecosystem more than three years ago. IBM still remains a partner of ours. We still do a lot of IBM technology. So, we are at the highest tier of our relationship with IBM. But at the same time, we also have freedom of action to be able to work on our ecosystem and our partnerships.

Kyndryl is technology agnostic and our Partner Ecosystem is a core path for us. In ASEAN, we have strong alliances with key hyperscalers such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud as well as leading technology providers like Palto Alto, VMware, ServiceNow, SAP and continue to invest in innovation to develop new services for customers.

Now, our hyperscaler partnerships are clearly very important. And today, no large service provider out there would tell you that they don't have this relationship. So, we have a partnership with strategic partnerships, global ones with Microsoft, AWS, as well as Google.

We also have a regional ASEAN partnership, a very close partnership with the three hyperscalers. Microsoft at the moment is our biggest partnership, followed by AWS and Google. I wouldn't say that each of them is less important. All three are important.

We have a very nice partnership with Google in Singapore, where we are helping Singapore enterprises adopt generative AI, also working closely with Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB). Similarly, for Microsoft, we work closely with Microsoft to support our customers with digital workplace services to increase their productivity.

So overall, I would say that these are relationships that are continuously developing for us. We have a very close tie-up with all our partners at the operational level, at the sales level, as well as at the leadership level. I have a standing cadence with them on a quarterly basis as we work to develop these relationships to bigger and better things ahead.

What about the local partners that you work with?

In the in-country, we have the freedom to work with an ecosystem and our ecosystem is not just with the hyperscalers. We are working with Dell, HP and others. We are working with Rubrik for their security solutions. We are working with Palo Alto, for example, Fortinet and so forth, depending on the specific areas of focus. So those relationships continue.

Locally, in the case of Malaysia for example, we are working with LifeTech because we have a strong partnership there. And we continue to utilize that to work on various types of opportunities that are more suited to having LifeTech as part of that ecosystem.

We continue to be open to partner with both service providers as well as software providers and also infrastructure providers. We continue to engage with Lenovo as well as position the best of the solutions for our clients.

What more would you like to see from the vendors?

From a partnership perspective, I'm one to be always open to co-investment, as in they invest something, we invest something. At the end of the day, it's nothing like having skin in the game to be able to build. For example, a new offering that we will take to the market or an offering that will create a differentiation for both them and us in the marketplace. We are working on some things like this with Microsoft. We are working on some things like this with Dell, for example, where we will create a level of differentiation that will be different from a solution perspective to the marketplace.

We are constantly looking at that angle and constantly having discussions with that angle to be able to position us differently from our competitors in the marketplace.

What is your advice to customers who are still unsure of what they should do when it comes to investing in technology?

I think ultimately it is driven by the needs of the business. If the client wants to make an investment either to increase revenue or to decrease costs or to drive better productivity, one has to assess what is out there and what is out there in the marketplace.

It can be a myriad of solutions. It does not necessarily have to be a very traditional setup. It can be leveraging platforms, leveraging what cloud will be able to give you in the marketplace and then having the right partner to be able to advise and to be able to help you implement is very important.

It is not always straightforward as technology service providers continue to innovate. You have options and certainly we see our clients having that myriad of options available in the marketplace today. Gone are the long days of big, long legacy investments.

Projects are getting shorter and faster to implement. I think they are being more agile to be able to realize the value of the technology investments that they make in. We realize that and we see that in the marketplace. Our clients see that in the marketplace, too. Clients are very much well informed about the technology out there in the marketplace today than they were 15-20 years ago.

We continuously have to innovate in order for us to be relevant. And we are relevant to our clients given that we know how to and continuously run mission-critical systems for them.