IBM: Partners driving modernization for customers in APAC

Partners are now bundling solutions as part of the refresh and modernizing cycles with added capabilities, enabling greater volume and velocity for IBM. Chetan Krishnamurthy Vice President, APAC Select Territory & Ecosystem, IBM explains.

Organizations in the Asia Pacific region remain focused on their digital journey in 2026. While AI is core to the growth plans, most organizations realize that they would also need to modernize and refresh their legacy infrastructures to drive their AI goals.

For IBM, partners play an important role in ensuring businesses are making the right decisions when it comes to this. With the goal of driving volume and velocity to scale growth, this is also where IBM is looking to get the best out of its partner ecosystem in the region.

According to Chetan Krishnamurthy Vice President, APAC Select Territory & Ecosystem, IBM, while there has have been a lot of investments in the underlying infrastructure for AI among organizations, software modernization is also imperative.

“We are bringing to software stack in sync with the infrastructure modernization so that we can modernize their platforms on this infrastructure and also go to market with them (partners) and build joint solutions. With some of the partners, we're also beginning to see synergies between refreshes and software plays,” said Krishnamurthy.

Specifically, he said that partners are now bundling solutions as part of the refresh and modernizing cycles with added capabilities. This in turn is seeing partners playing a key role in driving modernization and refresh cycles among customers, especially when it comes to the AI ecosystem.

“We are beginning to see that, and this is being led by the channel as in the channel partners themselves. For example, if a customer is doing storage, the partner might suggest the need to do something with file transfer. So why don't we get your storage together with IBM Aspera for example? You're doing something like X, but you need visibility into the operations. Can we do IBM Instana Observability with it, for example. So, there's a bit of both happening around this whereby some are driven by tech refresh, and some driven by use cases,” he explained.

Bundling options and specialization

Given the increasing trend of offering bundled IBM solutions by partners to customers, some partners have chosen to just focus on being specialized with IBM products. However, this does not necessarily mean that they have an advantage over partners who work with other vendors. For Krishnamurthy, there are advantages to both.

“Partners are very deeply committed to IBM. Obviously, we value their trust, we value their partnerships. I think the entry points for them many times could be infrastructure or they're looking at specific products like planning analytics or IBM Maximo, which requires them to be very deeply skilled. So, they are more focused on driving specific use cases offerings, which I think is very important.”

“On the other side of the equation, if you look at partners who have a wide variety, I think it gives us an opportunity to be a part of a broader solution stack because they're looking at a few different vendors and bringing it together to drive a holistic solution for the client where I think our various pieces, entry points could become a part of a broader offering or a broader solution. This also helps us get into new footprints that we may or may not exist today and also give us,” explained Krishnamurthy.

While Krishnamurthy acknowledged that those new workloads that may or may not have done before, the added value is that it also brings back the whole concept of a true partnership because the partner is working with vendor A, vendor B, vendor C, vendor D and so on.

“The channel is stitching that together. At our event in Danang, we noticed that channel partners are also wanting to work with each other because each of them have certain areas of gaps and how do they come together to actually stitch solutions,” he said.

For example, one partner could be very IBM centric while the other could be working with IBM and several other vendors. But they both have different skill sets and can come together to stitch a solution, which Krishnamurthy believes is a great help for IBM, the channel and also the customer.

“We are very open as we have spoken to partnering with a variety of vendors and being part of a broader solution stack with a client first mindset. That's how we are approaching it, I would say,” he added.

A collective effort with partners

With partners keen on working together to provide better value to customers, there also needs to be velocity. This is where Krishnamurthy emphasized that IBM will be looking to enhance training and deeper enablement as well as work on jumpstart packages with their partners.

“For example, if it's a new offering, if the partner is doing it for the very first time, can IBM help them with jumpstart packages that can set them off on a path to success and then scale on from there? It's in the space of technical skills enablement where a lot of the requests are coming from the VADS and the VARS. During our roundtables at our event, the one thing that stood out very broadly was the need for continuous skilling and strong partnership in the technical solutioning space. And I would say that's the number one thing I think we will focus on as a team,” explained Krishnamurthy.

This is also where he believes AI will play an important role in helping partners ti enhance their capabilities.

“Some of our partners in the region called out that they're already using AI, for example, to better prospect customers who actually have the need because they have their own insights. It's not even us providing anything. They already have tools. They have their own data, which is local and their own ownership. They use that to better prospect. They have a better understanding of when certain events happen in the software selling cycle, a better understanding of which personas to target. So, a lot of the partners are using AI in some form or the other to get better prospects, better prepare for meetings and such,” he said.

From IBM’s side, Krishnamurthy highlighted that IBM is now taking a more deliberate approach on getting to the right personas, making it relevant to partners, making it meaningful to them.

“All of this again is being powered by AI. There are some brilliant marketers who are working with IBM, but there's a lot of help that's coming from the usage of AI to fine tune and sharp from our own side, in terms of lead quality and potential. We're beginning to see this come together even for our own teams. We are leveraging a lot of these to help them prepare prospects and for sure. So, a lot of this is being done in the channel and we'll continue to help the channel with this space,” concluded Krishnamurthy.