The IBM Cloud Is Moving Quickly Across Europe

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The consumption of services delivered on private, hybrid and public cloud platforms has been growing for several years, and significantly outperforms the growth rates of investment in traditional IT technology. It is a model that enables greater business flexibility, ensures price transparency and faster market performance – in short, it moves organizations forward.

According to research from analyst firm IDC (IDC CloudView Survey for CEE), once an organization adopts cloud, there is no turning back. Among current users of cloud computing in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), satisfaction rates reach 75%. Many organizations have firm plans to adopt cloud solutions within two years. Given the variety of cloud options available today, hybrid cloud is expected to be the prevailing platform.

Clients are increasingly seeking hybrid cloud environments that offer cutting edge tools including AI, analytics, IoT and blockchain to maximize their benefits. With $ 17.7B billion in annual cloud revenue, IBM is the global leader in enterprise cloud with a platform designed to meet the evolving needs of businesses no matter where they are on their cloud journey. IBM Cloud is tuned for the cognitive and data demands that are driving true differentiation in today’s enterprise. IBM’s private, public and hybrid offerings provide the global scale businesses need to support innovation across industries.

In fact, IBM just announced a major expansion of its cloud capabilities with plans to launch new availability zones for the IBM Cloud across North America, Europe and Asia- Pacific. IBM Cloud continues to build out its cloud footprint with 18 new availability zones in high demand centers in Europe (Germany and UK), Asia-Pacific (Tokyo and Sydney), and North America (Washington, DC and Dallas). While IBM Cloud already operates in 60 locations, it now has even more capacity and capability in these key centers.

Many of CEE companies have chosen IBM Cloud for their critical workloads. For example, KIBS (Macedonia), ActivTrades (Bulgaria), Circeo (Hungary), Croatian Telecom (Croatia), The Atlantic Group (Croatia), The Zavarovalnica Triglav (Slovenia), Golden Sand Bank (Poland) and CEC Bank (Romania).

Klirinski Interbankarski Sistemi AD Skopje (KIBS), a Macedonia-based payment system operator owned by 12 banks, has adopted IBM Cloud Private to help meet regulatory, security and availability standards while accelerating the development of digital services.

ActivTrades, one of the leading UK online stock broker firms with over 50,000 customers providing services in Forex and Contact for Difference. By migrating to IBM Cloud, the Bulgarian branch of ActivTrades was enabled with quick access to the latest accounts status, stock prices, and other features that enable the clients to better manage their financial portfolios.

A Hungarian fintech Circeo taps IBM Cloud to expand its loan processing capacity to support its overall growth and market expansion to multinational customers. This way, Circeo will be able to provide faster, simpler and better licensing options in highly flexible operating environment. As stated by Matthieu Job, CEO of Circeo: The efficiencies that we received from IBM Cloud has boosted our processing capabilities and makes it possible for us to roll-out our solution for a client much quicker. It has allowed us to expand existing client portfolios and onboard new clients from outside of Hungary into production much faster than ever before.

Hrvatski Telecom (HT), the leading provider of telecommunications services in Croatia, teamed up with IBM to modernize and advance the company’s customer experience. HT selected IBM Netcool Operations Insight to provide advanced user experience by simplifying network management for rapid problem resolution.

Atlantic Grupa, one of the largest regional food and beverages companies in Croatia selected IBM Cloud-based data discovery services to support their business. Atlantic Grupa uses Watson Analytics to perform data discovery in the area of Human Resources, Sales and Logistics.

In addition, the leading insurance-financial group in Slovenia, the Zavarovalnica Triglav, uses IBM Watson Customer Experience Analytics on the IBM Cloud to make smarter and faster marketing decisions. This provides Triglav with an end-to-end view of the customer experience to optimize journeys, boost conversations and maximize the lifetime of customer value.

Golden Sand Bank built a new end-to-end digital bank to provide its clients with a new banking experience through complex financial services available remotely through the use of IBM’s cloud-based bank in a box service delivered from Poland, as well as software from Asseco Poland, an IBM Business Partner. Just recently the bank announced its expansion on the German market.

One of the largest Romanian banks, CEC Bank, has selected IBM Cloud API Connect to meet the EU and local regulatory requirements. IBM’s solution met CEC’s need to scale, securely expose and manage core banking services in order to expand the reach of their business.

These and other enterprises across a range of industries in CEE are moving to the cloud to tap the powerful new technologies to help them innovate, and automate businesses processes and enable more engaging client experiences.

Find out more how cloud technologies and AI are driving innovation for enterprises in Central and Eastern Europe at our annual Think conferences. At Think events you can also learn how IBM, with its partners and clients, intelligently changes the world.

Use this opportunity to meet face to face with IBM visionaries and researchers and peers from your region’s largest companies, as well as key influencers.

Register today for the THINK conferences in Poland and SEE, and let’s keep the conversation going.

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A version of this story originally appeared in IBM THINK Blog SEE in June.