The IBM Client Innovation Center expands into Brabant

With the opening of its new location in Brainport Eindhoven, IBM Client Innovation Center (CIC) is ready to support the rapid, high-tech driven economic growth of the Brabant region and provide comprehensive cloud, AI, and data capabilities to companies in the area. It will bring the experience of high-tech IT with a start-up culture to Brabant.

13 October 2021

IBM Client Innovation Center

The IBM Client Innovation Center (CIC) specializes in agile and creative software engineering, user experience and journey design, and cognitive and enterprise solutions for data, AI, and IT tech. As an entrepreneurial start-up within IBM, the CIC provides the best of both worlds: support from the world’s largest IT technology and consulting services company combined with a start-up culture and mentality. It will offer students a great place to start their technology career or develop their skills in new technologies via an internship. Part of our DNA is closely collaborating with educational institutions and sharing our technology and industry expertise.

Ambitions

IBM CIC’s mission is to support clients in the transformation of their business through a combined expertise in design, software engineering, and analytics. With their agile way of working, they empower people to continuously challenge and improve what they know and how they work, enabling them to develop and build solutions that matter for users. The teams utilize their full end-to-end delivery capabilities throughout the entire system development life cycle, from design, architecture, and continuous development to operations (DevOps) and life cycle management.

IBM CIC makes scalable, agile, and collaborative teams of young technology professionals available to clients in the region, either on- or offsite, or a mixture thereof.

Not an ordinary office

In line with its young and dynamic culture, IBM CIC’s new space in Eindhoven deliberately breaks away from a traditional office. It is based on collaborative working and the new reality of hybrid virtual, onsite, and offsite project teams. It is highly flexible, so it can expand depending on the needs of projects, clients, and employees. According to Leofwin Visman, Managing Director IBM Client Innovation Center Netherlands, IBM CIC was drawn to Eindhoven for three main reasons: clients, partners, and talent.

  • Clients

Brabant in general and the Brainport region particularly, has a reputation for attracting high tech and innovative companies, leading to strong and collaborative networks for new technology innovation that is also the DNA of IBM. Many of these organizations are in highly complex niche industries where collaboration is vital for them to remain in a leading global position.

“IBM CIC is ideally positioned to assist these companies, as well as other organizations located in the south of the Netherlands and Flanders. Our new office location will also facilitate face-to-face meetings easily and allow for proximity to our clients and company visits when the Covid situation allows this again,” Visman mentions.

  • Partners

Brabant is the Netherlands’ innovation powerhouse, with over half of all Dutch patents coming from the region. And within Brabant, Eindhoven is a leading European hub for 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR), in other words, AI, IoT, Big Data, and 5G. In fact, the European Patent Office shows innovations in 4IR technologies are accelerating rapidly, especially in Eindhoven which is the leading cluster in Europe for these technologies.

Visman: “With its agile start-up culture, IBM CIC can assist organizations integrate 4IR into their processes, turning these buzzwords into reality that can make the difference in the overall success of a project.”

  • Talent

With the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) and Fontys University of Applied Sciences, Eindhoven is home to world renowned research and education institutions that specialize in technology and ICT. Eindhoven attracts talent thanks to its central location and proximity to excellent Dutch, German, and Belgian universities, including Tilburg University, the Jheronimus Academy of Data Science (a unique Dutch science university), and the Avans University of Applied Sciences.

Visman: “the talented people interested in studying and working in Eindhoven make this city an ideal location for IBM CIC. Our new office will be staffed by a mixture of senior and young professional software experts, growing over time with our clients and partners. IBM CIC is looking forward to establishing a collaborative relationship with Eindhoven’s knowledge institutions by participating in the wide range of activities organized with our educational partners, from technology related events and conferences to workshops, guest lectures and offering internships to promising students.”

Working with BOM

The Brabant Development Agency (BOM) supported IBM CIC in their process. This involved providing assistance in finding the right office location, undertaking fact finding trips, as well as opening doors to established networks.

As Guido Leestemaker, Project Manager Foreign Investments at BOM explains: “IBM CIC is already important in the Netherlands and many other countries around the world. As well as making large investments and being a major employer, the company is a frontrunner regarding digital services and developing new technologies. Their presence will stimulate and further initiate innovation in the ICT sector, spreading to all companies in the ecosystem that use these technologies. As BOM, we are proud that IBM has chosen to establish its new Client Innovation Center in our region and, along with our partners, we are happy to support IBM. We believe that Brabant’s large business network, talent availability, and technological capability will serve as an excellent steppingstone for IBM and their future ambitions.”