Bangalore, Karnataka, India - 11 Sep 2018: IBM today announced that Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Ltd. (ABFRL), India’s leading fashion and lifestyle entity, has expanded its existing relationship with IBM to reduce costs, improve productivity enhancements and drive business growth. The strategic 10-year services agreement is key to ABFRL’s strong vision for future growth, enabling them to expand their stores network across the country. As a part of this agreement, IBM will bring in its global technology and automation expertise to help enhance and manage ABFRL’s IT infrastructure with better availability of IT systems, employee productivity through self-help solutions and improved disaster resilience. In doing so, IBM will bring greater transparency, service improvements, agility, enhanced security and operational efficiencies for the organization. IBM will provide infrastructure-as-a-service in a private cloud environment, enabling ABFRL to scale their IT operations in line with their business growth. In leveraging IBM’s deep technology and services expertise, ABFRL aims to build a world-class IT environment to support its strong growth in India. With more than 8,000 points-of-sale across 700 cities, including more than 2,000 exclusive ABFRL brand outlets, the company owns some of the best-known brands in the country such as Louis Philippe, Van Heusen, Allen Solly, Peter England and many others. ABFRL, known for its innovation, customer centricity and offering best-in-class services to its customers, is at the forefront of adopting technology. Commenting on the partnership, NP Singh, CIO, ABRFL, said, ‘The retail industry has seen a stupendous growth in the past decade with the emergence of technology-enabled smart consumers. As leaders in the retail industry and to build platforms which provide a seamless experience to our consumers, the need of the hour is to have strong and stable technology partners that can help us realize our future growth. The newly extended agreement with IBM will help us accelerate our transformation in a way which is more efficient, cost effective and seamless.’ “As ABFRL continues to grow and expand in the Indian market, having a strong technology backbone to support this growth and creating seamlessness of internal and external processes will become an imperative part of their business,” said Avinash Joshi, Vice President, Infrastructure Services, Global Technology Services, IBM Asia Pacific. “IBM will use its automation tools and technologies to drive services efficiencies and employee productivity for ABFRL. This pioneering partnership will help ABFRL build a seamless IT platform which will enable them to accelerate innovation and help them have a solid path in driving digital transformation.” About Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Limited Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Ltd. (ABFRL) is India's No 1. Fashion and Lifestyle entity. It hosts India's largest fashion network with over 8,000 points of sale in over 700+ cities and towns, which include more than 2,000 exclusive ABFRL brand outlets. For more information on ABFRL, please visit www.abfrl.com About IBM India For more information on IBM India, please visit http://www.ibm.com/in/en/