Bill Smith, IBM Global Financing | IBM Think 2020
Channel: SiliconANGLE theCUBE
Date: 2020-05-05

Bill Smith, GM, IBM Global Financing sits down with Dave Vallente for IBM Think 2020.

#Think2020 #theCUBE

https://siliconangle.com/2020/05/07/ibm-global-financing-sees-software-services-financing-grow-think2020/

IBM Global Financing sees software and services financing grow

As IBM Corp. continues to migrate into a hybrid cloud model, IBM Global Financing is assisting businesses that want to invest in a transformational IT landscape and financially position themselves for success.

“A big part of our business is now software and services financing, a lot of project financing,” said Bill Smith (pictured), general manager of IBM Global Financing. “We still do a lot of hardware business, but it’s a much, much smaller portion of our $30-billion asset base.”

Smith spoke with Dave Vellante, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the IBM Think Digital Event Experience. They discussed ways in which companies are financing their digital transformations and how IBM Global Financing is playing a key role. (* Disclosure below.)

Matching cash outlays when benefits realized
There’s a lot of digital transformations going on across many companies and industries around the globe, and many initiatives incorporate enterprise resource planning software with integrated applications to help manage and automate many office functions, Smith explained.

“So a client will come to us and say, ‘Bill, we’d like to match the benefits of this very large GBS or services engagement that the IBM team is leading. We’d like to match the benefits when we have the cash outlay,'” Smith said. “So we’ll put a structure together that will delay the payment for when those benefits begin to come online for the enterprise and then match payment with when benefits are actually received. It’s proven to be a very, very effective financing instrument for us, but highly effective economic instrument for the clients.”

With clients moving to a hybrid cloud model, sometimes there’s a migration that will take place between the traditional legacy systems and when they move to the cloud, according to Smith. IBM is financing that migration effort, and the company also helps finance some of the software and IT infrastructure that’s required for such a mass overhaul.

“[Companies want to] put those services, software and hardware on different financial instruments, but it looks like one total bill for the client,” Smith concluded. “And it’s a global footprint, so we’re able to handle the different currencies around the world — and again, most importantly, match those cash outlays with when the benefits are received.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the IBM Think Digital Event Experience. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the IBM Think Digital Event Experience. Neither IBM, the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)