The little-known Kyndryl, a spin-off of IBM, is gaining strength in Catalonia with new contracts two years after its establishment as an independent company. The spin-off kept the business of the multinational that encompasses information technology infrastructure management services, employing 90,000 workers and serving more than 4,000 clients worldwide. This new business structure allowed Spain to gain weight, with a market in which Kyndryl's business has more prominence than IBM's, which allowed it to become the fourth most important country in the international ranking, only behind the United States, Japan, and the United Kingdom.
Mireia Ollé is in charge of leading the more than 700 workers that Kyndryl employs in Catalonia, with centers in Barcelona, Sant Cugat del Vallès, and Reus. The spin-off expands its reach with 1,000 indirect jobs, considering that it hires local companies to provide specialized services to some of its clients, among them, CaixaBank, Banco Sabadell, Naturgy, the Generalitat, and the Port of Barcelona. In addition to the three headquarters, the company has two data centers in the autonomous community.
After inheriting the contracts it had when it was part of IBM, Kyndryl is facing this new stage with new clients, such as the Port of Barcelona, for whom it has modernized its entire technological platform in less than a year. Once its infrastructure has been updated, Kyndryl and the port will work to apply artificial intelligence (AI) in its operations and continue improving its functioning. "We no longer only manage critical infrastructures, we also help companies create new products to improve the user experience through projects with data and AI that allow them to operate better," explains Ollé, being able to ally thanks to its new business reality with companies such as Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Red Hat, Cisco, or Oracle.
A similar path is being followed by the company with the Institut Català de Salut (ICS). Kyndryl has dedicated itself to digitizing its anatomical pathology services in various hospitals with the aim of using AI to improve patient care and speed up tumor diagnosis, as well as increasing territorial equity and facilitating the work of professionals. This is not the only contract that the company has with the Generalitat, for whom it manages a large part of its IT services and, moreover, has just won two contracts with the Centre de Telecomunicacions i Tecnologies de la Informació (CTTI) to modernize its cloud technology applications.
"We are growing in business volume in Catalunya and we are also hiring in all offices," Ollé points out, without specifying figures. Looking to the future, the company plans to strengthen locations such as Reus, also a talent center, to attract and retain professionals coming out of universities, with a focus on reducing the gender gap.