Cinepolis Partners With IBM For India Roll-Out

IBM has announced a three-year IT services agreement with Cinepolis, a multiplex operator commencing operations in India. The deal, inked in August 2009, will involve IBM deploying, managing and supporting a scalable IT infrastructure essential for Cinepolis’ roll-out plans in the country.

IBM’s Store Roll Out solution will allow Cinepolis to control operating expenses as well as to swiftly develop and deploy new customer-facing applications. Cinepolis has a goal of opening 500 screens in the country by 2016. Of this, it is looking at making 130 screens go-live in eight cities over the next three years. IBM’s IT solutions will power Cinepolis’ operations at each of these sites.

Vivek Malhotra, territory executive-North & East, General Business, IBM India/ S Asia, said, “This is a very strategic win for IBM in the media and entertainment space. Accelerating time-to-market and reducing operational complexity for Cinepolis will be the key focus areas for IBM in this engagement. Our domestic market know-how will help a global player like Cinepolis achieve success in the Indian market by focusing on its core business – cinemas.”

Driven by innovation, Mexico-based Cinepolis plans to transform the experience of watching movies in India by screening movies in an ambience that boasts of world-class facilities backed by high levels of customer service. IBM will provide Point-of-Sale (PoS), kiosks, server, storage, software, networking and related services that will run Cinepolis’ core applications as well as Internet-related and general business applications.