You have all the reason in the world to achieve your grandest dreams. Imagination plus innovation equals realization. And Shanker Annaswamy, Managing Director, IBM India has all the attributes to reach the point of that realisation. For any person making the transition from healthcare to IT is a tough ask. But not Shanker Annaswamy. He just took a year as Managing Director of the Indian subsidiary of the $90-billion IT giant IBM and he is as comfortable as any other IBM top honcho. Born in Guntur in Andhra Pradesh and raised in Chennai, Shanker Annaswamy earned his BE in electronics and communication from Madras University and a diploma in business management education from the All India Management Association, New Delhi.

After completing his education, Shanker began his career with Philips Medical Systems and in his 25 years of career, he has undertaken various positions in project management, sales and marketing and quality, including as an advisor to the Ministry of Health in Oman. Prior to joining IBM India as Managing Director in 2004, he was the president and chief executive officer for GE Medical Systems (GEMS), South Asia and Managing Director, Wipro-GEMS.

Amongst the many achievements, he was responsible for building GE's CT business in Asia Pacific where he led the growth of the company's business in China. Annaswamy is the first Indian to be given IBM's top job in India. About his transition from healthcare to IT, he once said: "It is eventually all about customer satisfaction. In the healthcare industry, I used to deal with cutting edge technology. And the best part was that you were directly dealing with clients and their end customers, read the patients.

So, you wore a consultant's hat all the while, as the solution, your recommendations had to be working the next day and show results. Work at IBM is no different. You have to offer solutions, which will have a direct impact on the business of the company." Annaswamy is bullish about IBM's prospects in India. According to him, India is happening, and so is its growth. Though he says that IBM continues to see strong growth in all sections - like BFS, and telecom - he is betting strongly on the large SMB market and the government space.

"In the government space, we have a dedicated team, particularly focusing on open source, and have done great projects with Uttaranchal, Karnataka, and Chandigarh, to name a few. For the business side, services and hardware will continue to be a key growth area for us." "Historically, our competitors have done well in the Unix space; we have been very aggressive on that front as is evident from the percentage change of share for the fourth quarter," he said in an interview. "We will continue to grow in that space. PCs will continue to be an important segment of it. Although it will be a Lenovo-IBM combination, from the customer perspective, I see strong growth in this space. Moreover, we are betting strongly on our middleware, Web Sphere, and DB2, database and software businesses."

About how he feels in the new role as head of the India operations, he says: "I am given to understand that I am the first Indian to head the Indian operation. While this does leave a good feeling, it can also be very scary and very challenging-as now I have to do better than best. Also, IBM as a company has tremendous depth and content." Understandably, to steer the future of a company like IBM to greater heights of success, there has to be a leader equally talented, innovative and business-minded. And Annaswamy has proved it more than once that he is the right man in the right place.