TOKYO and ARMONK, N.Y., Sept. 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) and JFE Steel Co., Ltd., signed a five-year outsourcing agreement enabling the steel company to migrate core systems to the IBM Cloud while consolidating its IT infrastructure and streamlining its business operations.

With the World Steel Organization stating that steel prices will continue to fall in 2016, steel companies like JFE Steel, must identify ways of creating a more efficient business model that can quickly adjust to market changes. In fact, under the JFE Group's medium-term business plan, JFE Steel aims to increase annual JFE branded product and services to 40 million tons.

"To ensure we are aligned with our global business strategy, we needed a flexible IT infrastructure with the scalability and speed," said Akira Nitta, Executive Assistant General Manager, IT Innovation Leading Department, JFE Steel Corporation. "By taking advantage of the IBM Cloud, we are able to promote the business transformation, continue to provide value for clients and focus on becoming a global steel supplier."

As part of this agreement, IBM will assist JFE Steel in building much of its core business including iron and steel production management systems.

As one of the largest steel manufacturers in the world, JFE Steel will also utilize open technologies to consolidate and virtualize its systems. This will allow the company to speed up the system development, reduce costs, strengthen IT governance and improve continuity. Additionally, the cloud infrastructure will better enable JFE Steel to speed the deployment of services from months to as little as a week.

"As JFE Steel's business continued to grow, it became apparent that its existing infrastructure would soon limit the ability to respond to the changing dynamics of the industry," said IBM General Manager of System Services, Jim Comfort. "The IBM Cloud now will help transform JFE Steel's IT platform and better manage the sustained growth of its business operations.

JFE Steel also will deploy:

• IBM Control Desk to unify and simplify IT management services
• IBM Cloud Orchestrator to build to promote the standardization and automation of cloud services
• IBM Power Systems to increase performance

About IBM Global Technology Services
IBM Global Technology Services offers end-to-end IT consulting and business services supported by an unparalleled global delivery network that is transforming its business to lead in an era of Cognitive and Cloud. As a cloud services integrator, GTS is managing the services and underlying infrastructure in an integrated and unified way. It is modernizing clients' IT environments to help them meet the increasingly complex customer demands. GTS provides clients with innovative technology solutions that help them to improve their business processes and in turn, profitability.

Media Contact
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IBM Media Relations
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SOURCE IBM