CEMEX S.A.B. de C.V, a building materials company based in Mexico, has announced a decade-long strategic agreement with IBM (News - Alert), under which CEMEX will outsource IT and business processes to IBM.

Over the next 10 years, IBM will provide business consulting services with an eye toward improving profitability. IBM will provide services including finance and accounting, as well as back office services. In addition, IBM will provide IT support, maintenance and application development.

The agreement will allow CEMEX to improve CEMEX's scalability and efficiency, and in turn allow the company to improve customer service.

“Through this agreement, we reinforce our commitment to transform CEMEX into an increasingly flexible, agile, and competitive global company,” said Lorenzo H. Zambrano, chairman and CEO at CEMEX. “Moreover, this agreement with IBM will enable CEMEX to focus on its core businesses of cement, ready-mix concrete, and aggregates; improve its financial position; and respond more quickly to changing market needs.”

The contract is expected to save CEMEX around $1 billion over 10 years. Both companies will implement IBM's business processes, business practices and IT infrastructure developed by IBM. This will allow CEMEX to make their customers happier and their products cheaper and better.

“This agreement will bring to CEMEX the flexibility to face the new challenges in the building materials industry,” said Bruno Di Leo, senior vice president of Sales and Distribution for IBM. “IBM’s state-of-the-art IT infrastructure, business processes and applications will help CEMEX achieve its goals of becoming more competitive. We see our strategic relationship with CEMEX as a powerful example of building a smarter planet.”

In other IBM news, the venerable giant of computing is offering “big data” in the cloud. “Solving today's big data challenges requires cutting-edge software and infrastructure, and this business partnership brings together the best of both.

GoGrid's automated cloud infrastructure platform and IBM's Big Data software work together to let businesses build Software-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) applications to address their need to analyze vast amounts of information.

To find out more about IBM, visit the company at ITEXPO West 2012. To be held Oct. 2-5 at the Austin Convention Center in Austin, TX, ITEXPO (News - Alert) is the world’s premier IP communications event. Visit IBM in booth # 1324. For more information on ITEXPO West 2012 click here.