IBM India and the Indian School of Business on Tuesday announced the signing of first open collaborative research agreement in Asia aimed at improving the competitiveness of the services sector in the region.

This research will support companies to redesign their project management structure, reduce attrition, and also help the high performance groups to move up the value chain, ISB Dean M Rammohan Rao said.

The research will be held by the centre for Global Logistics and Manufacturing Strategies at the ISB and the Indian research laboratory at IBM India.

IBM is working with Carnegie Mellon University and University of California, Berkeley for research in developed economics.

ISB is the first B-school in Asia to work with IBM on this collaborative research. The study will focus on Indian companies to begin with and later extend to Asian companies, Rao added.

Speaking on the necessity of research for the service sector, Rao said, "The services sector contributes to over 50 per cent of the GDP of the Indian economy and is closely integrated with the agriculture and manufacturing sector.

Through our collaborative research with IBM, I hope we will be able to make substantial contributions towards making the Indian economic growth more inclusive."