IBM Watson Case Study

1407 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Background of the IBM

IBM Watson is a highly debated technology in the computing industry. According to Wagle (2013), Watson is a supercomputer, which was developed by IBM. The accepted definition of a supercomputer is a computer that is at the high end of processing capability. (Wagle K, 2013). IBM Watson combines together a set of transformational technologies to drive optimised outcomes. The research and development involved with IBM Watson is aiming at creating a super computer that can understand human speech. As described in appendix 1, firstly Watson understands the human speech and natural language. Secoundly, Watson generates and evaluates hypothesis for better outcomes. Lastly, Watson has the ability to adapt and learn from user responses and selections. …show more content…

This means that IBM has to be very careful with their strategy on protecting these patents. Thus, IBM has licenced their patents to create a revenue through the licencing fees. According to IP Magazine, 2012 IBM earned over $1 billion in licensing fees from its patents. This strategy has created a large amount of extra revenue, which has enabled IBM to invest more money in to areas such as research and development. Moreover, Watson innovation, protected by patents is driving new product value, new market, and new choices for the public, and new jobs, which all contributes to IBM’s product, service and IP licensing returns. (Intellectual Property IBM, 2014). These strategies that IBM use to protect its innovations are very effective and can be sure to protect their inventions in the future.
The ways in which IBM’s organization culture encourages innovative behavior from staff
In the early 19th century, employees at IBM introduced a song known as Ever Onward, to help lift the culture and spirit within the organisation. This song demonstrates the energy and spirituality the executives at IBM wanted to incorporate in the IBM organisation. The lyrics of the beginning of the song were as stated below, however you can find the full song at IBM.com. (IBM Rally Song, Ever Onward, n.d.):
There 's a thrill in store for …show more content…

Organisational culture can be defined as, “the values and behaviours that contribute to the unique social and psychological environment of an organisation.” (Business dictionary, 2015, p. 1). The organisations culture also includes the experiences, expectations, values and expectations that holds an organisation together. In relation to IBM’s culture, Thomas J. Watson played a big role in the successful cultural heritage breathed at IBM today. Watson introduced “THINK,” as IBM’s slogan and it did not have any particular meaning. Watson believed that when people would see “THINK,” they would find out what he really meant. IBM’s “THINK,” entered the popular cultural world, usually known as being humorous. Although “THINK,” was the seed of IBM’s culture, the company introduced and developed a formal set of beliefs, which were expected to guide employees and their behavior. According to IBM’s article “a culture of think (n.d),” these beliefs

Show More
Related

  • Comparison Of Northwest Airlines And American Airlines

    4751 Words  | 10 Pages

    Just as there are cultures in larger human society, there seem to be cultures within organizations. These cultures are similar to societal cultures. They are shared, communicated through symbols, and passed down from generation to generation of employees. Many definitions of organizational culture have been proposed. Most of them agree that there are several levels of culture and that these levels differ in terms of their visibility and their ability to be changed.

    Read More

  • Ibm History

    2562 Words  | 6 Pages

    Watson also stressed the importance of the customer, a lasting IBM tenet. He understood that the success of the client translated into the success of his company, a belief that, years later, manifested itself in the popular adage, "Nobody was ever fired for buying from IBM."

    Read More

  • Watson Supercomputer

    1847 Words  | 4 Pages

    Named after IBM’s first CEO Thomas J. Watson, Watson is a supercomputer able to answer questions posed in natural language. It first became famous in early 2011 for beating a couple of the best players of Jeopardy in a 3 day streak game. He beat Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, the first had 74 winnings in a row and the second had earned a total of $3.25 million. At the time Watson was about the size of a room. It was hot and very noisy because of the cooling systems. He was represented in the room by a simple avatar. Today, Watson has changed a lot. Now it is more business friendly and has lost a lot of weight. From a Jeopardy winning computer it has become a successful commercialized supercomputer. In the following chapters I will talk about its origins, its actual situation and a little bit about its future.

    Read More

  • Written Case Analysis – IBM

    764 Words  | 2 Pages

    Naturally, it was singled out for criticism by the entire industry and the government. IBM also attracted anti-trust legislation as a result. IBM lost out once the Personal Computer industry began to boom. It found that the old paradigm of closed proprietary systems applicable to the mainframe business was not relevant to PCs.

    Read More

  • The Turing Test

    1428 Words  | 3 Pages

    One of the hottest topics that modern science has been focusing on for a long time is the field of artificial intelligence, the study of intelligence in machines or, according to Minsky, “the science of making machines do things that would require intelligence if done by men”.(qtd in Copeland 1). Artificial Intelligence has a lot of applications and is used in many areas. “We often don’t notice it but AI is all around us. It is present in computer games, in the cruise control in our cars and the servers that route our email.” (BBC 1). Different goals have been set for the science of Artificial Intelligence, but according to Whitby the most mentioned idea about the goal of AI is provided by the Turing Test. This test is also called the imitation game, since it is basically a game in which a computer imitates a conversating human. In an analysis of the Turing Test I will focus on its features, its historical background and the evaluation of its validity and importance.

    Read More

  • Flight Centre's Culture And Organizational Culture

    1302 Words  | 3 Pages

    Organizational cultural is the system of shared beliefs and values that develops within an organization and guides the behavior of its members, while organizational structure is an expression of social and economic principles of hierarchy and specialization (Kinicki, 2015). Both the culture and the structure of an organization are important things for management to understand in order to successfully set and achieve an organization’s goals. Companies who excel in highly competitive fields can attribute their successful economic performance to a cohesive corporate culture that increases competiveness and profitability. This culture is best utilized in an organization that has the necessary structure to allow its employees to coordinate their

    Read More

  • The Turing Test: An Overview

    688 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Turing’s test, an isolated interrogator attempts to distinguish the identities between discreet human and computer subjects based upon their replies to a series of questions asked during the interrogation process. Questions are generally generated through the use of a keyboard and screen, thus communication can only be made through text-only channels. For example, a sample question would contain something along the lines of “What did you think about the weather this morning?” and adequate responses could include, “I do tend to like a nice foggy morning, as it adds a certain mystery” or rather “Not the best, expecting pirates to come out of the fog” or even “The weather is not nice at the moment, unless you like fog”. After a series of tests are performed, if the interrogator fails at identifying the subject more than 70 percent of the time, that subject is deemed intelligent. Simply put, the interrogator’s ability to declare the machine’s capability of intelligence directly correlates to the interrogator’s inability to distinguish between the two subjects.

    Read More

  • Business Analysis of IBM

    3708 Words  | 8 Pages

    IBM is a multinational corporation that started its activities in 1911. But its origins can be traced back to 1890, during the height of the Industrial Revolution. It was first known as the Computing-Recording Company, and then in 1924, it took the name of International Business Machines. Nowadays, this multinational company is known as the ¡§Big Blue¡¨

    Read More

  • The Google Case: Aiming for an Evolutionary Advantage

    1812 Words  | 4 Pages

    Culture can be defined as “A pattern of basic assumptions invented, discovered or developed by a given group as it learns to cope with its problems of external adaptation and internal integration that has worked well enough to be considered valid, and therefore to be taught to the new members as the correct way to perceive, think and feel in relation to those problems”. Schein (1988). Organizational culture can be defined as a system of shared beliefs and values that develops within an organization and guides the behavior of its members. It includes routine behaviors, norms, dominant values, and feelings or climates. The purpose and function of this culture is to help foster internal integration, bring staff members from all levels of the organization closer together, and enhance their performance.

    Read More

  • The Application Of Culture And Culture In Woolworths

    2396 Words  | 5 Pages

    Culture is “a system of shared beliefs and values that develops within an organisation and guides the behaviour of its members” (Schermerhorn et al. 2011). It plays an important role in any organisation. For instance, in Woolworths we can se...

    Read More

  • Artificial Intelligence and its Effects on Business

    1711 Words  | 4 Pages

    Upbin, Bruce. "IBM's Watson Gets Its First Piece Of Business In Healthcare." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 08 Feb. 2013. Web. 17 Mar. 2014.

    Read More

  • Organizational Culture

    2435 Words  | 5 Pages

    The concept of organizational cultures was first raised in 1970s, and soon became a fashionable topic. Organizational culture is the shared beliefs, values and behaviours of the group. Theorists of organizations believe that organizational culture represents the pattern of behaviours, values, and beliefs of an organization. Hence, studies around organizational culture have been seen as great helpful and essential for understanding organizations and their behaviours. Additionally, organizational culture has been considered to be an important determinant of organizational success. Therefore, leaders and managers pay more than more attentions on this topic, focusing on constructing and managing organizational cultures.

    Read More

  • Corporate Culture

    1722 Words  | 4 Pages

    Corporate culture is the shared values and meanings that members hold in common and that are practiced by an organization’s leaders. Corporate culture is a powerful force that affects individuals in very real ways. In this paper I will explain the concept of corporate culture, apply the concept towards my employer, and analyze the validity of this concept. Research As Sackmann's Iceberg model demonstrates, culture is a series of visible and invisible characteristics that influence the behavior of members of organizations. Organizational and corporate cultures are formal and informal. They can be studied by observation, by listening and interacting with people in the culture, by reading what the company says about its own culture, by understanding career path progressions, and by observing stories about the company. As R. Solomon stated, “Corporate culture is related to ethics through the values and leadership styles that the leaders practice; the company model, the rituals and symbols that organizations value, and the way organizational executives and members communicate among themselves and with stakeholders. As a culture, the corporation defines not only jobs and roles; it also sets goals and establishes what counts as success” (Solomon, 1997, p.138). Corporate values are used to define corporate culture and drive operations found in “strong” corporate cultures. Boeing, Johnson & Johnson, and Bonar Group, the engineering firm I work for, all exemplify “strong” cultures. They all have a shared philosophy, they value the importance of people, they all have heroes that symbolize the success of the company, and they celebrate rituals, which provide opportunities for caring and sharing, for developing a spiri...

    Read More

  • Theory Of Organizational Culture

    739 Words  | 2 Pages

    The concept of organizational culture is one of the most debated topics for researchers and theorists. There is no one accepted definition of culture. People even said that it is hard to define culture and even more change it. It is considered a complex part of an organization although many have believed that culture influences employee behavior and organizational effectiveness (Kilmann, Saxton, & Serpa 1985; Marcoulides & Heck, 1993; Schein, 1985a, 1990).

    Read More

  • Essay On Organisational Culture

    1246 Words  | 3 Pages

    Organisational culture is one of the most valuable assets of an organization. Many studies states that the culture is one of the key elements that benefits the performance and affects the success of the company (Kerr & Slocum 2005). This can be measured by income of the company, and market share. Also, an appropriate culture within the society can bring advantages to the company which helps to perform with the de...

    Read More

More about IBM Watson Case Study

Open Document