As CEO of IBM, Samuel J. Palmisano used the momentum of the success gained under the leadership of Louis Gestner to steer the business in a new direction. Sam intends to restore the organization to the former status it held as a technological leader with an admirable company culture. Palmisano's plan calls for the reorganization of the executive management board, restructuring of incentive programs, and an emphasis on collaboration across all divisions. Establishing closer relationships between researchers and clients is also a key factor in creating new opportunities for growth for IBM. E-business on demand is the new initiative at the heart of Palmisano's strategy for the growth of IBM's Global Services. E-business will transform IBM from a hardware and software company to an IT services provider.
Disbanding the executive management committee and creating a set of management teams was the first step in Palmisano IBM restructuring plan. "He created three of them: strategy, operations, and technology. Instead of picking only high-level executives for each team, Palmisano selected managers and engineers most familiar with the issues."1 Sam found the remoteness of the committee members from the frontlines was impeding the company's progress. Decentralizing management empowers employees to make decisions and participate in IBM's future success. The transference of knowledge across the organization is more efficient and effective when collaboration at all levels is encouraged. To show his commitment to the participative management approach the CEO then had the board take a portion of his bonus and redistribute it to top executives based on their team performance. This gesture of sharing the rewards solidifies Palmisa...
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...and stimulates innovation. Customers' relationship with researchers fosters a sense of a deeper connection with IBM that leads to long-term financial commitments.
Sam Palmisano's team approach and dissolution of management sets the stage for improved morale in IBM. As the decision making process is extended communication improves across the organization and a learning culture is established. A collaborative environment inspires innovation of new products as the divisions are aligned with IBM's strategic goals. Palmisano's support of open-source platforms provides the vital ingredients necessary to build the backbone of the on demand system that he envisions IBM will provide to customers. As Sam's vision blossoms a symbiotic relationship is formed that will provide enhanced business applications and services to customers and a recurring source or revenue for IBM.
Sapient is a business consulting and technology Services Company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that was founded in 1991 to specialize in client/server application development. Sapient was one of a group of companies (along with firms such as Cambridge Technology Partners and i-Cube) that sought to differentiate themselves from traditional consultants by offering strong technical skills and application development to enable companies to get business value out of technology within fixed-fee/fixed-time contracts and by focusing solely on client's success to achieve long term goals and objectives. In the mid-1990's, Sapient recognized the potential of Internet and started to offer Internet solutions to its clients. Sapient was one of the few e-business integrators from the dot-com era that recognized offshore opportunities early on. It invested in global delivery capabilities in India starting in 2001.The Company has been through significant changes over the past five years, including significant shifts in its client base, offshore staff mix, and target contract size, but the focus on its purpose, core values, Internet enablement and related technologies is unchanged.
Elite Engineering has been unable to successfully implement change because they haven’t been able to get the employees to see the need for the change and to believe in the change. “It must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things.” (Kotter & Schlesinger, 2008) Change is often met with resistance. When it comes down to it many people fear change. At Elite Engineering, the engineers were happy with the way things were being run. They enjoyed the billable work they were doing and did not want to take the time to collaborate with others, as it would take away time from their billable work. The engineers saw the billable work they were doing as a way to ensure they received their bonus at the end of the year. However, they were failing to see that the litigation business was going to begin to shrink and in order for them to remain competitive, changes needed to be made. Kotter and Schlesinger state that there are for common reasons that people resist change. The four reasons are the desire not to lose something of value, a misunderstanding of the change and its implications, a belief that the change does not make sense for the organization, and a low tolerance for change. (Kotter & Schlesinger, 2008) At Elite Engineering, I think upper management was unsuccessful at implementing change because the employees didn’t want to lose their bonuses (something of value to them), they misunderstood the change, and they didn’t feel that the change made sense for the organization.
The case deals with two major transformational organisational changes that take place within a span of 5 years in Marconi PLC. The first change process was under the leadership of Lord Simpson who took over this large diversified conglomerate in 1996 when the company was in a mature phase, already in decline. The company was under performing, had a rigid structure, lacked a clear vision and the employees had become change averse and complacent. To recharge the company Lord Simpson lead a change process with a clear vision with a growth oriented strategy, acquisition and a cultural change process for the employees. To motivate the employers to embrace the cultural change he introduced an attractive stock option plan.
This paper will profile Jeff Hawkins, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for PalmOne, Inc. examining qualities that Mr. Hawkins exhibits that make him influential leader. The paper will also examine details of the business strategy that make this man an exceptional innovator and his contribution to eBusiness technology.
International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) is a US based IT Company engaged in the production and sale of computer hardware and software. It offers infrastructure services, hosting services, and consulting services. The company’s product line includes servers and systems, software, disk systems, hard drives/micro drives, network attached storage, semiconductors, printing paper and toner, blade center workstation and accessories. It also offers a wide portfolio of IT services including consulting, application services, outsourcing, training, small and medium business services, and related services. The company operates its business in five segments namely, Global Technology Services (GTS), Global Business Services (GBS), Software segment, Systems and Technology segment, and Global Financing segment. The company is headquartered in Armonk, New York, the US.
International Business Machines, better known as IBM, is one of the worlds largest technology companies, currently ranking at number twenty in the fortune five-hundred. IBM was founded by Thomas J. Watson, not from scratch, but through the merging of three, already prominent, computer companies. IBM distinguished itself, not only through selling products, but primarily through research and development. IBM is currently one of the forerunners in the burgeoning field of internet clouds.
The book “Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance” authored by Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. is a book about inspiration change and turning hardship into greatness. Gerstner, the Chairman and CEO of IBM obtained his BS in Engineering from Dartmouth College and his MBA from Harvard University. He gained his most important management experience at American Express and Mckinsey & Company as senior management. He then became the CEO of RJR Nabisco and lastly Chairman and CEO of IBM before retiring in 2002. When entering is new position at IBM he was soon to enter a phase of his life that would mark his professional career forever. His book is divided into four different parts; grabbing hold, strategy, culture and lessons learned. These four parts are what signified his journey as CEO of IBM and how he turned a quickly failing corporation around into a sustaining organization that could once
Despite the rapid acceptance of Microsoft technology within the enterprise, there are real concerns about the direction the company will take in the future. The company clearly faces stiff competition on several fronts within the business-critical environment. In addition, legal issues and software delays, together with the technical shortcomings of some of Microsoft's key offerings, have raised doubts about the company's long-term success.
The aim of the value chain structure is to maximize the value creation while minimizing costs. Value Chain Analysis is a useful tool for working out how you can create the greatest possible value for your customers. Value chain analysis relies on the rudimentary economic principle of competitive advantage -companies are best served by operating in divisions where they have a relative prolific benefit compared to their competitors. Concomitantly, companies should ask themselves where they can deliver the paramount value to their customer. To conduct a value chain analysis, the company begins by identifying each part of its production process and recognizing where steps can be purged or enhancements can be made. These improvements can result
began to take over the worlds market for tabulators, clocks, and electric type writers. By 1940 it was the us largest office firms that deals with machines. There sales had reach $50 million.
The structure of management is hierarchical where decisions are made by the top management and passed down to the other managers and departmental heads. The objectives set are to enable one accomplish a specific goal. In traditional management authority and power are demonstrated in the way decisions are made, and the employees are internally motivated to achieve and to advance in their career. The authority is maintained and exercised through a command as well as a control style. Goals and also objectives aim at sales, policy, profits and the output of the organization (Whitman, Mattord, 1997). Traditional management cannot be practiced by an organization that wants to keep up with global competition. Challenges within the business environment have prompted the organization to change from the traditional management to a flexible
Every organisation has business model to operate with, one of the function of business model is to identify what is business strategy to ensure long term growth of organisation. Baden-fuller & Haefligar (2013) defined business model as a tool that solves the problem of identifying who are the customers, delivering satisfaction align with customer demands and needs. Business models mediate the link between technology and organisation performance and by identifying the right innovation technology also one of the business strategy to ensure openness and user engagement in market. In the case of Sony Corporation, they implemented a few series of restructuring process within the organisation to ensure long term growth by focusing on high demand products, strategic business units and focus on product development aligns with current technology. These factors has forced Sony Corporation to cutting down their cost by retrenchment certain products to ensure business sustainability for future growth and profitability.
...s and partly, to gain a competitive advantages in the global market. Thus, the company spends billions of dollars in innovative research activities to add new knowledge into the existing knowledge.
This report provides an analysis and evaluation of strategy implementation used by California Pizza Kitchen (CPK) and discusses the effectiveness of their strategy through organization design, control systems, people and culture. My research concluded that CPK relies on control systems to undertake a majority of the company’s operational activities and that human resources and organizational culture must support the strategy implemented, which it does in in the case of CPK.
In this write up the focus is mainly on e-business. It consists of critical discussion and analysis of the impact of adopting e-business orientation. It also contains relevant information on the current state of e-business market.