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agk
My best solution is while working for the employer is simaltaneously work for ...
agk
My best solution is while working for the employer is simaltaneously work for ...
IBM CEO: How to live to be 100
Rick Merritt
8/5/2011 11:57 AM EDT
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – In a speech commemorating IBM's 100th anniversary, chief executive Samuel J. Palmisano said companies need to deliver value, collaborate broadly and embrace change to survive the long haul.
Only a handful companies have lasted as long as Big Blue. Just two of the top 25 U.S. industrial firms of 1900 remained when IBM turned 50 in 1961, and only six of the top 25 Fortune 500 companies of that year remain in business today.
"We're off to the best year in 100 years and our stock is at a 100-year high even after the sell off today," said Palmisano in a talk at the Computer History Museum Thursday night.
Linking research and development is one key to success, said the IBM CEO. "You have to turn discovery into profits, that’s the fundamental role of a company," he said.
In an era of crowd-sourcing, Palmisano lobbied for the importance of basic research as fundamental to success. "Today we need deep science more than ever, serious highly institutionalized research and collaborations that are multidisciplinary," he said.
"Competition is a wonderful stimulant, but it's not sufficient," Palmisano said. "The wild West of competition needs to be complemented with collaboration even between competitors," he added.
The IBM executive quoted a 1962 speech by Thomas Watson Jr. highlighting another key pillar of success.
A company must be prepared to change everything about itself except its core beliefs, Watson said. That means companies should never define themselves by a product, technology or a business model, but only by their corporate values, said Palmisano, only the ninth chief executive in IBM's history.
IBM has not always embraced change boldly, the CEO said. "In the '90's we held on to the mainframe business model long after it was obsolete," he said.
When it finally did jettison the "old mainframe model of entitlement" it meant slashing the IBM workforce from 412,000 to 214,000 people. "That’s structural change," said Palmisano.
"We're back to 426,000 people today, so there's life after a change of business model," he said. Indeed, "in our last quarter our mainframe business was up 50 percent, so it's hardly dead," he added.
More recently IBM jettisoned its hard disk drive and PC businesses when they became commodities, selling them to Japan's Hitachi and China's Lenovo respectively. "The key is don’t get wedded to your successes in a business model or technology," he said.
Not all of IBM's history was glamorous or high tech. The company sold clocks and cheese slicers in 1914. "We had one hell of a cheese slicer," Palmisano quipped.
It also had bombs like the PC Junior and OS/2 operating system.
"We haven’t been known as a marketing company," said Palmisano. "There's an old joke that IBM products aren’t launched, they just escape from the lab," he said.
"We have another principle that’s called 'Sam wants his money back,'" he joked.
For example, the artificial intelligence researchers that got millions to build the Watson system that beat human contestants in "Jeopardy" are gearing up to make their return on that investment. Their work will be productized next year for applications in finance and a physician's assistant, he said.
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Luis Sanchez
8/5/2011 4:53 PM EDT
It's great to get a slice of the culture and history of this company.
It's really remarkable to realize it has existed for as much as 100 years now and still looking strong and healthy. And... no marketing?!!! that means they really are innovators providing state of the art technology. I wonder how many of their investigations don't actually catch-up or simply fail to return investment. Is there something to read about it? Do you know?
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Sanjib.Acharya
8/7/2011 11:29 AM EDT
I found the two blogs below interesting (if you haven't read through already):
http://blogs.forbes.com/stevedenning/2011/07/10/why-did-ibm-survive/
http://blogs.forbes.com/stevedenning/2011/07/11/will-ibm-survive-another-100-years/
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UdaraW
8/5/2011 5:58 PM EDT
While there had been many books published on IBM and its history, I can not recall anything published on what were the IBM’s research efforts that have gone down the gut.
However, as all large corporates would testify, it is not always as rosy a picture as their top executives portray to the media. Research and innovation is a risky business. There ought to be major research efforts that have yielded sub-standard results in the IBM’s past. I suggest that there is 80/20principle in research/innovation efforts in large corporates. 80% of R&D investments fail to generate the estimated profit targets, whereas the 20% that meet the estimated profit targets, exceed their respective estimates to bring in about 80% of the company’s revenue stream over the life cycle of the product. So there ought to be major failures in research/development efforts in IBM that do not get spoken in media conferences.
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Larry M
8/8/2011 4:17 PM EDT
Josephson junctions?
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goafrit
8/5/2011 10:09 PM EDT
IBM is indeed lucky to be alive. A small mistake they would have gone by now. It is good to be 100, but they better be thinking of the next ten years because China has a different plan than drinking champagne
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Neo1
8/6/2011 3:40 AM EDT
I think they deserve the Kudos for the sheer longevity as a technology company and how they always been at the forefront of R&D. How many of the so called big companies really invest in R&D like IBM has been doing for decades? IBM learn't it's lesson rather quickly and shed the baggage to forge new businesses and we should appreciate it. Being in business and giving the shareholders and the world better products and services for a 100 years is no mean feat.
Congrats big blue, though no more the blue you once were.
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Frank Eory
8/7/2011 1:49 PM EDT
Even some of IBM's "bombs" were pretty innovative. The PC Junior mentioned in the article was the first PC to use a wireless keyboard -- quite impressive for 1984 -- and the on-board color graphics and sound were superior to the standard IBM PC. I was also quite impressed that IBM sent me a free upgraded keyboard to replace the awful chiclet keyboard that came with the early units.
It was a great machine for a EE student on a budget in the mid-80s, particularly after I saved up enough money to buy a 3rd party expansion kit that added a 2nd floppy drive and boosted the memory to 640k.
I made great use of the BASIC cartridge ROM and later found that I could do all my FORTRAN programming assignments at home on my PCjr with the MS FORTRAN compiler (2 floppies), rather than doing punch cards at the computing center on campus.
Congrats to IBM on succeeding for a whole century, and thanks also for one of your greatest flops, the PCjr, which made my BSEE student experience much more productive and enjoyable.
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cdhmanning
8/7/2011 2:35 PM EDT
Clearly managing change is the key to longevity. In many ways IBM is not a single company but rather a sequence of companies that have risen up then slowly receded to rise phoenix-like from the ashes again.
While he speaks of collaboration and competition he does not mention the bully tactics that IBM often employed.
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Bert22306
8/7/2011 7:11 PM EDT
I have great respect for IBM, although their marketing does seem strange at times. Consider how the IBM PC became a Microsoft success story, for instance. A great open architecture design, no question that it's had a huge impact globally, and yet it completely got away from them. Which is what a good open architecture design is meant to do, after all. That's why they call it "open architecture."
My first hands-on experience with IBM products was their 1130 mainframe computer, which we students could run on out own in the computer lab, vs having to leave the deck of cards for the guys in white coats that operated the 360 machine. And then have to trek back to the computer lab later, to read all the error codes!
Happy 100th!
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Robotics Developer
8/7/2011 9:09 PM EDT
The old adage "no one ever got fired for buying IBM" was true for a long time. In the current age however, they have to compete with the entire world. I congratulate them for 100 years! I do wonder if they are nimble enough to last another 100. As long as they pay attention to the basics: service, value, sales, and market needs they have a fighting chance.
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ibm221
8/7/2011 10:04 PM EDT
There should be some old successful corps out there.
siemens, hitachi ... etc.
they all keep on evolving etc.
the only common trick should be they all managed to attract the top talents of their neighborhood and good control of internal corruption.
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ibm221
8/7/2011 10:07 PM EDT
the list should be long,
VW, Mercedes, Mitsubishi
....
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Anne O'Neill
8/7/2011 10:49 PM EDT
and what twitter acct would that be?
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ibm221
8/7/2011 11:03 PM EDT
you can create one,
right, there are plenty of institutes also quite long living.
ie berkeley, Yale, Oxcam...
anyway, it's not so hard to stay on the top/survive sometimes.
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ibm221
8/7/2011 11:39 PM EDT
another factor makes IBM seems special is US itself is only 200 years old and not stablized yet.
100 years must feel like forever for americans.
Check the other good old capitalisms this will look more common.
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hm
8/8/2011 5:33 AM EDT
Kudos to IBM for this 100 years. They have sound and strong core beliefs. Does Sam predicts about next decade and nex Century for IBM? I wish they are there in top 25.
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agk
8/8/2011 9:18 AM EDT
IBM travelled a long 100 year history. The policies mentioned by IBM CEO attracts me well.Especially the words
'You have to turn discovery into profits, that’s the fundamental role of a company'. Congrats
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ibm221
8/8/2011 8:30 PM EDT
imagine you are attracted to work for ibm...
you spend 5-10 years there feeling good,
then this thing turns sour ( ie. PC, hard drive ..)
you ll get axed, fast, together with your friends.
you wonder in the streets, 50+ old,
IBM will hire another batch of new grads, getting fresh again, and great.
so you like this,
In my opinion being a farmer is better than this, at least you have some dignity and respect.
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ibm221
8/8/2011 10:53 PM EDT
the slogan for ibm should be:
our employee could get obsoleted/outdated,
IBM will never be, We dump old/useless employees and keep on recycling/moving on.
IBM always embrace change boldly, everything except it's shareholders.
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t.alex
8/14/2011 1:04 AM EDT
ibm221, is this from an IBM employee?
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agk
8/19/2011 6:37 AM EDT
My best solution is while working for the employer is simaltaneously work for ourselves also in any one of the following ways:
1. Save money for the future limited happy life
2.Also up date knowledge with a couple of new technologies
3.Improve managerial skill sets adopt in your level and see that you are promoted rather than obsoleting
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agk
8/20/2011 3:29 AM EDT
My best solution is while working for the employer is simaltaneously work for ourselves also in any one of the following ways:
1. Save money for the future limited happy life
2.Also up date knowledge with a couple of new technologies
3.Improve managerial skill sets adopt in your level and see that you are promoted rather than obsoleting
Sign in to Reply
Xin Zhou
8/9/2011 3:20 AM EDT
IBM, the company which I dream to join. No matter what, 100 years, it's already a great success.
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