From hardware to software, services to utility computing and consultancy, the transformation of Big Blue has been amazing. It has indeed been a long journey for one of the biggest technology firms of the world. However, the journey has not come to an end as it gears up to conquer the next technology frontier.
A meeting between Sam Palmi-sano, CEO, IBM and AG Laf-ley, CEO, Procter & Gamble about two years ago, got the IBM boss thinking when Lafley asked him to estimate how many of P&G’s total of 1,00,000 employees it truly needed to keep on the payroll. Even before Palm-isano could search for the answer he was stunned by Lafley’s sharp calcula-tion according to which P&G might be able to get going with only a quarter of its workforce. How so? Lafley further elaborated saying that a specialized technology firm can handle everything else such as human resource, customer care, accounting, procurement, etc. This interaction gave Sam Palmisano an inkling of the shape of things to come. Two years down the line, Big Blue now wants to make that a reality. The IT giant is aiming to conquer what it calls Business Process Transforma-tion Services or BPTS for short. The IBM boss sees it as an industry shift. His earlier experience, in the 1990s, of building the services division into a $40 bn behemoth is small when compared to the vision he has now of what’s to come tomorrow.
Surely, IBM has come a long way from its early days in the 1990s which saw it struggle for securing its future. Lou Gerstner took the helm at IBM and scripted one of the most success-ful turnaround stories in the history of the global IT industry. On his ap-pointment, when Gerstner was asked what his vision for the company was he stated, “The last thing that IBM needs right now is a vision.” IBM has surely left those days far behind. However, traversing the BPTS path is not going to be easy. |
