Word: ibm
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Wall Street, however, can't make up its wary mind about the miracle that Louis V. Gerstner Jr., IBM's seventh CEO, seems to have managed. In the past three years, Gerstner has brought IBM back from what his top lieutenant immodestly calls a "near death experience" instigated by the company's slavish commitment to mainframe computing, a business that started to dissolve sometime during the Carter Administration. Since arriving in April 1993, Gerstner has refocused IBM on businesses that actually exist, unplugged more than 40% of the work force, tripled its once crippled stock price and, in the process...
...worth noting that establishing growth at a company the size of IBM--with $72 billion in sales last year, it is the 18th largest on the planet--is no mean feat. In fact, to grow at the 7% rate their corporate bosses are planning, IBM's sales force has to discover economic opportunities the size of Bolivia's gnp each year--north of $5 billion in new business. And while some passionate analysts expect IBM to pull that off elegantly (and hit $200 a share by 1998), others consider the company already stressed: thus the yo-yoing stock price, which...
...Thoman, however, have engineered a corporate future that takes more from their corporate customers' body language than their own. The folded arms and quizzical looks on display in the meetings about computer systems--not another one!--at offices and factories alike are body talk expressing fear of machines, and IBM sees a huge business in making that emotion go away. Digital change has evolved from an amusing walk toward the future to an all-out sprint. FORTUNE 500 CEOs feel they are running for their life when it comes to technology decisions, and the race is distracting them from their...
...instead of being a high-tech hardware store, IBM is now selling help. Gerstner is betting that for the next 10 years, the technology market will be stuffed with firms aching to get rewired but without a clue about where to begin. IBM plans to sell these folks "solutions," the institutional equivalent of your nephew Phil, the relative you call when you're debating which PC to buy or wondering how to rescue the last half of that tax return you were preparing. Gerstner's Big Blue will offer solutions to help point you safely to the future...
...looks like a highly profitable choice. IBM's service sector, with sales of $12.7 billion, is pegged to grow at around 25% a year--that's good news, since the company can sell real brainpower rather than its quickly obsolete silicon counterpart. The group is growing so fast, says Thoman, that it's facing a challenge that's novel even for IBM: locating 15,000 talented new bodies to throw into the business next year...