Project Report

On

ORGANISATIONAL PERCEPTION
MANAGEMENT OF THE
‘IBM’
EMPLOYEES AND CUSTOMERS

By
Group No. 6
Ankul Sharma 2019MBA003
Homal Ivnati 2019MBA015
Kritika Navetia 2019MBA017
Sarbani Sahu 2019MBA035
Shubham Garnaik 2019MBA039

Under the Guidance of

Professor:
Dr. Atri Sengupta
Organizational Behavior- I

INDIAN INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT, SAMBALUR

YEAR: 2019-2021
 TABLE OF CONTENT
Topic Page No.
What is IBM Watson?......................................................................................................2

What is organizational perception management?..........................................................3

Secondary source of information………………………………………………………………………………..5

Primary Source of information…………………………………………………………………………………...6

Questions to Employee………………………………………………………………………………….6

Question to Customer……………………………………………………………………………………7

Solutions………………………………………………………………………………………………………..9

References……………………………………………………………………………………………………..10

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 What is IBM Watson?

1. IBM Watson is a question-answering computer system capable of answering questions

posted in natural language
2. It was developed in IBM's DeepQA project by a research team led by principal
investigator David Ferrucci
3. It was named after IBM's first CEO, industrialist Thomas J. Watson
4. Watson changed into created as a query answering (QA) computing device that IBM built to
apply advanced natural language processing, facts retrieval, knowledge representation,
computerized reasoning, and device gaining knowledge of technologies to the field of open
domain question answering.
5. Watson uses IBM's DeepQA software and the Apache UIMA (Unstructured Information
Management Architecture) framework implementation. The system was written in various
languages, including Java, C++, and Prolog, and runs on the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11
operating system using the Apache Hadoop framework to provide distributed computing.
6. The system is workload-optimized, integrating massively parallel POWER7 processors and
built on IBM's DeepQA technology.
7. The sources of information for Watson
include encyclopaedias, dictionaries, thesauri, newswire articles and literary works. Watson
also used databases, taxonomies and ontologies
8. Watson's simple working principle is to parse keywords in a clue at the same time as
attempting to find related phrases as responses. This gives Watson a few benefits and
disadvantages as compared with human Jeopardy! Gamers
9. Current and future applications: According to IBM they are working to improve the current
software and implementing it on better hardware for future goals. They have planned to
step up in various divisions such as
a. Healthcare
b. Advertising
c. Tax preparation
d. Fashion
e. Weather forecasting
f. Teaching assistant
g. Building codes
h. Chatterbot

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 What is organizational perception management?

Organization perception management involves activities that are designed and carried out by
organizational employees to influence people perceptions of the organization. These people include
the leaders, employees, representing the Internal and external stakeholders, comprising of auditors,
and consumers etc. There are different scenarios which help building the correct impression in front
of the different internal and external stakeholders.

The major component includes

I. Perception of the organization

II. Actions or tactics
III. Organizational spokesperson
IV. Organizational audience

These are the broader components which help us to define the perception as a whole, Perception
management is designed to influence perceptions of the organization as an entity.

It includes factors like:

I. Image
II. Reputation
III. Identities

Organizational image is the current and temporary perceptions of an organization, believed by

internal and external audiences, regarding its effectiveness with various categories, Organizational
reputation represents the overall analysis regarding the extent to which a firm has high self-esteem.
Organizational identities are complex in nature than the image and reputation, it helps to answer
the members: “who are we”. This is very crucial for an organization to sustain.

The element comes the Symbolic action which affect the audience perception in an organization.

It includes factors like:

I. Verbal Account
II. Distinctiveness
III. Symbolic Behaviour
IV. The display of physical makers

As the name of these parameters suggests, the verbal Account is responsible for explanations built
to influence perception of an organization’s role for an event.

It includes factors like:

I. Form
II. Content
III. Communication medium

Symbolic behaviour includes both routine and special actions that are used to indicate organization
image or identity.

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It includes factors like:

I. Behaviour related to primary business activities

II. Treatment of Employees
III. Visible affiliation with groups and organizations
IV. Escalation behaviour

Physical makers display temporary or permanent physical designs, organizational image, identities
and reputations. Spokesperson can be anyone who is perceived by audience members as employee
or hold formal designation to speak on its behalf.

It includes factors like:

I. Organizational leaders, public relations professionals

II. Employees

Organizational Audience, includes all the stakeholders who are a part of organizational perception
management. It includes regulators, agencies, competing organization, suppliers etc. and also
consumers, environment activists, voters etc. All these audiences have an important role as any
misconception, in one of these groups can spoil the whole perception in the market, hence it is very
important to take due care.

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 Secondary source of information

We took Secondary information from the Article of Gizmodo.com, Forbes, and CMS Wire.

• In Forbes interview Chamath Palihapitiya (Competitor) Called IBM Watson a joke.

Quoted: “Watson is a joke, just to be completely honest. “I think what IBM is excellent at is
using their sales and marketing infrastructure to convince people who have asymmetrically
less knowledge to pay for something.”[1]
• In reply to Chamath Palihapitiya’s statement IBM Watson said that they are working with top
25 Science companies and lot of Start-ups are also using IBM Watson as the platform. So,
calling it a joke means all of them are joke. [1]

From this interview we got information like M.D Anderson canceled the contract with IBM Watson
because they were not happy with the services which IBM Watson was providing to them.

Also, IBM Watson failed to deliver the innovation and there was high expectation from IBM Watson
but they performed low on the expectation.

• CMS Wire stated that “Poor publicity has plagued IBM Watson for the past 12 months and
overshadowed some real progress in artificial intelligence”. Which was a big disappointment
for IBM. [2]
• GIZMODO criticised in their own way of mocking. [3]
o “Their marketing and PR has run disruptively”
o IBM Watson is American president of AI industry—fake claims that aren’t backed by
credible data.”
o “In the data-science community it is perceived that whatever Watson can do, you can
probably get it from a freeware, or build yourself.”
o “There is no way to validate IBM’s accuracy unless we experiment.”
• Those comments for IBM Watson was very discouraging for them and eventually they failed.

We tried to look the situation in IBM Watson by taking these articles into consideration.

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 Primary Source of information

We took information from 2 stakeholders:-An Employee working in IBM Watson and an ex-employee
working for IBM Watson and has left his job to pursue higher studies.

Our consideration of these set of stakeholders was because of the reason that they could give us an
insight our perception after reading the secondary news information.

Here are the following questions we interviewed and the corresponding response we got from them.

➢ Questions to Employee:-

1. What is your experience of working with IBM Watson?

The exposure provided with this artificial product of IBM Watson makes it a great place to work.
Development of IBM Watson has reduced manual effort and human error to a significant amount.
This new generation techniques helps us solve complex data integration problems and due to which
it is accepted by many big firms like Salesforce etc.

2. What is the general perception of the employees working with you on IBM Watson?

They feel relaxed as there is no more tension about developing solutions, getting errors and no
specific time allotted for regression testing. The AI platform takes care of all minute details. But news
tasks come at a very fast pace due to which the work load is almost the same .Overall working with
this new age technology is a very good experience.

3. How true is the overhype around Watson? How did IBM respond to criticism of Chamath
Palihapitiya?

The overhype around Watson is not true. Our clients appreciate Watson seeing its efficiency to solve
complex problems due to which they bring in more complex analysis to us to find solution. The IBM-
Client relationship has been very healthy. And as we know Chamath Palihapitiya has taken back his
comments which shows that IBM takes criticism very seriously. This criticism has not affected the
trust of our clients on IBM.

4. What had happened with MD Anderson? Isn’t that supporting the overhype?

The team was not able to produce the tool to be used by the patients as the algorithm to be used
was very complex. The contract with MD Anderson was cancelled. This is not supporting the
overhype as we already discussed that the overhype is false.

5. How has this situation affected your work inside IBM especially the reaction from the
management?

The management was for one time thinking about any action from the client side. But the solutions
provided by the projects using IBM Watson was appreciated by them. We took our work very
seriously in terms of improvement of Watson's performance. The result as we all know is IBM Watson
has come up with new techniques on governance and solutions in the field of health and pharmacy.

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 6. Why has there not been significant improvement in the technology of Watson apart from
small updates?

The algorithm used in IBM Watson is made user-friendly but at an initial stage the algorithm is
complex. After conducting a number of tests, the user-friendly algorithm is used in the projects. The
process takes time because the other parameters working are also ensured to be working efficiently.
The research is still in progress.

➢ Questions to Customer

1. How was your experience of using IBM Watson?

The algorithm is bit difficult to understand initially but as we get along the tasks become bit easy to
handle. The responsibility of creating solution was equally important to the responsibility of keeping
the previous algorithm intact and efficient. Overall my experience was good.

2. What was the reaction of your clients and the employees working with you?

The clients’ expectation was huge because they expected the solution to deliver within limited
deadline. That used to be very hectic .Butte exposure was very good and enriching as the clients
were satisfied with the solutions offered by Watson. The co-employees were supportive as the
technology is new and everyone needed help in their respective tasks.

3. Do you think the claim made by Chamath Palihapitiya is correct?

Yes the claim was partially correct because with other competitors coming in, IBM Watson will face
a tough competition, like Accenture coming up with MyWizard. The marketing team of IBM Watson
is not working properly as it follows aggressive marketing strategy to attract clients.

4. What had happened with MD Anderson? Is that supporting the overhype?

The contract was cancelled as they were not able to develop a tool for a long time which increased
the expense of the client very largely. I won’t say it supports the overhype but the client expectation
was high from Watson due to the optimistic claims by IBM Watson Marketing team without ensuring
it. So I would say it’s not the fault of the technical team but the marketing team.

5. How has this situation affected your work inside IBM especially the reaction from the
management?

We as employees were very serious about our work and especially the deadlines. The period was a
bit stressful because we had to work for the reputation of IBM. The management was strict in
meeting the deadlines and if there had to be any delay the clients were informed earlier.

6. Why has there not been significant improvement in the technology of Watson apart from
small updates?

Now IBM Watson has been focusing on building solution using this AI platform.The focus on the
technology used in Watson has been shifted to building wide range of solution in different fields
where as both the things should go in parallel

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 Organization Perception

Our interview with the stakeholders clearly gave us the distinction between the employees working
in the organization and those outside it. The employees were loyal towards the organization where
as the employee who left the organization could say the problems which he faced easily because he
had no obligation to respect the reputation of the organization they were serving. The following is
observation.

Organization Perception of Employee.

• Employees working for IBM were concerned about organization legitimacy and
organizational trustworthiness.

• They gave attention on the reputation of the organization.

• Irrespective of the negative public review, they supported the consistency of their
organization.

• They focused on positive aspects like status and the appreciation they get and were not
affected by the negative impacts from any other side.

Organization Perception of Employee

• They focused on the arguments, evidence and illustrations.

• Their review was not taken seriously which led to working overtime and dissatisfaction.

• The main fault was it was not transparent with the decision making in terms of marketing
the product. Aggressive marketing posed negative public reviews and bad reputation of the
company

• As such IBM Watson was little employee centric, it didn't focus on it competitor penetration.

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 Solutions

The main problem according to the customers was the aggressive marketing strategy adopted by
IBM. In order to prevent this and some other issues like hearing out grievances below is the
following:-

1. Transforming the organization values like precision, logic and transparency; maintaining
aspirational ambitions but recognize that short-term wins are necessary with the help of
cutting edge methodology. Organizations should focus on creating value for customers by
focusing on innovation. In today’s world, brand is an experience and experience is a brand.
This requires approach to campaigns and communications that are less interruptive and
more employee eccentric. E-CRM platform can be used to boost automation and efficiency
to be human-first business. Business should be developed in such a way the customer and
employee would care about each other which would optimize them for continued growth
and can make business interaction simpler and more surprising for customers today and
those we know with be customers tomorrow.

2. Focusing on marketing strategies like Digital marketing optimization, Leveraging deep

insights across the ecosystem, Customer-centric marketing and Marketing operations
optimization. Digital marketing performs systematic capability powered by technology,
organization and processes. This can be helpful for customer changes and target disruptive
innovation. It helps to develop customer centric strategies for market strategy and customer
value proposition to provide profit centric growth. It helps us optimize marketing technology
to showcase impact business performance. It optimizes marketing operations to better
source and manage value from investment, process etc.

3. Designing a product portfolio matrix which includes demand centric growth and go-to-
market strategy. This includes personalization that requires digital marketing strategy,
marketing effectiveness, Next generation sales, and Sales and channel transformation. In this
world where online chats and digitally transformed shop floor assistants can post in social
media with consumers at particular time.

4. There should a grievance cell so that customers can raise their issues if the employees are
reluctant to listen by working on the feedback from the employees. They can engage some
third party or any senior executives to understand the problems faced by the employees and
work on it

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 References

1. Primary Source of information

a. Questions to Employee: To collect the information we connected with the employee
through a phone call and recorded the call in consent of the employee for further
references
b. Questions to Customer: To collect the information we connected with the employee
through WhatsApp as he is shifted to USA.
2. Secondary Source of Information
a. To collect the secondary information we searched the various news article published
that time by the big media houses such as
I. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonbloomberg/2017/07/02/is-ibm-
watson-a-joke/#56610d38da20
II. https://www.cmswire.com/digital-workplace/will-ibms-artificial-
intelligence-moves-repair-bad-pr/
III. https://gizmodo.com/why-everyone-is-hating-on-watson-including-the-
people-w-1797510888

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