Professional Documents
Culture Documents
INFORMATION Institute of
SYSTEMS Technology
RESEARCH
In order to move a $100 billion company’s tially, it manufactured and sold a range of meas-
needle, you have to do something in a uring and recording instruments and machinery
profound way. You have to consolidate it as well as equipment like meat and cheese sli-
and drive an agenda that will result in real cers. IBM quickly turned its focus to large-scale
value to the company. —Pat Toole, CIO custom tabulating solutions for business. In the
1940s, IBM entered the computing business, and
Pat Toole, IBM’s CIO, was contemplating
in 1952 introduced the first large computer
IBM’s upcoming 100th anniversary. IBM was
based on the vacuum tube.
one of the world’s top providers of computer
products and services and among the world’s In the 1960s, IBM began unbundling its software
leaders in every market in which it competed. and services from hardware, which eventually led
to a multi-business unit structure. Regardless of
Toole had been with the company since 1984.
the line of business, however, IBM sold computer
Like most IBM executives, he lived through
products and services to technology managers and
some difficult times. He knew that the recent
transformation of his BT/IT1 organization was centralized purchasing departments who could
authorize large IT-related purchasing or leasing
not so much an accomplishment as a step on a
decisions. The widespread adoption of the PC and
journey. IBM’s IT organization was undergoing
client-server arrangements changed the way that
changes internally while positioning the com-
companies bought computers; individuals and di-
pany for continuous—often dramatic—change.
visions purchased their own computers, rather
So, even as he worked to classify accountability
than relying on central purchasing to provision the
for his restructured organization, he was looking
equipment and systems. IBM did not have rela-
ahead to future changes.
tionships with these new buyers, and thus began
Company Background losing money starting in 1990.
Created by the merger of three companies, IBM In 1993, when annual net losses had grown to $8
was incorporated in 1911 in New York. Ini- billion, IBM brought in Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. as
chairman and CEO to tackle the firm’s per-
1
The IT unit at IBM is called Business Transformation/ formance problems. Gerstner took the reins of a
Information Technology—BT/IT. highly decentralized firm. One of his first moves
This case study was prepared by Stephanie L. Woerner and Jeanne W. Ross of the MIT Sloan Center for Information Systems
Research. This case was written for the purposes of class discussion, rather than to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling
of a managerial situation. The authors would like to thank the executives at IBM for their participation in the case study.
© 2010 MIT Sloan Center for Information Systems Research. All rights reserved to the authors.
was to restructure and consolidate the business that increased the firm’s reliance on IT. To start,
(e.g., moving from country to global brand P&L the firm had to develop a low-cost IT infra-
statements), cutting expenses by $2.8 billion. structure on which the globally integrated sys-
Gerstner also initiated the shift to integrated tems would run. But the bigger challenge was
solutions and services. introducing common systems and processes—a
partnership effort between IT and the business
In 1994, net earnings rebounded to $3 billion.
units. These requirements on IT led to a new
By 2003, when Samuel J. Palmisano succeeded
name for the IT unit—Business Transformation
Gerstner as CEO, the firm had been steadily
and IT (BT/IT)—and started a transformation
growing profits. In 2008, IBM posted profitable
within the IT unit itself.
results despite a rapidly contracting global econ-
omy. The global financial crisis led to a drop in
Transforming IBM’s IT Function
revenues in 2009, but net income growth remained
strong and gross profit margin increased in 2009 IT in IBM had grown-up within the individual
(see Exhibit 1). business units. Thus, when Gerstner arrived in
1993, IT was as decentralized as the businesses.
The Path to Global Integration One count put the number of CIOs at 128. As
Gerstner, and then Palmisano, consolidated the
In 2010, IBM was organized into five major busi-
businesses, they also consolidated IT, gradually
ness units and operated in over 170 countries. The
transitioning from a decentralized to a federated
business was focused primarily on its growing
structure.
services business, which accounted for more than
half of sales. Led by sales in Brazil, India, and By 2008, IBM had 5,000 IT employees, of which
China, revenue growth in emerging markets was 4,500 were embedded in IT organizations within
eight points higher than in major markets. (See the business units; the remaining 500 people were
Exhibit 2 for a description of business units and in the central IT organization. Leaders of the five
2009 gross margin for each unit.) embedded IT units were dotted line reports to the
global CIO, who set policy and standards, and
The firm’s increasingly global business model
gave technical guidance (see Exhibit 3 for the
led to highly distributed operations. Over 50% of
2008 organization structure). For IT infrastructure
IBM’s people were outside the United States, and
support, the business units relied on IBM’s Global
those people were increasingly mobile. Over
Technology Services (GTS) unit—the same unit
50% regularly worked outside of company offi-
that provided infrastructure services for external
ces. The global distribution of its people and the
customers. The business units regularly called on
diversity of its businesses constantly challenged
IBM’s Global Business Services (GBS) for
the firm’s efforts to drive efficiencies in a com-
application development services. GTS and GBS
petitive industry.
maintained an arms-length relationship with
In 2006, Palmisano laid out Roadmap 2010, an BT/IT, treating IBM the same as external clients.
initiative to raise earnings per share from $6 to
In 2008 IT budgets, resources, headcount,
$10$11 per share. The focus of Roadmap 2010
prioritization, and planning all supported the
was on reducing expenses and increasing effi-
needs of the individual business units. The busi-
ciencies as well as driving top-line growth. Man-
ness units made their own investment decisions
agement identified standardization of global busi-
and spent money to sponsor their particular
ness processes across IBM’s five businesses as a
business unit objectives. The CIO reviewed
significant opportunity for business efficiencies.
plans but did not have the authority to direct
Although business units continued to have P&L
spending towards specific business unit initia-
responsibilities, process owners would have greater
tives. There were some enterprise initiatives
authority to dictate common processes.
which the CIO’s office funded from a small
Globalizing and standardizing business process- pool of approximately $300M.
ses involved a major business transformation
IBM did not charge for services but relied on In 2008 process owners and business unit
process owners to manage costs as well as the leaders, along with some people who aligned
quality of service. Each shared service had a with the brands, attended the fall planning
process owner. Within BT/IT, Susan Watson, a meeting to decide the allocation of the limited
CIO report, was the enterprise process owner for global IT budget. The IT budget was not yet
BT/IT. She headed efforts to formalize IT pro- centralized under the global CIO but IBM was
cesses common to all of IBM. moving toward a process-based structure. All
the proposed projects had compelling business
Because business units did not pay for shared cases but there was no easy way to assess the
services, moving the entire BT/IT budget under impact of the projects and prioritize them. The
the CIO introduced opportunities for business executives in attendance were asked to vote for
units to reduce costs by relying more on BT/IT the projects they thought were most important:
shared services:
We put them all together in a room and
If we make the enterprise solution the said, “Here are all the initiatives that have
least expensive and most productive come forward for where you think we
option, that drives behavior. It makes ought to spend our money. …There were
more business sense to distribute costs business cases built for each and every
Woerner and Ross Page 6 CISR Working Paper No. 381
one of those initiatives. …But it was in the volume of simple deals, while another team does
end 12 process owners and business unit a small number of highly complex deals. There
leaders making the decisions. were also instances where individual business
—Susan Watson, units had to upgrade legacy technology or had
VP, Enterprise Integration individual productivity needs that were not part
of a global enterprise process. Those cases did
In 2009, IT met with the senior vice presidents
not easily fit into the investment prioritization
to identity the set of objectives that should be met
process, even though they all had good business
in the planning process. They developed a common
cases. One method proposed to address these
framework for deciding on IT investments: (1) hard
cases involved allocating a small pool of funds to
business benefits (usually cost reductions); (2) a
TEs for discretionary spending:
qualitative assessment of contribution to making
IBM a “smarter” enterprise; and (3) risk manage- There are some individual productivity ini-
ment benefits. Leslie Gordon noted that having a tiatives in a business unit where I’m in-
set of objectives to guide decisions helped shape clined to say to the Transformation exec-
the debate: utives, “Take 10% of the IT investment
budget and you decide who you’re going to
Now we can really talk. “Here are the
satisfy in the business unit.” Because there
bazillion things we’re trying to do. Let’s
were some small business unit items being
prioritize them and rationalize them a-
escalated… That may be important work
gainst each other as well.”
for the transformation execs to sort out,
—Leslie Gordon, Vice President,
but we can’t devote our time there. For
Application and Infrastructure
instance, there is an enormous amount
Service Management
of energy spent on developing business
The process leaders met and allocated the IT cases... From a process perspective, let’s
budget according to the framework. BT/IT lead- make sure we have everything covered
ers found the process faster, and they estimated for the 90%. And then you, as an indi-
that business leaders got 85% of what they want- vidual, decide what you need to do to
ed. No major business need was left unsatisfied. advance your piece of the business.
We chose the projects with the highest —Pat Toole, CIO
value and with the right ‘mix’ of short Although the new prioritization process ad-
term vs. long term value and overall dressed changing business needs—deploying
impact to the business... —Susan Watson new software, bringing in iPhones, tuning the
Business units continued to present IT initia- network to run faster—one of IBM’s highest
tives, but those projects were prioritized along priorities was delivering operational excellence.
with everything else, leading to a more trans- The Run organization had to ensure that every
parent view of the IT dollars available: system was up at quarter close so that every sale
was closed. Legacy systems hindered the effort.
We’re doing fewer smaller types of in- Thus, IBM intended to monitor its investment
vestments and more larger investments process to make sure that it did not compromise
and those investments are in better align- infrastructure investments.
ment with IBM’s enterprise priorities and
strategy. —Bruce Greiner, Positioning BT/IT for the Future
Director of Operations and By the time the majority of the transformation
Enterprise Portfolio Management was complete, reporting structure, roles and in-
The move to an enterprise process framework vestment emphasis had changed significantly.
surfaced tensions about how to fund individual However, the job activities of 6080% of BT/IT
productivity needs in the business units. For employees had not changed. Nor was there any
example, one team might focus on doing a high significant geographic movement of employees.
Exhibit 2
IBM Business Units
2009 2009
Gross Revenue
Business Unit Description Margin %
Exhibit 4
IBM IT: Current IT Structure
Executive Responsibilities
Bruce Greiner Director of Operations and Enterprise Portfolio Management for CIO Office
(running CIO organization including financial planning), Compliance
Testing, IT Advocacy
Susan Watson Strategy and Governance, Enterprise Architecture, Outsourcing (with GBS),
Business Process Management Framework
Market to Opportunity
Opportunity to Order
Order to Cash
Procure to Pay
Support
Develop Strategy/Execute
Manage Finances
Manage BT/IT
Deliver Services