In the technology industry companies must be up-to-date and watch for changes in the horizon that could severely affect them. The disadvantage with a large company is if it has invested or is known for one technology and other technology comes along that will replace it, it could put the company’s existence into question.
Large companies are like supertankers; their size allows them to weather huge waves and storms. Maneuvering these behemoths is another thing. There may be a huge coral formation up ahead and if it doesn’t see it on time it cannot turn fast enough to avoid the danger.
IBM is a technology company. It was and is still big on large computers for large companies. Many observed though that it initially missed the PC market boom and they basically gave away the software market to Microsoft by having Bill Gates handle the OS for their products.
Samuel Palmisano is the chairman of “supertanker” IBM. He has successfully piloted IBM through changing times. Palmisano was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1951 and graduated with a BA in History from John Hopkins University in 1973. He was actually good enough of a football player to be invited by the NFL’s Oakland Raiders to try out for the team.
Instead he took a sales job with IBM and has been with the company ever since. He proved to be great at sales but was also in touch with the technology side of the business. Rising through the ranks he became the CEO in 2002.
He had a big shoe to fill since predecessor Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. was largely responsible for saving IBM from collapse and guiding it to surprising recovery. For Palmisano he had his own ideas for the company. He continued the push for making IBM a service company. He also championed on-demand service which today is better known as cloud service. He took the bold step of selling the multi-billion PC business to focus more on service pointing out the low margin model did not fit IBM.
Palmisano took bold steps that are benefitting IBM today.
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