Ibm Case Study

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Case study analysis 1: IBM’s rise, fall and transformation: perspective on marketing strategy. 1. Core competences are the capabilities that are vital in a firm to achieve competitive advantage. In order for IBM to transform itself into a service-centric organisation, it required some changes in their core competences to achieve such a state. The first being a change in focus. During Gerstners evaluation of IBM’s problems, he realised that the marketplace was shifting towards the application of technology rather than its invention. This prompted Gerstner to exit the network hardware business, storage and personal computers and enter the software and services businesses. This led to a radical change in IBM’s competitive strategy which stressed on focus, speed, customers, teamwork and execution. He imposed a new management style and corporate culture on IBM, one that was ruthless about staff numbers, operated new cost controls, reduced its non-essential asset base, and built it into a successful business. He also made sure that the company was more flexible by enabling IBM to deal with the constantly evolving technology market. Another change is that IBM became more customer-oriented following its transformation into a service-centric organisation. Based on his understanding of customer needs and from his own experience as a customer during his time at American Express, Gerstner realised that IBM had lost touch with its customers and sought to rectify this by entering the services industry. He knew that an organisation could not be successful without paying attention to its customers. 2. Gerstner used his as experience as a management consultant at Mckinsey and Co, and brought with him a customer-oriented sensibility and strategic-thinking expertise. Therefore, Gerstner’s implementation style of the competitive strategy can be described as calculated yet

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