Whoa!
posted by Vinod Sankar at
1:34 PM
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1 comments
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
Jeff Immelt interview
An interview (by Fast Company) with the CEO of my favourite company on campus! Is running business all about people ultimately??
A line from the interview on how you get people pumped:
"People want to win. And if people think they've been given the capability to win and are with winners, that's how you get people in the game. People who want to build things and like who they work with will stay with us."
A line from the interview on how you get people pumped:
"People want to win. And if people think they've been given the capability to win and are with winners, that's how you get people in the game. People who want to build things and like who they work with will stay with us."
posted by Vinod Sankar at
1:16 PM
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1 comments
I've heard this before!
Hey, Wall Street's calling for HP to be broken up into different pieces. Standard line of reasoning: certain parts of the company's business are being used to pump money into others than aren't doing well.
The call for chopping up the company sounds very similar to what was being asked of IBM some 13 years back. Back then, Lou Gerstner decided that IBM derived it's strength from all the different things that it was capable of doing. The whole being greater than the sum of parts.
HP's problem is that it's confused about whether it wants to be a Dell or an IBM. Interesting read (from news.com).
The call for chopping up the company sounds very similar to what was being asked of IBM some 13 years back. Back then, Lou Gerstner decided that IBM derived it's strength from all the different things that it was capable of doing. The whole being greater than the sum of parts.
HP's problem is that it's confused about whether it wants to be a Dell or an IBM. Interesting read (from news.com).
posted by Vinod Sankar at
1:03 PM
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1 comments
IBM's brand value - Can you explain it?
I also read BusinessWeek because they say good things about my company (hehe)!
IBM is ranked the 3rd most valuable brand in the world by BW. But a certain Kiran Mani (very enthu guy in the company) keeps poiting out that IBM is the highest ranked B2B brand. Coke's and Microsoft's products are used by you and me. IBM's aren't, he says!
I've always wondered how the IBM brand is worth as much as it is. I mean, it's a brand that rarely comes in contact with the average person (now that we've sold off ThinkPad to Lenovo, the chances of 'contact' are even more remote).
If you think of IBM as a manufacturer of hardware products (mainframes, and other servers), then these machines are almost never seen by the person walking into office everyday.
Further, more than half of our revenues are generated by the IBM Global Services, our services arm. Even here, there is no tangible product. Only people's expertise is sold here.
BTW, IBM's also a software company (I'm confused over whether it's the 2nd or 3rd largest here). But again, it's not software products that you and I can work with (except for the Lotus brand). It's software that runs under all the user-facing applications, like the database, for example. Yet again, hidden away from the end-user!
How, how then is the IBM brand worth so much??!!
IBM is ranked the 3rd most valuable brand in the world by BW. But a certain Kiran Mani (very enthu guy in the company) keeps poiting out that IBM is the highest ranked B2B brand. Coke's and Microsoft's products are used by you and me. IBM's aren't, he says!
I've always wondered how the IBM brand is worth as much as it is. I mean, it's a brand that rarely comes in contact with the average person (now that we've sold off ThinkPad to Lenovo, the chances of 'contact' are even more remote).
If you think of IBM as a manufacturer of hardware products (mainframes, and other servers), then these machines are almost never seen by the person walking into office everyday.
Further, more than half of our revenues are generated by the IBM Global Services, our services arm. Even here, there is no tangible product. Only people's expertise is sold here.
BTW, IBM's also a software company (I'm confused over whether it's the 2nd or 3rd largest here). But again, it's not software products that you and I can work with (except for the Lotus brand). It's software that runs under all the user-facing applications, like the database, for example. Yet again, hidden away from the end-user!
How, how then is the IBM brand worth so much??!!
posted by Vinod Sankar at
12:36 PM
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19 comments
Software to fine-tune inventories
Another BusinessWeek article (yes, I am biased in my reading).
Liked it because it combines all my favourite topics:
The solution - using databases, statistical models, and forecasts - reminded me of a 2nd year elective at IIM Lucknow called 'Quantitative models in transportation and telecomunication' (no prizes for guessing that I didn't do well in that particular course!) taught by a gentleman named Prof. Y K Agarwal.
This one's for Prof. YKA!
Liked it because it combines all my favourite topics:
- A business problem - in this case, the amount of all the different types (40,000 in this case!) of spare parts to be held in inventory.
- A technology solution - powerful software with algorithms that will do this for you!
The solution - using databases, statistical models, and forecasts - reminded me of a 2nd year elective at IIM Lucknow called 'Quantitative models in transportation and telecomunication' (no prizes for guessing that I didn't do well in that particular course!) taught by a gentleman named Prof. Y K Agarwal.
This one's for Prof. YKA!
posted by Vinod Sankar at
12:15 PM
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1 comments
Relevance of the CIO
I thought my first post would be more formal, with an introduction (of myself, who else!), but then I'd like this blog to be a little more meaningful than that!
If it's useful, and is being attended to on a regular basis, that's good enough!
Talking business now: It's been three months since I joined IBM in sales, and I've been pretty disheartened with my limited exposure to the world of the CIO. Here's why:
So I guess the onus lies on salespersons (and others who belive technology can be pretty damn useful for business) to get the CIO to think a little different.
Here's an article from set of BusinessWeek articles on the relevance of the CIO.
Excerpts:
CIOs that turn in solid results get asked to join CEOs in mapping out corporate strategy and entrusted to manage projects outside of IT.
CEOs are recognizing that, of all the levers they have to implement their strategy, technology can push all those levers. You want to change the sales force? Part of that change revolves around technology. You want to change the supply chain, how much inventory you need to have? That has a technology component as well.
We see CIOs' credibility with CEOs being driven by two factors: One, by how well the CIO runs IT -- are they managing their resources responsibly? Are they providing quality services? Two, by how well IT helps the business to achieve its goals.
On a basic level, is IT meeting its current obligations, such as providing services to users? Then, does the CIO understand the company's strategic direction and are decisions made that support it, as opposed to just making decisions that support IT?
High-credibility CIOs come with a business solution to a problem and a couple of technology options to solve it. Then they enter into a dialogue with the CEO about how to solve the business problem.
One example: IT departments are, generally, pretty good at managing their suppliers, whereas a lot of other parts of the organization don't manage their vendors well. So we've seen CIOs starting to get responsibilities for managing vendors and managing alliances outside of IT. We've also seen CIOs that are good at project management being given responsibility to manage product launches.
If it's useful, and is being attended to on a regular basis, that's good enough!
Talking business now: It's been three months since I joined IBM in sales, and I've been pretty disheartened with my limited exposure to the world of the CIO. Here's why:
- The CIO (at least the ones I've seen until now) don't really seem to understand the businesses they work for. My reasoning is that IT in such organizations is used only for mundane things like ensuring that certain basic apps are always up and running. How much of 'business understanding' does one need for that?!
- The CIO (again, only the ones I've seen!) does not seem to have too many technology initiatives for the company. Again, I feel that if you don't undersand what business you're in, what IT initiatives are you going to push for?? One obviously does not have too many ideas on how one can help the business technologically in such a scenario.
So I guess the onus lies on salespersons (and others who belive technology can be pretty damn useful for business) to get the CIO to think a little different.
Here's an article from set of BusinessWeek articles on the relevance of the CIO.
Excerpts:
CIOs that turn in solid results get asked to join CEOs in mapping out corporate strategy and entrusted to manage projects outside of IT.
CEOs are recognizing that, of all the levers they have to implement their strategy, technology can push all those levers. You want to change the sales force? Part of that change revolves around technology. You want to change the supply chain, how much inventory you need to have? That has a technology component as well.
We see CIOs' credibility with CEOs being driven by two factors: One, by how well the CIO runs IT -- are they managing their resources responsibly? Are they providing quality services? Two, by how well IT helps the business to achieve its goals.
On a basic level, is IT meeting its current obligations, such as providing services to users? Then, does the CIO understand the company's strategic direction and are decisions made that support it, as opposed to just making decisions that support IT?
High-credibility CIOs come with a business solution to a problem and a couple of technology options to solve it. Then they enter into a dialogue with the CEO about how to solve the business problem.
One example: IT departments are, generally, pretty good at managing their suppliers, whereas a lot of other parts of the organization don't manage their vendors well. So we've seen CIOs starting to get responsibilities for managing vendors and managing alliances outside of IT. We've also seen CIOs that are good at project management being given responsibility to manage product launches.
posted by Vinod Sankar at
10:23 AM
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4 comments
