Free Custom «IBM Organisation Introduction» Essay Paper

IBM (International Business Machines Corporation) is American information Technology Company, founded on June 16, 1911 under the name the Computing Tabulating Recording Company. The company adopted its current name in 1924. The company employs approximately 427,000 people, serves clients in 170 countries, and has headquarters in Armonk, New York. The company sells and manufactures software and hardware for computers, provides predictive analytics and consulting services in the areas of nanotechnology and mainframe computers, software development and systems management, servers and supercomputers. The company operates in such segments as software, global financing (deals with debt and controls the associated risks, and invests in financing assets), global business services, global technology services (provides business, process and IT infrastructure services), systems and technology (provides clients with solutions to advanced computing power), and specializes in IT services, software, security, disaster recovery, strategy, business analytics and optimization, enterprise architecture, consulting, outsourcing, semiconductors, microprocessors etc (Datamonitor Business Information Centre, 2005).

 

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In 1930s IBM designed and manufactured calculators. During the period between 1939 and 1963 the company has significantly expanded its product line. The year 1944 was good for cooperation with HarvardUniversity as they financed the invention of the Mark 1 computer. Since 1953 IBM was ready to produce its own personal computers. In 1985 local area networks were introduced. They permitted computer users to exchange information. IBM lost its position to Hewlett-Packard (in terms of annual revenue) in 2006. Today the company is strong because of its combined expertise in services, solutions, technologies and products (IBM Company Profile, n.d.).

IBM owns the greatest number of patents than any other technological company. The employees of IBM have won National Medals of Science, Turing Awards, National Medals of Technology, and Nobel Prizes. The corporation’s famous inventions include the floppy disc, the hard disk drive, the automated teller machine, the relational database, the financial swap, Watson artificial intelligence and others.

As any organization, IBM faces challenges. Organizational decision-makers are attacked by potential issues that could affect their performance. The company has singled out its outstanding past performances and exemplary mode of management. Nevertheless, IBM currently faces issues, emanating from the external and internal environments, suggesting that past modes of operating may not fit their current competitive context. The company faces decrease in demand of personal computers and minicomputers, new service units have small profit margins that cause low profitability; confidence of employees and customers which was damaged in 1990s is not fully restored, it is convinced of unfair trade on the market etc.

Thus, IBM is one of the best companies of a worldwide industry that revolutionizes the way in which people, organizations and enterprises operate; it pioneered information technology branch for many years. The company’s character has been formed over 100 years. Almost all products of the company were designed to store, retrieve, record, and process information. However, in the 1990s IBM faced decline in profitability and had a loss of nearly $14 billion, in three years id had the largest corporate loss. It is explained by the decision to replace the CEO (IBM Company Report, 2007). Nowadays IBM is an enterprise which is values-based; it creates and applies technology to improve out lives. New generations of chief executives, who have studied mistakes of the past, bring out new products trying to renew the company.