The Hindu Business Line : IBM lessons

What are the lessons from IBM’s successful turnaround and growth? “Perhaps the most important lesson is that a company with good people and good technology doesn’t have to go on an acquisition binge in order to grow,” observes Marc H. Meyer in The Fast Path to Corporate Growth ( www.oup.com). “It can grow from within – by leveraging its capabilities to new users and uses.”

Another lesson, according to Meyer, is that good people and technology are insufficient. “A growth-seeking enterprise needs a strategy for leveraging its technologies into new market applications.” The very definition of the ‘new market application’ means that the corporation must learn about the needs, preferences, and frustrations of potential customers and how they currently use products and services, the author insists. Innovation has to become core business model, permeating into price offerings, channel choices, and so on. “That means that in addition to user research, product prototypes, and user tests of those prototypes, an innovation team developing a new market application must also build (and sell) a tightly integrated business plan to senior management.”

A powerful marketing strategy that creates excitement for new product lines and services is also a must, he adds. “Gerstner understood the power of marketing and branding; e-business and On Demand have helped fuel IBM’s resurgence.” A book that can handhold you to growth.

D. Murali

http://BookPeek.blogspot.com

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