The Next Growth Strategy for IBM

In a March 9, 2009 article entitled “IBM chief upbeat on growth potential”, Kevin White writes about IBM’s optimism that it can parlay its 8 million square feet of data center resources into a virtualized, cloud based computing infrastructure that dynamically manages business services. “In an upbeat letter to shareholders, chairman and CEO Sam Palmisano outlined how the company would develop smart, digitally aware, networked and intelligent systems with pervasive instrumentation and interconnection, as well as build out cloud computing services. ”

IBM’s Willy Chiu, VP for IBM’s Cloud Labs described how the company is working to be able to string them all together through virtualisation and cloud-based provisioning so as to be able to dynamically manage business services. “Ultimately, it’s all about changing the economics of enterprise computing. It’s all about boosting efficiency. And it’s about doing more with less.”

Before Twitter, before Google, before Microsoft there was IBM. The gold standard of corporate excellence was a proud organization and the “men of IBM” wore blue suits with white ties. IBM stood for reliability and innovation. It was the “go to” equipment choice – don’t bother considering the alternatives.

But dominance led to complacency and IBM lost its way. This loss of prestige and power was personified by its inability to understand young Bill Gates who clearly outmaneuvered IBM in Microsoft’s early days. Since then, the proudest of U.S. corporations has been quiet for a long time. Its biggest news was its 2004 $1.75B sale of its PC business to the Lenovo Group. IBM once dominated this business but failed to keep pace with Dell and Hewlett Packard.

Can IBM rise once more and be king? Stay tuned.

–Art Jacoby

Devise Business Growth Strategies With A Business Growth Consultant

Devising correct marketing and business growth strategies are important for expansion of all businesses. Only those products that are marketed well sell in the market. They sell because their promoter has done his groundwork well. He has found out answers to the basic questions that determine the success of any business. He has found out who he is, what is he doing, which is his market, who are the potential customers, and when does he want do product launch and how does he trap customers.

The marketing plan document developed by the promoter will have answers to all these queries and lay the foundation of the business’ success or failure, depending on how cautiously it has been planned. A marketing strategy must be written and communicated in a very simple way so that it conveys in a nutshell what it intended to.

Professional business consultancy services come to a promoter’s rescue in this area. Such professionals help the promoters in developing a vision for the company by identifying the business’ strengths and areas of improvement. They also gaze loopholes in several business related strategies and modify them to achieve the set goals.

View Your Consultants as Marketing Partners:

Consultants can offer you relevant advice on necessary business tactics after studying the market trends. Their suggestions are based on their market analysis that views various market related facts under the microscope. Some factors that consultant consider while compiling a market report include preferences of the consumers, consumer habits and their buying power, and the competition that the new business is likely to face in the targeted area.

Thus, the consultants help you in determining the feasibility of your business, and therefore act as your marketing partners. They weigh pros and cons of business strategies and advice you accordingly. Besides, they offer a variety of services including business start-up advice, operation analysis, formulating marketing strategies, making business plans, management consulting, and much more.

How Do Consultants Help With Business Growth Strategies?

Expert consultancy services are available in the market. They can increase the productivity of your business manifold, allowing you to concentrate on management or other services related to the core business. Such services are personalized and customized for user satisfaction. Besides developing marketing strategies, consultants also undertake the work of marketing them. They do it in many ways – propagating through advertisements in public places, creating catchy television ads, or by simply offering incentives to the buyers when the buy a particular company’s products.

E-commerce marketing strategies are also gaining a lot of popularity, since they are low-cost ways to advertise. There are specialized business consultants who develop websites for companies and implement effective strategies to create traffic that generate revenues for the company.

So, go ahead hire a personal marketing partner to show you the right direction.

– Alexander Gordon