| | By Mick James
The news that IBM’s
services revenues, now
52% of the business,
have not only failed to
grow but just dropped
back a notch, is a
surprise, particularly
as everybody else in the
industry is making hay –
analysts have drawn no
conclusions for the
sector as a whole.
IBM’s transition into
a services-led company
seemed to be proceeding
smoothly, a transition
neatly symbolised by the
sale of its PC division.
For me, though, what was
more significant was the
more symbolic knock-on
effect of this: it looks
like IBM will shortly be
overtaken by HP as the
biggest computer company
in the world. This is
one of those unsettling
bits of news – like the
BBC’s cancellation of
Top of the Pops or
Heinz’ revision of its
tomato soup recipe –
which only affects
people of a certain age,
a shift in the
fundamentals which would
have once seemed
unthinkable.
I cut my journalistic
teeth writing about IBM,
in the days when it was
big enough not only to
sustain several
magazines dedicated just
to its products, but
also whole books
claiming that IBM had to
be broken up to prevent
it from achieving world | |
| |
| | IBM. But when the push
to services began, all
of us
“industry-watchers”
wondered whether IBM
could adapt its culture
to the very different
demands of running a
services business.
Oddly enough, my
escape from the world of
Big Blue IT journalism
to write about
consultancy coincided
with IBM’s own foray
into consultancy in
1992. Since then the
march into services
seemed unstoppable, and
the acquisition of PwC’s
consultancy arm seemed
to indicate that the
accountancy profession
had finally ceded the
field to the IT
industry.
Now, things have
changed. All the top
consultancy firms are
suffering pressure, at
least at the recruitment
level, from the
resurgent Big Four.
Suddenly the gigantic
IT/SI/BPO firm seems a
little old-fashioned.
So IBM’s response is
interesting. According
to recent press reports,
the company is
transferring key
executives across from
the hardware side to
bring their experience
in areas such as product
planning, marketing and
branding to bear on the
services business.
This to me is
fascinating – can IBM | |
|
| | dig into the core of its
former brilliance and
sprinkle the gold dust
on its new, services
incarnation? Can
services like consulting
be “productised” and
turned into global lines
of business – I know the
thought will make many
consultants reach for
the smelling salts.
Personally, I think
there’s a lot more that
can be done in making
consultancy more
repeatable, more process
driven, more rigorous.
That doesn’t have to
mean the imposition of a
cookie-cutter approach
to all clients, riding
roughshod over their
individual tastes and
circumstances. But it
does mean that things
can be done better or
worse; that best
practice can be
established and
disseminated; that
proven steps to a
solution can be repeated
in later solutions,
rather than reinvented
(or worse, not used at
all) in later
assignments.
Consultants have long
sought to achieve this
Holy Grail, but without
too much success – look
at the money that went
on knowledge management
systems, for instance,
and then look at the
output of those systems.
What this proves is not
that repeatability and
reuse are unattainable | |
|
| | goals in consultancy,
but that they can’t
simply be grafted on to
existing practice.
Whether IBM is going
to try and drive its
manufacturing DNA into
the heart of its
services culture, or
simply apply some
manufacturing
disciplines to its
existing portfolio
remains to be seen. I
suspect the latter, but
I’d like to see it go
for a more radical and
potentially riskier
transformation of the
way services are
developed, sold and
consumed (but hey, it’s
not my money).
IBM is clearly at a
watershed: its drive
into services has been
successful, and its
services portfolio can
match anyone’s in the
world in terms of
breadth and quality. But
for me, as an old IBM
watcher, there’s always
been something missing –
they may have been great
services, but what made
them IBM services? When
were the gears going to
engage and deliver the
real horsepower that IBM
is capable of? Perhaps,
just perhaps, this is
the moment we’ve been
waiting for.
| |
|
Previous Page 
