March 2004
Intermediate to advanced
336 pages
9h 32m
English
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A Complexity Case Study—IBM
Consider IBM's experience with complexity when it hired Lou Gerstner as CEO in 1993. IBM's market share and profitability were eroding due to its difficulty in adjusting to the growth of new technology, such as PCs. IBM chose Gerstner, its first CEO from outside the company and outside the computer industry, to right the ship.
Why did IBM select Gerstner? The company recognized that, above all, it needed a strategist to determine what customers really wanted and a change agent to transform a complex engineering-oriented culture to a customer-driven culture. In this light, Gerstner's track record as a McKinsey strategy consultant, a turnaround specialist at Nabisco, and a builder of financial-service product lines at ...