Social Media Presence of IBM Incorporation
Executive Summary
IBM Company is a multinational company that seeks to
solve the limitations of humans through the development of both home-made and business
computers. It has been achieved by intensive research, innovation, and
invention. The company has garnered comparative and competitive edge by
employing very competitive workforce, employing the strategy of expanding their
products to reach the global market. Through differentiation of the products to
serve the low, middle and high-income earner, IBM has managed to increase their
sales and emerge one of the most profitable organizations across the globe. In
addition, the company have become useful for both the managers and other senior
employees since they can use the IBM products like computers to analyze large
set of data, analyze them and eventually evaluate them to make focus on the
future economic conditions. The company has also developed strategies that they
are using to explore new markets and serve various customers who come from
different parts of the world. Amidst the challenges faced by the company, the
senior personnel is always striving to change them into various opportunities
to counter the global competition posit by other competing firms. It,
therefore, enables them to become 4th in branding globally.
Introduction
Being the World’s Largest Computer Corporation, IBM
Corporation (IBM) is an United States Multinational Consulting and technology
corporation, that has its headquarters in Armonk area of New York city (Chen,
& Wang, 2012). IBM manufactures the products related to computers, its
hardware, software and other necessary products of it. Also sells the same
products which are manufactured by IBM in their own house. Moreover, IBM also offers
various services to the Microframe computers include infrastructure services,
consulting and hosting services and Nanotechnology services. The genesis of IBM
dates back in 1911 when it began as a cloud Tabulating, recording and analyzing
by a merger of 3 companies namely computing scale corporation , International
time recording company and the tabulating machine company.
According to historical records, IBM produced its
first computer in 1953, and it was named it 701. In the decade of 1960s and
1970s, IBM initiates to develop the new field in computer worlds by development
of mainframe and minicomputers. In year 1981, IBM promote its first personal
computer with the name of IBM PC
which upon its introduction into the market, it became the default reference
standard for PCs (Yoon, 2005). IBM not able to estimate the market requirement
of PCs and they lost their market share to sellers of PC manufactured
corporation such as Compaq.
IBM has a team of scientists, consultants, engineers,
sales professionals over 200 countries of the world. With the passage of time
IBM has awarded for Nobel Prize for 5 times with that IBM also received National
medals from nine countries for technology, National medals from 5 countries for
science and Turing awards for four times. The way in which IBM acquires its
staff is through handpicking professionals, IBM trains them to specialize in
assessing needs of training, administering, designing, delivering, developing
and evaluating solutions for training. Nevertheless, it blends technology with
various traditional methods. These customized training for IT solutions will increase
the knowledgeable employee in IBM organization. While recruiting, IBM
institutes taking four processes that include: written test, group discussion,
technical interview, HR interview.
Interesting Inventions
IBM invented SQL over 40 years ago. SQL is still in
use today as a lingua franca of data querying for its simplistic syntax and
ubiquity across an organization.IBM is also an early contributor to Hadoop.
Being a top innovator, IBM is still inventing new machinery and new
technologies in the market. It has $24 billion investment in the platform. It
has indeed offered distribution based on the most current open source
technologist and provides a platform for best-in-class analytics (Earning
Company, 2001).
Technologies and Systems
IBM provides infrastructure technologies with various
segment of company. Whereas STG meets the technology needs of IBM by providing
packing solutions, products and Semiconductor technology.
Global Financing
Financing segment of company provides solution of
financing for services and products which is critical for business
operations. ( Chen, & Wang, 2012 ). IBM
entered into financing contracts after analysis of credit status and security
of contract by legal manner.
Global
financing includes financing to the end user by providing lease and loan
financing for 7 years.
Commercial Financing: is
financing to the account receivable and inventory for short term basis to the
dealer of IBM and OEM products.
The Company’s Competitors
Some of the largest competitors of IBM include
Accenture, Amazon.com Inc., Computer Science Corporation, Fujitsu, and Google.
Inc., Microsoft Corporation , Hewlett-Packard Program, CA, Inc., Oracle Corporation, Salesforce.com,
SAP, Cisco, Dell, Inc. etcetera.
Analysis and discussion
IBM’s brand occupies the fifth position in the Forbes
and earns recognition as being among the world’s most favorable brand courtesy
of the broad patent portfolio. In 2012, Fortune ranked IBM as being the second
largest U.S. Firm by the number of staffs (433,362) and the 4th largest
firm in the world in terms of market capitalization. Nevertheless, IBM was
declared the 9th most profitable firm and the placed 19th
rank in terms of revenue.
From a global view, in the list of Forbes 2011 the
company has been secured the 31st rank in the world in terms of
revenue. Other rankings include 2011/2012 as the being the number one company
for leaders, 1st rank in green company over global, 2nd
best brand over world and the 18th rank in most innovative company in
the world (Yoon, 2005).
Statistically Information revels that IBM have 9
laboratories over the world and IBM holds highest number of patents in the US
technologies company. The invention of
IBM includes the ATM, the airline reservation system, the magnetic stripe card,
the hard drive disk, the floppy disk, DRAM and Watson artificial intelligence.
Since the company was incorporated, it has undergone for
various changes in the organizations such as spinning off companies like
Lexmark (1991), PwC Consulting (2002),
ThinkPad to Lenovo (2005) and acquiring companies like (SPSS 2009).
Management
The company has efficient expert technical managers
who are committed to work and offer excellent support. This has been a secret
tool in which IBM has been using to bring a customer back to their premise.
Quality work is their motto.
Metric Tools
Social media analytics and monitoring tools
IBM's social media analytics provides powerful SaaS,
which offers a discovering of solution from hidden insights from millions of
online sources. At present, most enterprises rely on the social media to get a
better understanding of their target markets, customers as well as analyze
completion (Cohen, & Prusak, 2001). Thus, it is important to keep a deep
analytics expertise to transform the massive amount of data into actionable
insights. Essentially, IBM's social media analytics can help the business in several
ways as highlighted below:
·
Predict consumer behavior
·
Capture consumer data
·
Create customized campaigns
·
Identify the primary influencers. Within a given
social media network and lay targets with unique offers.
The presence of the organization in social media
IBM has a panel of professional marketers who sell
the companies' products and services all over to the nations. Additionally, IBM
has core metrics social that is formulated to help corporations analyze the
business impact of their social marketing initiatives. IBM's approach to
medical social analytics is based on the perception that people interact with
an organization's brand in myriad social media tools including emails, social
networking sites, company's websites etcetera. The number of followers, as well
as the market, captured via the social media is indeed significant and
contributes a lot to the generation of revenue to the company.
Social media goals of the organization
IBM seeks to dominate the social media market and
this can be justified by the fact that it recently established a consulting
practice to focus on "smarter commerce" that is chalked to assist
clients address the current digital marketplace. This new culture will see the
establishment of cloud analytics software that offers assistance to business in
monitoring brand's social media presence in real-time and hence enable them
adapt marketing campaigns and promotions based on customer's responses.
Ideally, business can measure their promotions as well as those of related companies
via the social media networks. Business can, therefore, expect up to 38% of
their special offers to be shared via email and social media. According to IBM,
an average of 28% of these links is likely to be "liked" or commented
on.
ROI
Despite the fact that most of the companies both
large and small use the social media to capture the market and obtain
customers, measuring the ROI of social media remains a challenge to most of
them. However, according to a survey conducted by Harvard Review Analytic services
in partnership with SAS, it revealed that only 12% of the respondents expressed
their view that the social media was useful and effective in availing and
informing the customers concerning the range of services offered by the company
(Cohen, & Prusak, 2001). However, the participation of more than 2,000 in a
survey in indeed a demonstration of how important the topic is and is one that
they are working hard to establish. Essentially, many executives are keen to
learn about the best practices in the fast developing and dynamic field. With
the increased diversity of the global markets, it has become essential to
reaching out the market even in the most remote areas. IBM has embraced social
media and actively used the social media to sell digital content as well as
offer social insights via mail. Other services that IBM conducts via mail
include content marketing, social training for managed social providers,
internet marketing as well as digital marketing workshops. It is thus able to
interact with clients via cloud, email, telephone as well as social business (Hawking &
Sellitto, 2015).
Statistics
By the end of 2011, IBM company had generated a
revenue of Revenue: $106.9 billion from continuing worldwide operations
and Net income: $15.9 billion. Its total assets base was $116.4 billion.
Statistically, IBM is among the highest worldwide company with the highest
number of employees of about 433,362. Being listed on the New York Stock
Exchange (NYSE: IBM), the company is the world leading corporation in a provision
of industry Computer software, Computer
hardware, IT consulting and IT services.
Metrics and measure of
Social media of IBM –
Number of followers -
IBM is very giant company in the world. With that they do not have that much
followers in social media. One of the statistics of survey revealed that even
company have 280000 employee in US but only 13000 followers on twitter and
95000 followers on face book which is very lower than the strength of company.
But company has higher number of followers on professional social media network
Linkedin. Maximum followers of IBM are from linkedin. IBM followers on linkedin
are 560000 from which 280000 are employee of IBM. And IBM placed on number one in US by way
number of followers by linkedin users.
Number of post -
Based on comment and post by IBM on social media, it
look like IBM have lower interest on social medial, As one post of IBM shows
only 11 comments. Hence users of IBM also not interested that much on social
media.
Social media and analytical
tools – Social median analytical tools helps to analyze the availability
of particular sites on social media and their effects thereon. Some of social
media tools are as under –
Viralheat - Viralheat is used to publish any product in
the social media. It identifies the social media buzz of particular product.
Spreadfast –
It creates the diagram based on effective use of social media by any
organization. Also it uses to know the presence of any product in social media.
Google alerts
– This tool is used to promote any product on the websites with pop up. It will
pop up during surfing by user.
Hence all the social media analytical tools used in
social media to know about the social media presence of organization, their
effectiveness in social media. Social media analytical tools for IBM reveal
that company does not have that much buzz in social media. Some critics say that IBM fails on social
media.
Social media mining tools
– Social media mining includes gathering data, representing it, analyzing data
and extracting relevant data. In order to generate information about company’s
social media we should gathered the data and analyses those data to get
required information. Hence social media mining tools helps to analyze the
information. Social media mining tools used in social media analytical tools to
analyze the information required for analysis in analytical tools.
Benefits of IBM Company
- Processes unstructured data
Through
the development of different computers which can be able to organize,
coordinate, evaluate and synchronize data, unorganized or unstructured data can
structure to give a useful meaning. The products of IBM has been used by many
companies to help them analyze data for various economic analysis and decisions
·
Aid in solving human
decisions
Products
made by the IBM company, such as computers aid in solving the human limitations
which arises in their daily lives. Through the use of computer software, different
companies and organizations can be able to make various managerial decisions
that aid even in the future planning and operations.
- Acts as a decision support system don't replace human
The services provided by the
company helps to increase both labor and capital productivity of various
governmental and nongovernmental organizations (Thompson, 2000). The incorporation of various
innovation and invention in the marketplace has led to the increment in the
level of total productivity of various companies around the globe
- Improve and transform customer service
The use of IBM product has
made the world become a global village. Customers can be able to trade for the
use of the internet, various transactions can be carried out via the internet,
and even the general trading system can be done online (Hawking &
Sellitto, 2015). The
innovations have increased the customer service in both IBM and other companies
around the globe. Also, the companies and organizations can also improve the
delivery of goods to the customer and make them aware of their products through
different advertisements
Purpose of IBM Company
·
The main purpose of this company is to explore
the existing global opportunities and balance the fluctuations in different
companies.
·
To come up with very big brand image and create
new products which appeals to the younger generations to come.
·
To acquire a competitive edge in both local and
global markets.
·
To promote the innovation and inventions through
research investments in information technology.it therefore, increases both
labor and capital productivity.
·
To enhance the use of an open operating system,
e.g., lines.it will enhance the
operation and activities of the company both in the short run and in the long
run.
·
To improve the
small medium business over there
years and great desire to increase the
market share
Strengths
·
IBM company have been holding t technological
patent for the next 17 years. It has made
·
It emerge the best in the whole world and beat
its competitor. By 2008 IBM managed to get 4186 patents and this number
increased to 4914 by 2009.in the same year, the company published 4000
innovation publications and other products without patents
·
IBM Company is known to be handling about 95% of
the activities of the leading businesses and companies in the USA
·
The company has won different awards in the
business and by 2009 they were recognized as the 4th company leading
in branding in the whole world (Thompson, 2000). They have also remained at the
top for more than 20 years consistently.
·
Given that it is an old company, IBM has
developed a good rapport with its clients, customers, and suppliers. It,
therefore, makes it one of the largest and most profitable companies around the
world with a profit of 66 billion
·
IBM is a global company that has managed to
employ more than 400000 employees all over the world. By this, it has gained
greater competitive advantage and comparative edge
·
By the creation of dedicated research labs
mainly for the creation of innovations and inventions, IBM have managed to
emerge the top among its competitors.
Weaknesses of IBM Company
·
Due to the size of the IBM Company makes it
suffer the diseconomies of scales. The response to the clients by the company
officials or employees is very slow which cannot match the demand of millions
of customers (Chen, & Wang, 2012).The slow response is not due to in
competencies of customers but because 400000 employees cannot provide efficient
customer support to the customers.
·
There is a great increase in the operating cost
and other costs arising from the competitors that eat into their market share.
It is evident that by 2010, IBM was forced to buy back $8 billion in stock
·
Going Global has made the company to other
nations have made the number of employees to increase immensely. It, therefore,
forces them to retrench other employees. For instance, by 2009, USA was forced
to retrench 30 000employees from the workforce (Thompson, H. (2000)..
Essentially, this makes the individuals unemployed hence lowering their general
living standards.
·
IBM Company has been undergoing a series of
problems in communication and networking of activities in different nations. It
mainly arises due to language barrier experienced by the employees and the
customers in different parts of the world were IBM company operates
·
Due to global recessions experienced globally,
the operations and activities of IBM interfere with. The financial activities
which contributes 30% of the IBM
Company's revenue are forced to decline. The recession also do affect the
operations of the equity banks and their ability to lend to the general public.
·
There is a decline in the storage and server and
storage accounts which mainly accounts for more than 20% of the company's
revenue.
Evaluation and recommendation
Being an international company with international
presence, IBM should seek to ensure efficiency in all its activities right from
the manufacturing process to the service delivery. Though there has been a
concern that its share price frequently fluctuates making some of the investors
shift their funds from the organization, IBM should strive to ensure that
establishes a reliable market share as well as monitor the activities of its
strong competitors in order to ensure that it is always ahead of them (Chen,
& Wang, 2012). As a matter of fact, it should strive to manage
sophisticated recommendations to align its incomes towards the achievement of
higher goals. Another recommendation would be to provide smarter content
recommendations through algorithms and personalization components. It should
also work towards delivering content to multiple channels and improve business
insights to increase performance and in the overall achieve merchandising and
marketing objectives.
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