The company which believes only change can take to another 100 successful years, IBM – International Business Machines marked Centenary, completed 100 years on 16th June 2011. Today the company stands as a giant against all innovation, technology and services group. During last 100 years IBM has seen all phases of economy, gone through several crisis and success. It has been a true leader.

The Success for company to stand so strong and been leader at the Global Market. There are several stories with IBM that emerged though our history are very complex tales of Big risk, lessons learned and discoveries that transformed the way we work and live.

Here sharing very fine article which walks through the history of IBM, it’s really an inspiring one.

Nearly all the companies our grandparents admired have disappeared.
Of the top 25 industrial corporations in the United States in 1900, only two
remained on that list at the start of the 1960s. And of the top 25 companies on the Fortune 500 in 1961, only six remain there today.
Some of the leaders of those companies that vanished were dealt a hand of bad luck. Others made poor choices. But the demise of most came about because they were unable simultaneously to manage their business of the day and to build their business of tomorrow.
As you read this, IBM begins its 101st year. Today we take a moment to
step back and view the longer arc of history. We’d like to share some of what
we have learned—sometimes in humbling ways—on our journey so far.
A century of corporate life has taught us this truth: To make an enduring
impact over the long term, you have to manage for the long term.
This seems about the simplest lesson we could share, yet putting it into
practice is a lifetime’s work. Long-term thinking a ects almost every aspect of
how you lead.1 And it turns out to be anything but safe, steady and conservative.
Its rewards are powerful,2 but to achieve them, long-term thinking compels
you to confront some fundamental questions:
How does an organization outlive its founder?
We have learned not to confuse charisma with leadership. In business, there are
archetypal examples where the genius of a founder created tremendous good
fortune—at least in a company’s opening act. The cult of personality is seductive.
But what then? How does an enterprise follow the departure of its founder
or of a larger-than-life CEO?
Without question, the personality, drive and ethos of IBM’s first CEO,
Thomas J. Watson Sr.—his irrepressible optimism, his obsession with performing
tasks in a superior fashion, his belief that the problems of the world could
be settled easily if people were only willing to THINK—made an indelible
imprint on IBM.
But Watson’s most enduring contribution to business was his intentional
creation of something that would outlast him—a shared corporate culture3.
He showed how the basic beliefs and values of an organization could be
perpetuated—to become its guiding constant through time. This is why we
have never defined IBM by what we make, no matter how successful the
product or service.
By values we do not mean ethics or morals, which are requisites for
every enterprise. We mean the characteristics that identify what is both unique
and enduring about any particular enterprise. And by deliberately building
a culture, we don’t mean memorializing the routine of what the founder did.
Rather, it’s about institutionalizing why the organization does what it does—
getting to the essential truths of what makes you, you. Grounding a culture in
such values and purpose is about how employees, anywhere around the globe,
at this very moment and for generations, honor and deliver on that.
Values therefore force choices: Whom you hire. The ways you serve the
customer. How you develop talent at all levels. Which businesses you create,
enter and exit, and when. How much risk taking you promote.
When we have lived our values, IBMers and our company have thrived.
When we haven’t, it hurt us.

How does an organization deal with the inherent tensions among its constituents?
A company’s constituents all have choices—the employee of where to work,
the investor of where to put a dollar. Communities allow companies to operate
within their borders; customers choose which company wins their business.
Which of these constituents has primacy? It’s a false choice. Generating
shareholder value may be the baseline responsibility of a public corporation,
but we have learned that, by itself, it does not build a lasting enterprise, much
less a great one.
Perhaps you’ll agree with us that this is not merely about balance and compromising
among divergent interests. Rather, it’s about making the hard choice
to live at their intersection—using the inherent tension to drive innovation.
As the recent downturn reminds us, the tensions get harder the tougher
times get. Shareholder expectations for higher returns don’t diminish when the
economy stutters. In these moments, the temptation is strongest to cut investments
in skills and R&D. But Tom Watson Sr. actually increased investments
during the Great Depression.4 In this most recent down cycle, we protected R&D
and continued to make strategic acquisitions. But this also meant that we had
to drive higher levels of productivity in other parts of the business—our global
supply chain and functional processes. Doing so required—and led to—major
innovations in how we operate the company, resulting in $6 billion productivity
savings over the past 5 years.
Other times, tension is caused by a seismic shift in the world around you.
By the middle of the last decade our pension obligations were almost as large as
our revenues. We had to address this or risk severely impairing IBM’s long-term
competitiveness. Yet we also knew that helping our people build secure futures is
itself a competitive advantage. So the real work began—to replace the traditional
pension plans with entirely new kinds of programs and options. Certainly
some employees did not welcome the change. But many did, and several aspects
of the new program are viewed as leading innovations.
In our history, there are many other examples5 where tensions—
among the interests of investors, employees, society and clients—were resolved
through innovation and by responsibly confronting, not shying away from,
new realities.
How does a company confront relentless commoditization?
The technology fi eld is cruel to those who fail to make the leap from era to era,
but tech companies are hardly alone. The hand of commoditization spares few.
The question becomes, as leaders, what to do about that.
Our lesson learned: You have to keep going to the future.
Partly, it’s about creating new spaces to move into—investing in good
times and bad. This requires a kind of institutional patience; upside benefi ts
rarely come this quarter, or even next year. Sometimes, they never come.6
But it’s not just about what you create. It’s also about what you choose to
leave behind.7 Every institution, by its nature, favors the ideas, products and
services that made it successful. Leadership often requires shedding emotional
attachment to that heritage.
Consider the IBM Personal Computer. This wasn’t just a breakthrough
invention and successful IBM business. It was a product that spawned a whole
new sector of our industry. But several years ago, it became clear that the PC
was not central to our future—or the future of computing. So we got out—
a move that scratched almost $11 billion in annual revenues from our books.
This was just one of several similar moves over the past 10 years. All part of the
perpetual motion of building higher-value businesses.8
Moving to the future can also include reinventing what you have—as
we repeatedly have done with our mainframe business. Despite repeated
pronouncements of its imminent demise, we’ve increased installed mainframe
capacity 1,000% over the past 13 years.
The largest lesson we have learned is about value creation itself. Every
leader has to determine how “the new” is born. We have realized that innovation
itself is ever evolving. Over a century, we have added fundamental research
to development. We have collaborated with universities and governments. We
embraced open source. We selectively acquired companies. And most recently,
we have generated ideas at population scale via social media. We have learned
that a profitable idea can come from many sources.

What does a company’s nationality mean in an era of global business?
We have learned that national origin is less important than the indigenous
value you create everywhere you choose to do business.
Certainly this starts by creating jobs, making local investments,
paying taxes and bringing products and services to new buyers. But it goes
beyond that.
Our history teaches us the difference between entering a market and making
a market. The latter requires working with leaders in business, government,
academia and community organizations to help advance their national agenda
and address their societal needs.9 It requires building real skills in the local
workforce and enabling new capabilities among its citizenry—being a force for
modernization and progress.
All of this means we must think differently about long-term commitment
and investment.10 And, as the world becomes flatter, it also means that we have
to be particularly thoughtful and progressive in helping every part of the world
adjust to and participate in global integration.
How do leaders manage for the long term in a world
driven by short-term thinking?
Fifty years ago, the average share owner held their investment in most companies
for about eight years; today that’s down to six months. Markets move at an
ever-faster pace, increasingly driven by speculators. In the past 15 years, CEO
turnover has increased by approximately 50%.
Short-termism is winning.
Or is it?
We see an increasing number of leaders in business, government and civil
society choosing instead to think systemically, and think for the long term. They
have come to believe there are no short-term fixes for long-term problems, no
shortcuts to longevity.
In our case, it starts with remembering why IBM exists as a corporation.
We listed IBM on the New York Stock Exchange for the first time in 1915,
which gave us access to capital for long-term investment and growth. In return,
we accepted the responsibility to provide our owners with clear, fact-based
updates on the performance of their company, and to comply with applicable
rules and regulations.
In the years since, this has compelled IBM leaders to build real businesses
that create tangible value for our clients, actual profits, cash flows and returns
for investors. It means never mistaking 90-day reporting cycles for the end goal.
It means behavior that consistently meets high standards, because future growth
depends on trust. None of this is easy. It requires leaders to show up in defense
of the future. We remind ourselves of this every day.
What must never change.
If Tom Watson Sr. were to visit IBM today, he would hardly recognize what we
make or the services we provide—analytics, clouds, the Jeopardy!-winning
computer named in his honor, solutions for a smarter planet. But he would
very much recognize why IBM is pioneering these spaces—to make the world
work better through information and the tools of thinking.
If Tom Watson Jr., our second CEO, were to return, he would not recognize
the structure or global footprint of IBM. But he’d instantly recognize the
IBMer—the women and men who still very much believe that a company can,
and must, change everything about itself …except its beliefs.
Over the past 100 years, millions of IBMers have chosen to lend their
talents to fulfilling this company’s mission. Tens of millions of share owners have
given us their trust. More than 170 countries have welcomed us to do business
within their borders. And hundreds of millions of clients, customers and
business partners have found value in our products and services, and used them
to help make the world work better.11
To every single individual, thank you. We pledge boldness in IBM’s
second century to create a company that never stops moving to the future.
Ever onward.

The company which believes only change can take to another 100 successful years, IBM – International Business Machines marked Centenary, completed 100 years on 16th June 2011. Today the company stands as a giant against all innovation, technology and services group. During last 100 years IBM has seen all phases of economy, gone through several crisis and success. It has been a true leader.

The Success for company to stand so strong and been leader at the Global Market. There are several stories with IBM that emerged though our history are very complex tales of Big risk, lessons learned and discoveries that transformed the way we work and live.

Here sharing very fine article which walks through the history of IBM, it’s really an inspiring one.

Nearly all the companies our grandparents admired have disappeared.
Of the top 25 industrial corporations in the United States in 1900, only two
remained on that list at the start of the 1960s. And of the top 25 companies on the Fortune 500 in 1961, only six remain there today.
Some of the leaders of those companies that vanished were dealt a hand of bad luck. Others made poor choices. But the demise of most came about because they were unable simultaneously to manage their business of the day and to build their business of tomorrow.
As you read this, IBM begins its 101st year. Today we take a moment to
step back and view the longer arc of history. We’d like to share some of what
we have learned—sometimes in humbling ways—on our journey so far.
A century of corporate life has taught us this truth: To make an enduring
impact over the long term, you have to manage for the long term.
This seems about the simplest lesson we could share, yet putting it into
practice is a lifetime’s work. Long-term thinking a ects almost every aspect of
how you lead.1 And it turns out to be anything but safe, steady and conservative.
Its rewards are powerful,2 but to achieve them, long-term thinking compels
you to confront some fundamental questions:
How does an organization outlive its founder?
We have learned not to confuse charisma with leadership. In business, there are
archetypal examples where the genius of a founder created tremendous good
fortune—at least in a company’s opening act. The cult of personality is seductive.
But what then? How does an enterprise follow the departure of its founder
or of a larger-than-life CEO?
Without question, the personality, drive and ethos of IBM’s first CEO,
Thomas J. Watson Sr.—his irrepressible optimism, his obsession with performing
tasks in a superior fashion, his belief that the problems of the world could
be settled easily if people were only willing to THINK—made an indelible
imprint on IBM.
But Watson’s most enduring contribution to business was his intentional
creation of something that would outlast him—a shared corporate culture3.
He showed how the basic beliefs and values of an organization could be
perpetuated—to become its guiding constant through time. This is why we
have never defined IBM by what we make, no matter how successful the
product or service.
By values we do not mean ethics or morals, which are requisites for
every enterprise. We mean the characteristics that identify what is both unique
and enduring about any particular enterprise. And by deliberately building
a culture, we don’t mean memorializing the routine of what the founder did.
Rather, it’s about institutionalizing why the organization does what it does—
getting to the essential truths of what makes you, you. Grounding a culture in
such values and purpose is about how employees, anywhere around the globe,
at this very moment and for generations, honor and deliver on that.
Values therefore force choices: Whom you hire. The ways you serve the
customer. How you develop talent at all levels. Which businesses you create,
enter and exit, and when. How much risk taking you promote.
When we have lived our values, IBMers and our company have thrived.
When we haven’t, it hurt us.

How does an organization deal with the inherent tensions among its constituents?
A company’s constituents all have choices—the employee of where to work,
the investor of where to put a dollar. Communities allow companies to operate
within their borders; customers choose which company wins their business.
Which of these constituents has primacy? It’s a false choice. Generating
shareholder value may be the baseline responsibility of a public corporation,
but we have learned that, by itself, it does not build a lasting enterprise, much
less a great one.
Perhaps you’ll agree with us that this is not merely about balance and compromising
among divergent interests. Rather, it’s about making the hard choice
to live at their intersection—using the inherent tension to drive innovation.
As the recent downturn reminds us, the tensions get harder the tougher
times get. Shareholder expectations for higher returns don’t diminish when the
economy stutters. In these moments, the temptation is strongest to cut investments
in skills and R&D. But Tom Watson Sr. actually increased investments
during the Great Depression.4 In this most recent down cycle, we protected R&D
and continued to make strategic acquisitions. But this also meant that we had
to drive higher levels of productivity in other parts of the business—our global
supply chain and functional processes. Doing so required—and led to—major
innovations in how we operate the company, resulting in $6 billion productivity
savings over the past 5 years.
Other times, tension is caused by a seismic shift in the world around you.
By the middle of the last decade our pension obligations were almost as large as
our revenues. We had to address this or risk severely impairing IBM’s long-term
competitiveness. Yet we also knew that helping our people build secure futures is
itself a competitive advantage. So the real work began—to replace the traditional
pension plans with entirely new kinds of programs and options. Certainly
some employees did not welcome the change. But many did, and several aspects
of the new program are viewed as leading innovations.
In our history, there are many other examples5 where tensions—
among the interests of investors, employees, society and clients—were resolved
through innovation and by responsibly confronting, not shying away from,
new realities.
How does a company confront relentless commoditization?
The technology fi eld is cruel to those who fail to make the leap from era to era,
but tech companies are hardly alone. The hand of commoditization spares few.
The question becomes, as leaders, what to do about that.
Our lesson learned: You have to keep going to the future.
Partly, it’s about creating new spaces to move into—investing in good
times and bad. This requires a kind of institutional patience; upside benefi ts
rarely come this quarter, or even next year. Sometimes, they never come.6
But it’s not just about what you create. It’s also about what you choose to
leave behind.7 Every institution, by its nature, favors the ideas, products and
services that made it successful. Leadership often requires shedding emotional
attachment to that heritage.
Consider the IBM Personal Computer. This wasn’t just a breakthrough
invention and successful IBM business. It was a product that spawned a whole
new sector of our industry. But several years ago, it became clear that the PC
was not central to our future—or the future of computing. So we got out—
a move that scratched almost $11 billion in annual revenues from our books.
This was just one of several similar moves over the past 10 years. All part of the
perpetual motion of building higher-value businesses.8
Moving to the future can also include reinventing what you have—as
we repeatedly have done with our mainframe business. Despite repeated
pronouncements of its imminent demise, we’ve increased installed mainframe
capacity 1,000% over the past 13 years.
The largest lesson we have learned is about value creation itself. Every
leader has to determine how “the new” is born. We have realized that innovation
itself is ever evolving. Over a century, we have added fundamental research
to development. We have collaborated with universities and governments. We
embraced open source. We selectively acquired companies. And most recently,
we have generated ideas at population scale via social media. We have learned
that a profitable idea can come from many sources.

What does a company’s nationality mean in an era of global business?
We have learned that national origin is less important than the indigenous
value you create everywhere you choose to do business.
Certainly this starts by creating jobs, making local investments,
paying taxes and bringing products and services to new buyers. But it goes
beyond that.
Our history teaches us the difference between entering a market and making
a market. The latter requires working with leaders in business, government,
academia and community organizations to help advance their national agenda
and address their societal needs.9 It requires building real skills in the local
workforce and enabling new capabilities among its citizenry—being a force for
modernization and progress.
All of this means we must think differently about long-term commitment
and investment.10 And, as the world becomes flatter, it also means that we have
to be particularly thoughtful and progressive in helping every part of the world
adjust to and participate in global integration.
How do leaders manage for the long term in a world
driven by short-term thinking?
Fifty years ago, the average share owner held their investment in most companies
for about eight years; today that’s down to six months. Markets move at an
ever-faster pace, increasingly driven by speculators. In the past 15 years, CEO
turnover has increased by approximately 50%.
Short-termism is winning.
Or is it?
We see an increasing number of leaders in business, government and civil
society choosing instead to think systemically, and think for the long term. They
have come to believe there are no short-term fixes for long-term problems, no
shortcuts to longevity.
In our case, it starts with remembering why IBM exists as a corporation.
We listed IBM on the New York Stock Exchange for the first time in 1915,
which gave us access to capital for long-term investment and growth. In return,
we accepted the responsibility to provide our owners with clear, fact-based
updates on the performance of their company, and to comply with applicable
rules and regulations.
In the years since, this has compelled IBM leaders to build real businesses
that create tangible value for our clients, actual profits, cash flows and returns
for investors. It means never mistaking 90-day reporting cycles for the end goal.
It means behavior that consistently meets high standards, because future growth
depends on trust. None of this is easy. It requires leaders to show up in defense
of the future. We remind ourselves of this every day.
What must never change.
If Tom Watson Sr. were to visit IBM today, he would hardly recognize what we
make or the services we provide—analytics, clouds, the Jeopardy!-winning
computer named in his honor, solutions for a smarter planet. But he would
very much recognize why IBM is pioneering these spaces—to make the world
work better through information and the tools of thinking.
If Tom Watson Jr., our second CEO, were to return, he would not recognize
the structure or global footprint of IBM. But he’d instantly recognize the
IBMer—the women and men who still very much believe that a company can,
and must, change everything about itself …except its beliefs.
Over the past 100 years, millions of IBMers have chosen to lend their
talents to fulfilling this company’s mission. Tens of millions of share owners have
given us their trust. More than 170 countries have welcomed us to do business
within their borders. And hundreds of millions of clients, customers and
business partners have found value in our products and services, and used them
to help make the world work better.11
To every single individual, thank you. We pledge boldness in IBM’s
second century to create a company that never stops moving to the future.
Ever onward.