Rating: 
Summary: Very interesting recounting of a tough time period
Review: Damage Assessment
a. System/390 had a 58 percent declined in sells
b. The company wanted to increase the bank credit to $4.7 billion
c. IBM operated in 44 countries, peaked at $27 billion in 1990, between 1990 and 1992 pertax profits had declined from 18 percent in 1990 to 6 percent in 1992.
d. Two perceptions emerged: 1. Rapid declining mainframe sell 2. Higher prices than competitors
e. 90 percent of the companies profits originated from large servers and software.Style
1. A private cadre of advisors
2. Sell off unnecessary IBM assets: art and property $31 million in art sells, $1.5 billion for the sell of the Federal Systems Company.
3. Increase the number of stock options in company circulation: In 1992, 1300 employees had stock options and nine years later 72,500 employees; stock based options became the largest compensation for executive pay; and executive put their own money in on the purchase of the stock options.
4. Increase the share price of the stockholders. (Gerstner boasts a twice stock split and 800 percent growth and 100,000 new employees in his tenure)
5. If your competition is drowning, take a firehose to their mouth.
6. Build user based support and systems
7. The employee is not entitle to a job and performance is the measure of profit sharing and job security. Performance products satisified customers, increase profits, and ensures the survival of the company.
8. Ignore the IBM culture and focus on market driven change. Reengineering ($9.5 billion dollar savings - Jim York lead the effort)
a. Consolidate the data centers and financial structures
b. Formulate Market-Driven strategies
c. Stop the hemoraging of cash.
d. Keep the company together
e. Keep with the mainframe and stop the declining sells of the System 390.
f. Lower the price of the large servers
g. Implement CMOS technology into mainframe architecture, $1 billion investment and a $19 billion dollar return by 2001.
h. Belief the Networked model would become the model of the future
i. Increase the role of outsourcing to establish and IT dominance in service and software
j. Reorganize the board: Chuck Knight, Chuck Vest, Juergen Dormann, Minoru Makihara, Ken Chenualt, and Sidney Taurel.
k. Increase Hardware development cycle to sixteen month from four years
l. Increase ontime deliveries from 30 percent in 1995 to 95 percent in 2001
m. $2 billion in IT expenses: consolidate from 155 data centers to 16, 31 communication networks into one.
n. Sell 8,000 acres of land. Profitable by 1994
a. Use stock options and company ownership to drive productivity
b. The focus on the stock price was subject to the hype of the dot.com boom. If stocks were the truth measurement of the valuation of the company, they were over inflated. Develope a customer strategy
a. Customer segmentation
b. Move from direct sales force to customer centric sales force Right size
a. Layoff a 100,000 employees
b. Shutdown unprofitable departments Develop and intermediate Business Strategy
a. Service Marketing: innovate software to support customer requirements, encourage technical sales to support innovation as a source of more sales, and segment service to handle a global customer.
b. Market eBusiness: market and promote the internets as a global business solution, promote IBM as a software leader in global businesses.
c. Market "Solutions for a small planet" - part of customer segmentation
d. Software Marketing: shift to open environments, standard with api protocols, integrate software from multiple hardware platforms and protocols.
Rating:
Summary: Who says Elephants can't dance?
Review: I always wonder how did IBM turnaround from the brink of death. I enjoyed the book very much. I have no doubt that Gerstner is a great leader and a very capable man, however, I couldn't help in thinking what the outcome would be if there were not so much talents and resources inside the company. Who had said "circumstances, cicumstances!"
Rating: 
Summary: More about history than management
Review: While this is a good book of an historic turnaround, there is little one can take away and apply. Between Gerstner's excessive modesty and the way he focuses more on his actions than the reasoning behind them, there is not much to learn here. Nonetheless, it is an enjoyable story.
Rating:
Summary: Good Weekend Read...
Review: Some books sweep you off the feet by their accurate narration of larger-than-life issues and of the results that sweep people off their feet... This book is in the same league, and does a lot if you are blessed with a lot of imagination... Organized into five parts: (1) Gerstner's beginnings at IBM, (2) Strategy, (3) Culture, (4) Lessons Learned, and (5) Observations, the book is a racy description of IBM's flirt with history-rubbish, and of the slow and painful recovery. Spanning IBM's history from 1992 to 2001, the book provides a perfect view from the hot-seat and is especially relevant if you are aspiring to become a CEO of a fortune 500 company. The last section contains Gerstner's views on society, industry etc, and provides an even better glimpse of the man himself. The book is especially relevant if one wants to understand the IT industry and the source of all its problems and virtues, but only to a certain extent. The insights are available in bits and pieces only, and one has to connect the dots oneself. Another problem with the book is that the thoughts in various places aren't really fully developed, and one has to look someplace else for all the answers. 'Big Blues, the Unmaking of IBM (by Paul Carroll, Jim Wade) provides a much better description of the firm, is what I think. Overall, it's a good buy, and will make for a good weekend read.
Rating: 
Summary: An European perspective
Review: As I recall, the title originates from the time that IBM wanted to market its Personal Computer. As the goal was to do that in a minimum amount of time and effort, a very unlike IBM approach was followed: operating software was obtained from a whizkid, who copied existing code and modified it; hardware components, except for the solid keyboard, where ordered from outside manufacturers. All IBM did was assembling it.
One IBM executive at the time said that eliphants can't dance, as he did not believe this approach would be feasible. At the introduction the PC was demonstrated to him with a dancing elephant on the green monitor screen.
Since then IBM gradually lost grip on the market ending to almost a disaster in the beginning of the 90's, when Gerstner was hired to save the company. And he did save it. Not by breaking it down into components, but keeping it together and promoting the immense power of having all expertise in one company, that in his view should literally fight a war against competition to survive. The best article describing Gerstner's view on the tasks he had to fulfil for IBM were in Times Magazine, of which I found no reflection in his book, unfortunately. Perhaps, he'd better hired a ghost writer, afterall.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting but not Insightful
Review: The subtitle of this book is "Inside IBM's Historic Turnaround." A more appropriate subtitle might have been, "Inside Lou Gerstner's Mind." If you are looking for the intrigue and drama of IBM's near death and resurrection, this book is not it. It is a pretty good read, though. The first three parts are very interesting. They detail what Gerstner found at IBM and what he saw as the good worth keeping and the bad that needed tossing. Perhaps the funniest part of the book is on page 197 of the hardback that includes a glossary of IBM terms. In fact, there are many points of the book where one can imagine Gerstner with a perplexed look thinking, "Now, what in the #%&* did he just say?" The fourth part of the book really drags and doesn't offer any real vision of the future. Gerstner's talent is execution, not vision unlike, say, Bill Gates. I read "The Maverick and His Machine: Thomas Watson, Sr., and the Making of IBM" before reading this book. I could see how some of the culture that Mr. Watson created in founding IBM had become more important that the business when Mr. Gerstner arrived. I recommend the books as a one-two punch. Overall, this is a good book, not too self-congratulatory nor too technical and analytical.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Book
Review: Very real account of how Gerstner turned IBM around. Having worked for IBM years, I can relate to what he says in this book. Check it out.
Rating:
Summary: Simple and powerful
Review: In a simple, almost primitive language Gerstner describes how he orchestrated historic turnaround at IBM. The book combines history with tips and observation and paints a picture of IBM from outside and inside. Gerstner is a genius of simple, but powerful actions. His insights are valuable for every manager
on all scales; his passion for excellence and winning is admirable.
Rating: 
Summary: Another insider opinion
Review: Lou does a fairly good job with the history of IBM except when it comes to his term in office. He also has good self esteem, but he definitely needs to get a second opinion. Looking back there is no question he did this for the money and he has left a trail of many angry employees in his wake. I for one can tell you the turnaround was occurring before he showed up to take all the credit. He never responded to any of my emails while I was an employee and hasn't responded to any since my retirement. HR did respond to the emails that I submitted and their response was that "it was OK that I had sent the email to Lou". HR then went on to reiterate the company line. Lou was not good for IBM or it's employees, he only filled his pockets with our money and left it in shambles..
Rating:
Summary: L.V. Gerstner
Review: There's a lot of fiction in this document. Hopfully, some of the folks that Lou forced out of IBM in an effort to pad his lifetime income will also provide input. Folks who have a positive view of Mr. Gerstner's account of his results in turning IBM around, are not aware of the lives he ruined in the process. If you sack enough people, the results are bound to reflect a temporary profit. As a work of fiction, this book would have five stars. However, based upon facts, it is grossly lacking.
| 
