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This white paper provides a high-level overview of IBM's internal strategy for the on demand integration of one of the most fundamental of business tools?efficient and effective communication among IBM's employees and with IBM's clients, specifically through voice communications. Voice communications is but one avenue for interpersonal communication in most organizations, along with e-mail and IM as other examples; however, voice has historically been an isolated application where proprietary legacy delivery systems are approaching the limits for cost reduction and provide little of the flexibility and responsiveness required of an on demand environment.
The strategies and alternatives selected and implemented by IBM can provide valuable insight for almost any company, large or small. IBM's experiences can be leveraged to assist other organizations to integrate voice as an IP Communications application helping to meet the requirements of the on demand world.
The IBM transformation to On Demand Business
Over the past couple of years, IBM has become known as a champion of On Demand Business. It has become a unifying strategy for IBM's efforts to help companies transform themselves to flourish in an environment where competitive pressures and the dynamics of change have never been greater. As such, On Demand Business is not just about enabling products, but also about understanding what the characteristics and requirements of an on demand business are, and about providing business-supporting solutions for organizations to enter the on demand world.
IBM defines an On Demand Business as an enterprise, the business processes of which are integrated end-to-end across the company and with key partners, suppliers and customers, enabling them to respond with flexibility and speed to virtually any customer demand, market opportunity or external threat.
There is little doubt that the information technology industry itself is highly competitive, with significant pressures to manage costs while being highly responsive to the solutions and services that clients require. Recognizing that it is critical for IBM to be structured and integrated as an on demand business, Sam Palmisano, Chairman and Chief Executive of IBM was quoted in a New York Times article from January 2004 as saying: ?For us to deliver the value of on demand, we had to reintegrate IBM. That's really what we have been doing for the last 15 months.
Although IBM's scale and breadth of scope as an organization might appear to make this a challenge of staggering proportions, IBM is, in fact, well on the path of integrating processes and systems to be the kind of nimble, responsive, productive and efficient organization that will not just survive, but will flourish in the on demand world.
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