Lou Gerstner wrote, "People truly do what you inspect, not what you expect." … Lest we forget, these "inspection pages" exist because chief executives are "people" too.
Arvind Krishna: 2020-24 Revenue and Profit Performance
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Date Published: April 11, 2022
Date Modified: September 18, 2025 |
Arvind Krishna's 2020-24 Revenue and Profit Performance
- The Importance of Revenue and Profit
- Arvind Krishna: IBM's 2020-24 Revenue Numbers
- Arvind Krishna: IBM's 2020-24 Net Income/Profit Numbers
The Importance of Revenue and Profit to a Corporation's Stakeholders
A worthless car is one that can’t move passengers or cargo between points "A" and "B" safely and reliably. [Link to "The Importance of Sales Productivity" on this website] Corporations, within a capitalist economy, lose value as they fail in their main purpose: moving products of competitively higher value off the showroom floor into a customer’s hands while generating enough profits to ensure a self-sustaining stakeholder ecosystem—enough money to invest equitably between customers, employees, shareholders, and their supportive societies.
In this respect the following charts show that the 21st Century IBM has been failing to deliver products of higher value to its customers. Selling continuously-improving, higher-quality products at a profit is, ultimately, the responsibility of the corner office. These charts reflect what should be the two top priorities . . . and responsibilities of the corner office. Long-term, sustainable and consistently improving revenue and profits should be the chief executive’s top performance metrics. Special emphasis should be placed on the revenue metrics as this metric is extremely hard to financially engineer, while profit metrics—as shown below, can be engineered through such tactics as workload rebalancing, pension plan changes and divestitures/acquisitions.
Arvind Krishna: IBM's 2020-24 Revenue Numbers
- Arvind Krishna 2020–24 Revenue Performance
- Over the last five years IBM yearly revenue: fell $3.5 billion in 2020, fell $16.3 billion in 2021, rose $3.1 billion in 2022, rose $1.3 billion in 2023, and finally, rose a meager .893 billion in 2024.
- IBM’s Yearly Revenue after Arvind Krishna’s five years of leadership is down $14.4 billion since the end of 2019. IBM's overall 2024 revenue performance of $62.8 billion is an 18.7% decline in yearly revenue from the $77-billion corporation Arvind Krishna inherited from Virginia (Ginni) M. Rometty at the end of 2019.
- Krishna & Rometty 2011–24 Revenue Performance
- IBM Revenue was down $44.2 billion since the end of 2011—a consistent, methodical, decade-long, decline of 41.3% from the $107-billion corporation Virginia (Ginni) M. Rometty inherited from Samuel J. Palmisano.
- Krishna, Rometty, Palmisano & Gerstner 1999–2024 Revenue
- IBM Revenue was down $24.8 billion since the end of 1999. After achieving a history-setting, revenue high of $107 billion in 2011--IBM's Centennial--revenue's decline has only been interrupted in the last several years by an apparent string of revenue increases. But as the chart reflects below, inflation became a serious performance consideration over this timeframe as revenues only increased 8.6% vs. an inflation rate of 22% over this four-year period. IBM's revenue growth is not keeping up with inflation.
Arvind Krishna: IBM's 2020-24 Net Income (Profit) Numbers
- Arvind Krishna 2020–24 Profit Performance
- Over the last five years IBM's yearly profit: fell $3.8 billion in 2020, increased $.15 billion in 2021, increased $.38 billion in 2022, increased $1.4 billion in 2023, and finally, fell $1.5 billion in 2024. Initially this was a string of positive profit news that some analysts suggested might have indicated an improvement in the corporation's earnings prospects—the battleship was turning. But as the chart reflects, inflation was a serious performance consideration over all five years and, once again, yearly profit fell in 2024.
- IBM’s 2024 Yearly Profit after five years of Arvind Krishna’s leadership is down $3.4 billion since the end of 2019.If IBM’s net income or profits had just kept pace with inflation over this five-year period, IBM’s net income would have increased from $9.4 billion in 2019 to $11.6 billion by 2024.
- Krishna & Rometty 2011–24 Profit Performance
- IBM Net Income or Profit of $15.9 billion in 2011 was down $9.8 billion by the end of 2024, falling 62% since a achieving a two-decade-long, peak profit in 2012. Neither acquisitions or divestitures have helped stopped IBM's ever declining yearly profit numbers.
- Krishna, Rometty, Palmisano & Gerstner 1999–2024 Profit
- IBM Net Income or Profit of $7.7 billion in 1999 was down $1.7 billion by the end of 2024, falling 63.7% after reaching a two-decade-high peak of 16.6 billion in 2012. The leadership of IBM achieved this profit summit through (1) financial engineering: workforce rebalancing, and (2) aggressive bookkeeping: pension plan changes, 401(k) retirement changes, severance pay reductions, and divestitures.
- In 2012-13 these non-sales oriented financial practices appeared to have reached their all-to-predictable limits.
- IBM Net Income or Profit of $7.7 billion in 1999 was down $1.7 billion by the end of 2024, falling 63.7% after reaching a two-decade-high peak of 16.6 billion in 2012. The leadership of IBM achieved this profit summit through (1) financial engineering: workforce rebalancing, and (2) aggressive bookkeeping: pension plan changes, 401(k) retirement changes, severance pay reductions, and divestitures.
