THINK Again!: The Rometty Edition
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Date Published: June 4, 2021
Date Modified: December 10, 2021 |
This is the second edition of THINK Again!: IBM CAN Maximize Shareholder Value. It is a refresh released in December 1920 as "The Rometty Edition." This refresh adds Rometty's performance from 2012 through 2019 so that IBM CAN Maximize Shareholder Value covers all ten chief executive officers from Thomas J. Watson Sr. through Rometty: complete insights into IBM's chief executive officers' performances from 1914 to 2019.
The Rometty Edition includes everything in the first edition and adds the following:
The Rometty Edition includes everything in the first edition and adds the following:
- The author added a preface.
- Charts, graphs, and data points throughout the book were updated with current information through the end of 2019.
- A chapter has been added to capture the eight-year performance of IBM’s first female chief executive officer, Virginia M. (Ginni) Rometty. This additional chapter focuses on the former chief executive’s key performance metrics such as goodwill, revenue and profit generation, sales and profit productivity, and shareholder risk and returns.
THINK Again! The Rometty Edition Overview
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THINK Again!: IBM CAN Maximize Shareholder Value - The Rometty Edition is about IBM, its leaders, its employees, its shareholders, its customers, its supportive societies, and one-hundred years of their unique interactions.
THINK Again!: IBM CAN Maximize Shareholder Value - The Rometty Edition is about one of America’s greatest corporations: a business that deciphered the seemingly, impenetrable human equation to build an enthusiastic, engaged and passionate workforce that produced ever-higher revenue and profit productivity for eighty-five years. |
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THINK Again is about IBM’s leaders and the risks they have taken. It is about a chief executive officer who personally sacrificed to deliver promised benefits to his employees. It is about a corporation that contributed to the survival of democracy during one of democracy’s darkest hours—World War II. It is about the twentieth century’s greatest investment gamble that delivered the mainframe.
It is also about a corporation that in the twenty-first century has lost its institutional memory: it no longer understands the essence of the human business equation—that an enthusiastic, engaged and passionate employee is a productive employee. This failure has caused a disastrous, two-decade-long, work slowdown unlike anything in IBM’s history; not because of a labor union but from a natural human response to poor human resource practices.
To find prosperity in its second century, IBM will need a new leader who will execute a business-first strategy that returns value to all the corporation’s stakeholders.
To find prosperity in its second century, IBM will need a new leader who will execute a business-first strategy that returns value to all the corporation’s stakeholders.
The information in this section can be accessed from the "BOOKS / BIBLIOGRAPHY + THINK AGAIN!" menu items above or by selecting one of the menu buttons below which are supported with additional descriptive text.
THINK Again!: IBM CAN Maximize Shareholder Value - The Rometty Edition
Preface, Forward, Introduction, and Videos
Preface, Forward, Introduction, and Videos
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This preface was added. Charts, graphs, and data points throughout the book have been updated with current information through the end of 2019.
A chapter has been added to capture the performance of IBM’s first female chief executive officer, Virginia M. (Ginni) Rometty. The book examines Ginni's acquisition strategy and includes insights into her decision to acquire Red Hat. Arvind Krishna will grapple with this 2018 decision just as Rometty struggled with her predecessor’s promise to double earnings per share by 2015—a commitment she finally admitted was unattainable in 2014. The 2020 coronavirus situation did not impact her results. |
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The following is an excerpt from the Foreword written by Daniel Quinn Mills, Professor Emeritus, Harvard Business School.
"There is something for everyone in this book. For those who love stories of business there is the story of IBM’s long journey in the American and world economies. For those who are interested in abstract concepts, there is a discussion of the essential elements of American capitalism. For those who are interested in personalities, there are corporate chief executives with very different leadership styles. … "Some were successful; some were not. Each, though, is an instructive example." |
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It seems these extremes don't maximize shareholder interests!
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