Business Operations Analysis
IBM: An International Management Approach to Team Building Operations
Known to be among the world’s pioneer operators in the field of modern technology and computer development, International Business Machines Corporation or IBM, stands to be among the most successful multinational organizations around the globe that is able to establish a name among its customers and its employees from all around the globe all at the same time. The headquarters of the business could be found in Armonk, New York in United States. Being a primary manufacturer of computer hardware and software, the company tends to embrace research and development as the primary elements of their continuous success. With the new advancements in modern technology, including those relatively connected to the option of creating better features for modern computers released in the market today, IBM is highly dependent on the way its technological approaches are being researched upon by its most trusted employees from all over the globe.
As of the year 2012, the company was held to have accommodated to 434,246 employees situated from all over the globe. The primary reason for expanding the reach of the organization and establishing employee-connections in other countries is the desire of the company to gain better and more valuable knowledge that increases the organization’s overall understanding of global computer-demands. Among the most common reasons as to why it has grown to over 400,000 members of its workforce is the fact that since the year 2009,IBM has been acquiring several businesses, while also absorbing many of these acquired organization’s people as members of their growing worker population.
The company operates under four primary wings: (1) Finance, (2) Hardware production, (3) Software production and (4) Services. These three concepts of operation allow the organization to attend to the different needs of the clients they serve in the market. To make sure that the organization operates in full accord with its primary goal of retaining its competitive position in the field of developing modern technology and computers, delegation of tasks through effective human resource management takes a practically important role in determining the organizations future.
For the finance department, IBM has several delegated financing departments on each of their branches worldwide. These departments are expected to report the data they have collected to the main financial governance team whereas general inventory and auditing is made. The hardware production department, on the other hand, is further divided into two parts, the research and planning team, and the other division is dedicated towards manufacturing. The same thing goes with the hardware production department. The said divisions are necessary to instantiate focus upon those who are involved in the organization. For instance, the research team need not worry about quota of production; instead, they are expected to think about new ways to make sure that the company would always be able to offer something new and acceptable to the public. In the same way, the manufacturing or developing departments need not worry about research as they are not expected to do anything else but to meet the quota of demands and the distinct requirement for high quality end-product as they produce software and hardware that are designed to make better defined technology for the market to use.
The last phase is the services department. Once clients feel the need to be assisted with whatever type of technology they have bought from the company, it is the organization’s promise of responsibility to provide maintenance assistance as needed. Being able to provide such service eases out tension among picky clients and also improves the reputation of the business among those who were immediately helped in consideration to the problems they may have encountered with the products they bought from the company. Quick response increases trust and directive service to the needs and demands of the clients ensures customer loyalty.
As it could be observed from the example of IBM, when it comes to managing multinational companies, the need to establish strong and specific phases of operation among the different branches the organization has arranged with is necessary. These phases of operation are designed to help employees seek the way they could respond to what they have been tasked to complete. Managing people through team building could be seen to have worked well for IBM for several years already. It could be understood that through the years, there were instances when IBM has been involved in several issues especially relating to their employees’ demands. Nevertheless, instead of backing down, the company made sure that these instances would serve as their stepping stone towards creating a more productive and more responsive system of managing their people from all over the world.
Establishing teams and making them work is even more challenging when the existence of diversity becomes evidently damaging to some members of the organization. Managing through the twists and turns of human relations and making sure that everyone is working towards the same goal under a common business and work culture definitely helps in making multinational corporations successful in inspiring and empowering their people towards becoming more productive and more trustworthy with the tasks that they have been expected to respond to. Relatively, such operation calls for extensive understanding on how people work amidst the differences they may have towards each other. Working around the existence of diversity is a process that should be embraced by organizations aiming to go global like that of the accomplishments that make up the overall culture of IBM.
References:
Dartey-Baah, K. (2013). The Cultural Approach to the Management of the International Human Resource: An Analysis of Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions. file:///C:/Users/asus/Downloads/The%20Cultural%20Approach%20to%20the%20Management%20of%20the%20International%20Human%20Resource.pdf. (Retrieved on March 1, 2014).
Mercer, David (1988). The Global IBM: Leadership in Multinational Management. Dodd, Mead. p. 374.
Mercer, David (1987). IBM: How the World's Most Successful Corporation is Managed. Kogan Page.
