IBM Case Study
Liberty University
Christopher Eze, Karen Goosen, Myletta Lacey, and Katie Savage

IBM Case Study
Executive Summary
International Business Machines Corporation has been an innovative technological company for more than 70 years. At IBM, employees take pride in enabling the world and customers to live in a smarter planet with smarter commerce, smarter computing, and smarter cities. IBM offers many different business and computing offerings in order to meet its customer’s needs. Through new innovations, implementation of the Cloud and expanding its global strategy by doubling its business service consultants, IBM will continue to succeed and meet the needs of customers worldwide. This paper will examine the current
IBM has generally had a niche market with large corporations providing products and services. Also a part of IBM's business model is the cost structure, or the costs that IBM incurs while operating. IBM has been value driven, relying on innovation and brand name to actively drive the firm. Finally, the revenue streams of IBM represent an extremely important aspect of the business model. The revenues of IBM come from software, financial services, sales and distribution, communications and industrial sales (Management, 2014).
SWOT Analysis
Insights can be gained from conducting an internal analysis of a company's strengths and weaknesses and synthesizing them with their opportunities and threats. Rothaermel (2013) defines this synthesis as a SWOT analysis which allows a manager to evaluate current and possible future projections of the firm. When linking together the internal factors with the external, IBM manager's are able to take advantage of core competencies while at the same time, consider additional capabilities and resources needed to assuage threats and ensure future success (Rothaermel, 2013). A matrix of the SWOT analysis for IBM can be found in Appendix A.
Strengths
When considering an honest assessment of IBM's strengths, it is imperative to reflect on their structure, capabilities, resources and skills (Simoneaux & Stroud, 2011). In an open source model, Chesbrough (2006) posits that IBM