Business Systems Within Ibm Essay, Research Paper

IBM – International Business Machines

Business sub systems within the firm.

The IBM company website isn’t really that effective at informing the public about it’s structure, but more about what it does in business and what it intends to do in the near and far future. It does, however, give a very loose description of how the complete ‘IBM system’ runs.

The IBM system and all it’s subsidiaries strive to deliver the best for all customers. Whether the system calls for it be at a personal (one-on-one) setup with the customer or otherwise, the complete system works in a very synchronised fashion between the highest level and lowest level of the company.

This form of business workings is probably the one of the best form possible because while the business load is shared right across the board, there is a feeling of equality between all employee’s regardless of position and authority. Of course, because the decision making process is seemingly entirely top-down, the way business is conducted is very efficient.

Transaction processing within the firm.

The main form of transaction with IBM is now via the Internet. According to a supposed survey published on the IBM website, it is supposed to now make more sense selling over the Internet, rather than via direct to public and wholesalers.

So this is what IBM, in the future, intends to put more of it’s advertising and selling power into. According to a statement published by IBM CEO Louis V. Gerstner Jr., this is a critical path that needs to be followed to further extend IBM’s dominance of the lead as the world’s biggest supplier of I.T. services. During 1999, when IBM first really used the Internet to sell themselves as a company, revenue grew as much as 11%, and supposedly due primarily to this action.

Sources of Business Information.

The sources of information were entirely secondary. Spending a gerat deal of time pining throughout the entire IBM website at http://www.ibm.com. Although the relevance of the information might be debatable, the information was easy to find, albeit the site was ‘primitively’ designed for such an integral company in the computing world.

Decision making process within the firm.

The decision making process at IBM and it’s subsidiaries would appear to take a very soft top-down approach. While it seems essentially that IBM makes all of his decisions via the heads of department and CEO Louis V. Gerstner Jr., it is said that a lot of the decision making is baised towards the employee needs and wants.

To exercise this point, IBM, even during the great depression of the 1930’s, managed to take care of it’s employees. In fact, IBM was one of the first companies to employ the policy of life insurance for all of it’s employees, as well as being one of the first companies to give it’s employees paid holidays.

Documentation standards within the firm.

Domumentation standards in the firm, as with most other firms within this calibre of marketplace dominance, is very thorough. The company does not seem to leave any important details out, but still manages to make the documentation available to the worldwide public a concise, and worthwhile read. The website information, in fact, is a clear ploy to attract new investors and to give all relevant details to current investors to ensure that they stay invested with the company.

The website has a wealth of information available to all, although investment is it’s main target and seemingly only reason for the inclusion of the information. This is a good ploy on IBM’s behalf because that is what they are striving for. It is however a pretty poor information warehouse for those needing information for such an assignment as this.

Bibliography

www.ibm.com