Who says Elephants can't dance? Louis Gerstner, Jr. - Review
When a large organization tumbles down a survival crisis, the complexity to deal with, happens to be of enormous proportions. When it occurs to a crown jewel like IBM which was seen as a pride of US nation, it had to be rejuvenated and necessary course correction brought in place, because it wasn’t just another firm, IBM was an ecosystem in itself and the repercussions could be felt across the industry. Between 1990 to 1993, IBM had 1.2 lakh employees either resigning or getting fired, it was a significant break in trust since the organization was known for paternalism which is in short means a job for life that was literally guaranteed during the hay days. On top of it, the flagship mainframe product System 360 was dropping in sales and seriously getting out of customer’s preference. Given the context, how can a individual with no IT industry background survive at the helm of affairs, let alone bringing in a turnaround? Louis had similar doubts himself and didn’...