IBM 1998 Annual Report Download - page 11

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e-IBM IBM itself is turning into one of the world’s largest
e-businesses. In 1998, we sold more than $3 billion
of products and services over the Internet.
As I look at the information technology industry today – its
economic fundamentals, its technological underpinnings and
even its emotional tonality – I see an industry that looks, oper-
ates and trades more like a business at the beginning of a
growth cycle than one reaching maturity.
Perhaps even more remarkably, I see the same qualities
in IBM.
The thing that most surprises and delights me about our
company is not how we’ve reinvented our internal processes
from the ground up. Nor how we’re relentlessly improving
execution and teamwork. Nor even that we’re practicing what
we preach, making encouraging strides toward becoming
the world’s premier e-business – in everything from procure-
ment, where Net-based purchasing should save IBM nearly a
quarter of a billion dollars in 1999; to e-commerce, where our
online sales in December reached $38 million a day; to using
distance learning to improve IBMers’ skills.
As important as all that is, the thing that most persuades me
that we are at a key inflection point in IBM’s history is simply
what it actually feels like to be here today.
Given what we have accomplished over the past six years,
it would have been natural for IBMers to indulge themselves in
well-deserved pride at having turned the ship around, or com-
fort in resuming a familiar role and stature. When I came to
IBM in 1993, frankly, my fondest wish was for the company to
return to its former position of leadership.
More and more, however, my colleagues are preoccupied
not with our achievements of the recent past, but with the vast
prospects opening before us. Not that we’re taking anything for
granted – like confusing a bull market with personal and insti-
tutional success. But it’s as if, on our journey back up to a
familiar plateau, we shot right past it and kept on going.
This is something I never dreamed of six years ago. Spurred
by the extraordinary adventure of building a networked world,
this large and storied enterprise now believes that its best years
lie ahead of it – that its past, and that of the information tech-
nology industry as a whole, were just a preamble. As we move
into 1999, with all its near-term momentum and all its external
uncertainties, what we are most acutely aware of is the trajec-
tory of this underlying shift, of a company and an industry that
feel as though they are just getting started.
And of one more thing: a group of people who can’t quite
believe their good fortune. To be at this place, and at this time.
Count me among them.
Louis V. Gerstner, Jr.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
9