Personal background:
Louis V. Gerstner Jr.
IBM
3-year return: 185%
Age: 57
CEO since: 1993
Gerstner defied a chorus--no, a teeming mass--of skeptics when he revived doddering Big Blue,
breathing life back into its dying mainframe and desktop businesses. In the process, he
overhauled one of the most entrenched, straitlaced corporate cultures ever devised by man. Yet,
by all accounts, Gerstner is far from satisfied. From here on, he knows, he can't just fix. He
has got to invent. Years ago Gerstner opined, "This technology stuff is hard, and if I'm a
company, what I really want is somebody who can help me implement it." So in addition to
slashing costs and making sure that research-and-development money gets spent on something that
might actually produce a profit, Gerstner has been gradually reducing IBM's dependence on both
mainframes and PCs for revenue. In their place, he's emphasizing the development of software and
services that can generate a higher return on capital than putty-colored boxes. Not that
Gerstner is ignoring the boxes altogether. New tricks in IBM's state-of-the-art manufacturing
facility in Raleigh, North Carolina, with its ballyhooed advanced fulfillment initiative, have
reduced the time parts spend in inventory, reduced labor requirements 20 percent, and cut
manufacturing defects by 50 percent. Improvements of this order recently helped persuade Dell to
sign a blockbuster pact to buy $16 billion worth of IBM parts over the next seven years.
當Gerstner使蹣跚的Big Blue恢復生機，為它正在死去的大型主機和桌面電腦業務注入新的活力的時候，他是
在同一個無神論的合唱隊，不，是一伙龐大的人群在對抗。在此過程中，他闖過了一個人類所發明的最大的壕
溝，頑固的企業文化。但總的來說，Gerstner還遠沒有滿意。他知道，他不能固定，他要去發明。多年前
Gerstner認為，“這些技術上的東西太難了。如果我有一個公司，我真正需要的是有人能夠幫助我實施它。”
因此，在削減成本以及保證研究開發資金用于的確可能產生效益的項目上的同時，Gerstner已經開始逐步減少
IBM對大型主機及PC機的收入依賴，作為替代，第強調了軟件和服務，這比那些五顏六色的機子能夠產生高額
利潤。當然Gerstner并未完全忘記機箱。IBM新的藝術級生產設備上玩的把戲是在 Raleigh,加利弗尼亞南部，
以及其先進的自動實施功能的大肆吹捧，已經減少在零件總量上花費的時間，減少了20%的勞動力需求，減少
了50%的生產缺陷。對此的改善說服了 Dell簽定了重大的合同： 在未來7年內購買一千六百萬美元的IBM零部
件。
（未完待續）
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