I’ve been thinking about this post given the numerous briefings I’ve been a part of. Being in a cross brand position, I don’t have loyalty to a specific product that I constantly have to defend, nor a brand with a direct competitor engaged in a cold war.

Yesterday, a flurry of issues about twitter rated us in a group of less than optimal performers. This caused me to look at my engagements both good and bad, and in the multiple environments of engagements in person, on the phone and through social media.

Conundrums in Dealing with IBM

Should an analyst be perspicacious or laser focused. I’ll deal with this in detail later, but I have to point out a few issues. Even if you are dealing with one product, say Lotus Connections, it is pervasive across other IBM brands and issues such as Social Media. It is becoming the engine in developerWorks besides it’s own being, plus it is being sold to our Lotus customers. So do you see it as a stand alone product or an IBM cross offering?

For a report, sure you can limit the discussion to product level only, but rarely in the real world is any product from an IT firm a stand alone. So the consumer of the report is not being given the full lay of the land. Is that fair to the reader? If one only wants to know database capacity or SLA guarantee of a specifc network node, perhaps.

For a briefing, being single topic focused has to be agreed upon by both sides, as we certainly can take any product and relate it to other and complimentary IBM or IBM partner technology. An analyst worth their salt should know that we are as intertwined as the snakes on Medusa’s head. So the conversation should be result oriented, but rarely a single discussion.

Oh, and one more thing. Rarely are we in the situation that we can talk about everything we know. We are limited by either time, lawyers or physics.

IBM is Like an Octopus

When an analyst is speaking to us, rarely do they view our company as it is. It is most often because are somewhat of an anomaly. For example, a software focused analyst rarely has to consider the hardware or services implications, assumptions that they exist are sufficiant. You can make that argument from any of the views being hardware, software or services. Rarely though, when we are compared to another company, is that company also in all of these areas. If they are, for example HP, they are primarily focused on one area (printers and ink, maybe servers and pc’s?) and are trying to grow the others (software).

Further, when we are in a market segment discussion, say SMB, we are generally compared to a company that excels in a certain area, say very small, and while we offer programs across the board. While we may have very small business offerings, we also have enterprise offerings, so rack up another ding. Not focused enough we hear, well, the very small group is on point and may have great offerings making good money, but the enterprise nature of our business model can obfuscate their message.

Enough complaining, IBM is a different animal which I liken to an octopus as we have arms everywhere in most businesses and most market segments. It makes me wonder if the analysts consider any or some of this when they are micro analyzing a slice of the company under the scope of a major report or a Wave/MQ.

Wait, I have do have another gripe. I recently attended a briefing where we were accused of ignoring 99% of the marketplace while discussing a certain software delivery method. Such off the cuff remarks make me question the reputation of said firm. Massive generalizations such as this to a point in time directly counter historical successes of both IT companies and the industry. A point in time is not how a company works.

Catch 22 for IBM

It is our job both as A/R professionals and Business Unit Leaders to fully explain the company and our position, but given the usually short time frame and specific nature of briefings, it’s rare that we can properly position why we do things. So guess what, we don’t go there, we wind up talking about the product.

Additionally, who hasn’t heard that IBM does a lot in the IT industry, or any other industry, government, education or you name it. So things go well while we are briefing until we get dinged per the above. We continue to make progress in most area’s of the company, both products and industries. Check the news or the stock ticker, we get more ink than some countries.

The executive at the time is trying to speak for his/her area or product, but at that moment in time is the voice of IBM to the audience. We want to be considered a leader in each area that is in question by briefing, yet the backing of such a diverse company works both for and against the situation.

Catch 22 for the Analysts

The analyst is being charged with looking at a segment of a business or a certain product, not with being a Wall Street prognosticator evaluating future potential and the market/political/global issues. So we get compared to a specialist company and it makes it an interesting case for us to present. We get to suffer as we make decisions that a multinational/multidimensional/multi-offering company must make. The specialized company gets to talk about a hardware only offering, or a SaaS only discussion, which can be a more specialized, yet it is a finite discussion.

Still………..shouldn’t they consider the balancing act of large companies? It is rarely brought up that many times are providing either technology or IP to the company that the analyst is comparing against us or rating us behind. Hmmmm.

History Could Be a Reason

To be fair, I’ll point out that over a long period of time, there are many un-successes that commonly get brought up. Let’s see, OS/2, the dismissal of DOS to Microsoft, Token Ring, SNA over IP…..I get it from both barrels frequently. Let’s not forget the early 90’s when except for the vision of a certain Lou Gerstner, IBM might be a bunch of small companies now. That’s a lot of lost revenue for a lot of companies including those that receive our advertising dollars.

Let me point out that the success of this company that is coming up on 100 years of being in business. We have had many leaders, products and most of all the ability to re-invent ourselves multiple times.

But Does This Count?

I’m faulting the analysts for not considering all of this when viewing us, at the same time I’m excusing them as they must focus on the area of their concentration. A report about one area of software may have little to do with our massive service business. So should we be considered the same as a specialist company?

To wrap this up, which is not really possible, I recommend special thought when passing judgement on companies, such as ours. There are many voices representing the many faces of our company. All are important, and it is over time and multiple conversations that one truly can get to understand how a big company acts and how to compare it to a specialized company. One must also note that even Microsoft doesn’t move as swiftly as it did in it’s early years. Read Peter Drucker to understand company growth and size obstacles.