“IDEAS ARE NEW CURRENCY IN CORPORATE WORLD”

“IDEAS ARE NEW CURRENCY IN CORPORATE WORLD”.The computer industry is a good example for the power of a concept. For the first time in its life, IBM has competitors that are giving it trouble in the office market. DEC has become especially troublesome with its “ single operating system” approach to selling mini computer. At the other end of the scale, Apple has began to make progress with a concept” Desktop publishing”. This idea captured the imagination of many users.
If you were a marketing manager at IBM, what would you do about this new found competition?
Well, so far it has pursed the better product, better-sales-effort, break through advertising approach to regain control of a market it had dominated.
No, one does the more-is-more approach better than IBM.
It introduced not one, not two, but a whole new generation of Pc’s, the personal system. It also started to advertise not one, not two, but five different mid-range computer systems.
It dramatically beefed up its sales force, sending thousands more salesperson into the field. Even its CEO, John Akers, got into the act as he met with customer groups, promising them IBM would listen better to their suggestions and complaints.
Not to be outdone, IBM and folks checked in some breakthrough advertising. Charlie Chaplin was shown the door and was replaced by not one, but the entire cast from M.A.S.H including Alan Alda.
So, far all this effort hasn’t slowed DEC or Apple down one bit as they continue to show important gains in the office market.
And IBM’s introduction of “Personal Publishing” appears to have gone all but unnoticed as companies continue to purchase Apple’s “Desktop Publishing”, in a big way.
But, first IBM has to recognize the nature of the battle. From the very outset, the computer was have been a battle of ideas and concepts.
IBM first introduced the concept of “Data processing”, with mainframe computer. DEC countered the big computer idea with the concept of a “mini computer” that allowed us to do “Office processing”, Apple then rode the concept of the “Personal computer”, for the home and school. IBM laid claim to the “office”, personal computer.
Other players built businesses around concepts. Many did well with “word processing”, Cray prospered with “super computers”. Tandem took off with its “Dual Processing” systems.
Each of the big winners has one thing in common:
“THEY HAVE AN IDEA OR CONCEPT TO WIDE”.