Business Marketing: IBM Cloud Computing Target Market and Strategies

This report analyzes IBM's cloud computing services, focusing on its target market, relationship strategies, and a SWOT analysis. The report identifies key target markets, including large enterprises, small and medium businesses (SMBs), and emerging markets, and discusses IBM's approach to building customer relationships. The SWOT analysis examines IBM's strengths, such as its technological expertise and established market presence, and weaknesses, including its size and operating costs. It also highlights opportunities like globalization and brand repositioning, and threats such as competition and dependence on other companies. The report provides a comprehensive overview of IBM's marketing strategies in the cloud computing sector, referencing key academic sources.

Running Head: Business Marketing 1
Target market for IBM

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Contents
Product details.................................................................................................................................3
Target market for product................................................................................................................3
Relationship strategy....................................................................................................................4
SWOT analysis................................................................................................................................4
References........................................................................................................................................7

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Product details
For the discussion in the report, the selected product is cloud computing. Company IBM
is providing cloud computing services to its clients. This is the service which is provided by the
internet. The cloud computing service can be described as the practices to sort, manage and
process the data by the remote servers hosted on internet. These services are provided by the
company to the clients based on pay-for-use. Various models of cloud computing are provided
by IBM including PaaS, IaaS, SaaS, Hybrid cloud, Private cloud and Public cloud. There are
some important aspects of the cloud computing. This report focuses on the target market of B2B
product along with the relationship strategy. Along with this, report also describes SWOT
analysis for this business of IBM (Panettieri, 2016).
Target market for product
IBM is expanding its services for cloud computing along with validation program to the
service providers and service and consulting service companies. There are various potential
target markets for the cloud computing services. The company IBM narrow downs the respective
markets to target the potential customers.
Industry of large enterprises-
While focusing on the internal cloud computing, some large companies are focused
towards adopting the cloud computing services. So, the potential customer for IBM are large
companies that are adopting cloud verticals to improve their businesses but do not have key
sources of differentiation. For example, pharmaceutical companies can adopt the cloud
computing service to drive cist saving and efficiency in the business (Dwyer and Priluck, 2012).
SMBs-
The most significant segment for IBM is SMBs i.e. small and medium business.
Company is targeting smaller customers who have less existing IT capabilities. Along with this,
financial service companies can use the cloud computing as they have strong relationship with
their customers.
Emerging markets-

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Customers with limited resources in the developing market can be potential customers for
IBM’s cloud computing service. These target markets have ability to scale service consumption
in times of growth. For instance, automobile manufacturers can use cloud computing to reach
their dealers in distant market (Sallehudin, Razak & Ismail, 2015).
Relationship strategy
There are some strategies adopted by IBM to strengthen the relationship with the
potential target market. The strategies adopted by the company are as follows:
Communicate beyond the walls-
To strengthen the relationship with the customers, company provides access to the
customers for the information and online resources. Company is engaged with the customers
with the two-way conversations by social media tools and customer generated content. This is
helpful in enhancing the customer loyalty by responding their interests (IBM, 2017).
Value chain activity-
Company creates the culture of innovation by integrating entire value chain in the single
collaboration strategy. This strategy is used to improve the internal as well as external
communications with the associates and customers (IBM, 2009).
SWOT analysis
SWOT analysis is the strategic tool to identify strengths, weakness, opportunities and
threats of a business. The company IBM has wide recognition in the market in terms of
developing computer hardware and software. The company is also providing infrastructure,
consulting and hosting services in the area of mainframe computers to nanotechnology. SWOT
analysis for IBM in terms of cloud computing is as follows:
Strengths-
The business of IBM has technological success in the world since last many years. This is
company which is handling 95% of all the business in the 1000 most profitable companies in US.
Along with this, core strength of the company is that the business of IBM is the largest and most
profitable business in the world with the value of $66 billion. IBM is an established and old

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company which is operating in the business of cloud computing. Further, the strength of
company is that company is dedicated to the creation to technological innovation which leads to
the creation of computers, various software and products. The products and services of
technological innovation make the company superior in the market (Porter & Heppelmann,
2014).
Weakness-
The size of the business is also a weakness for the company. It can make it slow down the
company to meet needs and wants of the customers as well as industry fluctuations. More
employees can make it difficult to find the support and services. Along with this, there are
enormous operating costs in the business and competitors are trying to have large number of
market share in the market. Company is operating in various countries and communications in
these countries can be very challenging for the company.
Opportunities-
For IBM business, globalization can be important opportunity for the company which can
be used for balancing the fluctuations in various economies. The brand image of the company is
very strong in the market so it has further opportunity to create the products for the younger
generation and reposition the company in the market. Along with this, there is the opportunity to
maintain competitive advantage in the market and innovation is the key factor to create new
products in ever changing market. The small-medium business of IBM has improved over the
last years but there is the need to increase market share by the company to gain competitive
advantage in the market (Armstrong, Adam, Denize and Kotler, 2014).
Threats-
There are some challenges for the business of IBM which must be addressed by the
company. The company is completely dependent on Microsoft and that could be a big problem if
anything happened to them. Further, there is one more threat for the company that hackers can
expose sensitive and important information so; there is the need to be innovative by IBM in
terms of firewalls and protective software. In the business of IBM, there are very suppliers in
supply chain and they are making the company very little to negotiate for switching (Civi, 2013).

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Along with this, there are some big competitors of the company i.e. HP, Microsystems and they
are threats also to the bottom lines of IBM. The competitors are able to develop cheaper products
to make more profits.

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References
Sallehudin, H., Razak, R. C. & Ismail, M. (2015). Factors Influencing Cloud Computing
Adoption in the Public Sector: An Empirical Analysis. Journal of Entrepreneurship
and Business, 3(1), 30 - 45.
IBM, (2009). Business Strategy for Cloud Providers. Retrieved on 14th November 2017 from
https://www.itworldcanada.com/archive/Documents/whitepaper/ITW157B_Business
StretegyForCloudProviders.pdf
IBM, (2017). Strengthen Relationship. Retrieved on 14th November 2017 from https://www-
01.ibm.com/software/in/lotus/solutions/relationships/
Porter, M. E. &Heppelmann, J. E. (2014). How smart, connected products are transforming
competition. Harvard Business Review, 92(11), 64-88.
Armstrong, G., Adam, S., Denize, S. and Kotler, P., (2014). Principles of marketing. Pearson
Australia
Civi, E., (2013). Marketing strategies to survive in a recession: International Journal of
Business and Emerging Markets. 5(3). pp.254-267.
Panettieri, J. (2016). Cloud Market Share 2016. AWS, Microsoft, IBM, Google. Channele2e.
Dwyer, C. and Priluck, R., (2012). Digital Imperatives in Marketing: The Integration of
Communications and Technology to Target Consumers While Protecting Privacy.