Strategic Management Report: IBM SWOT Analysis and Recommendations

This report provides a comprehensive strategic analysis of International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) using the SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) framework. The introduction sets the stage by defining strategic management and its role in achieving organizational goals, with a focus on the application of SWOT analysis. The main body delves into a detailed examination of IBM's internal strengths, such as its strong brand reputation and economies of scale, and weaknesses, including product imitability and limited diversification. It then explores external opportunities, such as rapid technological innovation and potential alliances, alongside threats like intense market competition and cybercrime. The report concludes by summarizing the value of SWOT analysis in aiding strategic decision-making. The report references academic journals and online resources to support its findings, offering a thorough overview of IBM's strategic position within the global IT market.

Strategic Management
Interim

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
SWOT Analysis..........................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
Strategic Management refers to the administration of resources of the company in order
to accomplish its objectives and goals. It includes the strategies that managers carry to attain
better performance. This report a covers a concept of strategic management, i.e., SWOT Analysis
and its application to IBM (International Business Machines Corporation).
MAIN BODY
SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis refers to the framework or tool that helps company in assessing the 4
main aspects of business including strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
Determination of these helps in primary stages of process of decision making in firm and is
utilized by managers for evaluating strategic position of business entity. The weaknesses and
strengths are internal and threats and opportunities are external to company (Phadermrod,
Crowder and Wills, 2019). At the time of strategic planning, the company like IBM use SWOT
analysis tool. In decision making, the framework is considered as powerful support as it allows
company to uncover success opportunities that were unarticulated previously or outlines some
threats before they become excessively onerous. The elements of this tool in context of
International Business Machines Corporation are mentioned below:
Strengths:
Strengths includes such characteristics of business that provides it competitive advantage
over others. In context of International Business Machines Corporation, the strengths are as
follows:
 In global IT market, IBM is one of the strongest brand and the value of its brand is based
on popularity of its product, expertise and time tested effectiveness. High economies of scale is the another strength of company that contributes to the
abilities of business in maintaining competitiveness instead of high costs of new
technological product's development.
Weaknesses:
Weakness includes such business characteristics that place it at disadvantage relative to
others (Yuan, 2013). The weaknesses in relation to IBM are mentioned below:

 Imitability of products on the basis of cost leadership is one among the weaknesses of
company. Due to less focus of company on product uniqueness, it becomes easy for
competitors to develop similar products as IBM. Low degree of diversification is another weakness as the operations of firm are in limited
markets (IBM SWOT Analysis, 2017).
Opportunities:
Opportunities involves all such elements in business environment that firm could exploit
in order to gain competitive advantage over its rivals. The opportunities for IBM are as follows:
 Rapid innovation of new technological products provides an opportunity to company in
gaining competitive advantage. Create alliances with another firms in distinct markets and industries is the another
opportunity for IBM.
Threats:
Threats are the components in business environment that can cause trouble for the
company (van Wijngaarden, Scholten and van Wijk, 2012). It includes the factors that adversely
impacts the operations of business. In context of IBM, the threats are mentioned as follows:
 High competition in market from firms deals in similar industry is the threat for
company.
 Cybercrime is the another threat for IBM as its online operations includes servers for its
clientele.
CONCLUSION
As per the above mentioned report, it has been concluded that SWOT analysis helps in
determining strengths, opportunities, weaknesses and threats of company that helps mangers in
strategic decision making.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Phadermrod, B., Crowder, R.M. and Wills, G.B., 2019. Importance-performance analysis based
SWOT analysis. International Journal of Information Management. 44. pp.194-203.
van Wijngaarden, J.D., Scholten, G.R. and van Wijk, K.P., 2012. Strategic analysis for health
care organizations: the suitability of the SWOT‐analysis. The International journal of
health planning and management. 27(1). pp.34-49.
Yuan, H., 2013. A SWOT analysis of successful construction waste management. Journal of
Cleaner Production. 39. pp.1-8.
Online
IBM SWOT Analysis, 2017. [Online]. Available through: <http://panmore.com/ibm-swot-
analysis-recommendations>