Who Says Elephants Can't Dance? : Inside IBM's Historic Turnaround

New York, NY: HarperBusiness, 2002. First edition. First printing [stated]. Hardcover. Very good in very good dust jacket. DJ flap creased. DJ has slight wear and soiling.. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. xi, [1], 372 p. Illustrations. Index. The CEO of IBM, who led the most successful corporate turnaround in American history, reveals how the company went from a teetering giant to one of today's most preeminent worldwide corporations. From Wikipedia: "Louis Vincent Gerstner, Jr. (born March 1, 1942 in Mineola, New York) is an American businessman, best known for his tenure as chairman of the board and chief executive officer of IBM from April 1993 until 2002 when he retired as CEO in March and chairman in December. He is largely credited with turning around IBM's fortunes. He was formerly CEO of RJR Nabisco, and also held senior positions at American Express and McKinsey & Company. He is a graduate of Chaminade High School (1959), Dartmouth College (1963) and holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School. He is a former member of the Steering Committee of the Bilderberg Group. Gerstner joined American Express in 1978 as the executive vice president of its charge card division. A year later he was named president of the Travel Related Services group, which was responsible for American Express cards, traveler's cheques, and travel-service offices. At this time, other credit cards had begun to compete for the company's market share. However, Gerstner found new uses for the card and found new users. In 1980 most department stores did not accept American Express cards Gerstner acted on this and by 1985 retail sales were the second most common use of the card, following airline tickets. College students, physicians, and women were singled out in various marketing pushes. Furthermore, corporations were persuaded to issue cards as a more effective way of tracking business expenses. Gerstner also created cards that appealed to higher end clients, such as the gold card, which carried an annual fee of $65 and offered a $2, 000 line of credit, and the platinum card, which had a $250 annual fee, a $10, 000 check-cashing benefit, and private club memberships for traveling executives. As sales and profits rebounded, Gerstner was promoted to chairman and chief executive officer of Travel Related Services in 1982 and president of the parent company in 1985. Although he claimed the position at the age of 43, Gerstner dismissed the speculation that his success was the product of being a workaholic. Despite these successes, Gerstner hit a ceiling at American Express. The chief executive, James D. Robinson III, was not expected to retire for another 12 years. After 11 years at American Express, Gerstner left to become chairman and chief executive officer of RJR Nabisco. During Gerstner's tenure at American Express membership had increased from 8.6 million to 30.7 million. When IBM's board forced chairman and CEO John Akers to resign, though he would remain in a caretaker role for three months, the directors first looked within the computer industry for his successor. However Apple's John Sculley, Motorola chairman George Fisher, and Bill Gates of Microsoft were not interested (other rumored candidates included Eckhard Pfeiffer of Compaq and Scott McNealy of Sun Microsystems), so IBM turned to Gerstner who was an outsider to the field. Gerstner's older brother Richard had run IBM's PC division until retiring four years previously due to health issues. Upon becoming chief executive of IBM, Lou Gerstner declared that "the last thing IBM needs right now is a vision" as he instead focused on execution, decisiveness, simplifying the organization for speed, and breaking the gridlock. Many expected heads to roll, yet initially Gerstner changed only the CFO, the HR chief, and three key line executives. Gerstner is credited with saving IBM from going bankrupt in the early 1990s. The subsequent refocusing on the IT services business (which grew to nearly 50% of the IBM's revenues), the embrace of the Internet as a business phenomenon, and a broad effort to revive the company's culture are widely seen as having resulted in one of the most remarkable turnarounds in business history. In his.