I have always believed a successful company must have a customer/marketplace orientation and a strong marketing organization. That’s why my second step in creating a global enterprise had to be to fix and focus IBM’s marketing efforts.

We got there in stages because, while you can force anything down the throat of an organization, if people don’t buy into the logic, the change won’t stick.

I have worked in services companies (McKinsey and American Express) and product companies (RJR Nabisco and IBM). I will state unequivocally that services businesses are much more difficult to manage.

Many IT companies that have built their businesses on some proprietary product have tried to leap across that chasm. Few have made it across successfully.

And yet I was shocked to find so little customer and competitive information when I arrived. There was no disciplined marketing intelligence capability.