[The key strategic decisions] were:

• Keep the company together and not spin off the pieces.

• Reinvest in the mainframe.

• Remain in the core semiconductor technology business.

• Protect the fundamental R&D budget.

• Drive all we did from the customer back and turn IBM into a market-driven rather than an internally focused, process-driven enterprise.

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.

I came to see, in my time at IBM, that culture isn’t just one aspect of the game—it is the game. In the end, an organization is nothing more than the collective capacity of its people to create value. Vision, strategy, marketing, financial management—any management system, in fact—can set you on the right path and can carry you for a while. But no enterprise—whether in business, government, education, health care, or any area of human endeavor—will succeed over the long haul if those elements aren’t part of its DNA.

There are fundamentals that characterize successful enterprises and successful executives.

• They are focused.

• They are superb at execution.

• They abound with personal leadership.

Continuing to drive change while building on the best (and only the best) of the past is the ultimate description of the job of Chief Executive Officer, International Business Machines Corporation.