Dynamic

Capabilities at IBM:
DRIVING STRATEGY INTO ACTION

J. Bruce Harreld
Charles A. O’Reilly III
Michael L. Tushman

I
n the early 1990s, many Wall Street analysts had written off IBM as
a company; its stock price was the lowest it had been since 1983. By
1992, more than 60,000 jobs had been lost and, in spite of John Akers’
(the CEO until 1993) efforts at transformation, the company was failing.
When Lou Gerstner took over in 1993, the services unit was 27 percent of rev-
enues and the software unit didn’t even exist. In 2001, services and software
were $35 billion and $13 billion businesses respectively and combined repre-
sented 58 percent of total revenues. IBM’s market cap had increased from $30
billion in 1993 to $173 billion. The share price over that period increased 7X.
Since then, with Sam Palmisano as CEO, IBM has continued this remarkable
transformation so that today IBM has revenues of $91 billion, more than 70%
from software and services.
During a 20-year period, IBM has gone from success to failure to success;
from a technology company to a broad-based solutions provider to, perhaps, an
exemplar of the new world of open systems and on-demand capabilities. Unlike
other great technical companies such as Xerox, Philips, and Polaroid that failed
to capture the benefits of their innovation, IBM has been able to leverage their
intellectual capital into businesses as diverse as life sciences, automotive, and
banking—and make healthy profits along the way.
How did this happen? While the broad story of IBM’s rise, fall, and trans-
formation has been well documented elsewhere,1 there is a part of this story that
is essential and not widely appreciated—a story about strategy and execution
and how the IBM strategy process links the two. It is an illustration of how a
current buzzword in strategy, “dynamic capabilities,” is made real and used to
help the company succeed in mature businesses, such as mainframe computers,
as well as move into new ones, such as digital media. It is a lesson in how theory

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 Dynamic Capabilities at IBM: Driving Strategy into Action

and practice combine to develop new insights that are useful for business and
generate new thinking about strategy.2
To illustrate how dynamic capabilities help IBM succeed, we first review
briefly the current thinking about strategy—and why dynamic capabilities are
an improvement on older strategy frameworks. We then describe how the com-
pany’s brush with failure led to the evolution of the IBM Business Leadership
Model and how a set of related strategic processes, including deep dives, Emerg-
ing Business Opportunities, the Strategic Leadership Forum, and the Corporate
Investment Fund, are managed by IBM’s Strategy Group and involve 25,000
executives to help identify and capture opportunities across 140 geographies
with constantly changing competitors and technologies. This process, while
hardly perfect, has, in the words of former CEO Gerstner, “helped the elephant
to dance.”

Strategy:
Why It Is So Important—and Often Fails
We suspect that every regular reader of the business press has, in one
way or another, been steeped in the logic of strategy and competitive advantage.
We have all been exposed to the notions of the five forces, core competencies,
SWOT, “co-opetition,” and a myriad of other frameworks for how leaders can
help their firms prosper.3 For the few who missed class that day, the essence
of strategy is contained in a single question: “The fundamental question in the
field of strategic management is how firms achieve and sustain competitive
advantage.”4
This basic question has preoccupied managers and academics for the
last century. The extent of this preoccupation is underscored by the results of a
search of the academic literature using “strategy” as a keyword: More than four
million citations were listed.5 Amazon lists more than 49,000 books with strat-
egy in the title and a broad Google search shows 800 million hits. Two obvious
conclusions can be drawn from this interest: first, strategy is clearly important;
and second, given the disparate approaches, there does not seem to be a consen-
sus about “how” strategy works—in spite of the fact that there is good consensus
on the definition of the term itself.
With some slight variations in definition, “strategy” is widely used to refer
to the plans and actions that firms take to achieve their objectives. It is simulta-
neously a process by which plans for allocating resources are developed and the
actions required to achieve their goals are identified. It reflects management’s
understanding of the firm’s assets and position as well as the external forces it
faces. At the most basic level, strategy is about making quality decisions and
executing well on those decisions. Unfortunately, what seems so simple in the-
ory is anything but in practice.
One of the things that makes this seemingly simple conceptual process so
difficult is the uncertainty and complexity of competition and change, particu-
larly in fast-moving markets. To compete successfully, managers need to be able

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 Dynamic Capabilities at IBM: Driving Strategy into Action

to scan their environments, identify relevant opportunities and threats, to design

responses that will satisfy customers in ways that competitors can’t easily imi-
tate, and, finally, to ensure that these plans are implemented, even as the firm
competes across a variety of geographies and markets and in mature businesses
as well as emerging ones. Yet, capturing and distilling relevant information isn’t
a natural capability for most senior management teams. As David Teece, who is
both an academic strategist and a CEO, notes, “The skills that result in the iden-
tification or development of an opportunity are not the same as those required
to profit from or ‘exploit’ the opportunity.”6
Strategy is about understanding market and technology evolution and
transformation as well as the ability to execute against the plans. Interestingly,
the striking evidence is that some companies never see the threats or, more fre-
quently, are unable to change quickly enough to avoid them. For many years,
the senior management at Sears refused to believe that Wal-Mart was a competi-
tor or a threat. The large integrated steel makers, such as Bethlehem Steel, dis-
counted the emergence of mini-mills
and Nucor, only to find themselves J. Bruce Harreld is IBM's Senior Vice President,
bankrupt 20 years later. Famously, Marketing and Strategy. <harreld@us.ibm.com>
in 1977, Ken Olsen, the founder and Charles A. O'Reilly III is the Frank E. Buck Professor
CEO of DEC, said, “There is no reason of Management at the Graduate School of Business at
for any individual to have a computer Stanford University. <oreilly_charles@gsb.stanford.edu>
in his home.” The irony here is that in Michael L. Tushman is the Paul R. Lawrence MBA Class
1998 a struggling DEC was sold to of 1942 Professor of Business Administration at the
Harvard Business School. <mtushman@hbs.edu>
Compaq, a maker of computers for
people’s homes—which in turn was
acquired by HP. In the 1990s, mainline semiconductor manufacturers dismissed
the emergence of “fab-less” semiconductor firms with the phrase “real men have
fabs.” Of course everything looks clearer in hindsight, but the unfortunate fact is
that we often can’t know ex ante where to place bets. Strategy is partly a process
of hypothesis testing in which firms place bets and explore new technologies
and markets and develop new competencies, even as the firm continues to
exploit existing competencies in mature businesses.

From “Five Forces” to “Dynamic Capabilities”:

The Evolution of Strategic Thinking
Theories of strategy abound and form the basis for the four million cita-
tions mentioned earlier. Academics have developed four main paradigms for
thinking about strategy. First, there is the well-known competitive forces frame-
work of Michael Porter in which competitive advantage comes from actions
taken by a firm to create defensible positions against competitors—for example,
by erecting strong barriers to entry.7 In this framing, the strategic problem faced
by managers is one of industry structure, entry deterrence, and positioning. In
a second framework, the resource-based view of strategy, competitive advantage
comes from difficult-to-imitate firm-specific assets that can be used to capture
rents—for instance through strong intellectual property, economies of scale, or

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 Dynamic Capabilities at IBM: Driving Strategy into Action

a dominant brand.8 In this view, profits flow from having lower costs or higher
quality (e.g., through efficient supply chains or operational excellence), innova-
tive products, or customer insight that allows firms to understand and meet cus-
tomer needs in the way competitors cannot. Both of these perspectives are
largely static and emphasize how firms compete at a single point in time.
A third distinct theoretical approach to strategy emphasizes a strategic
conflict approach, which uses the tools of game theory to suggest how firms
can outsmart their rivals.9 The thrust of this approach emphasizes taking strate-
gic moves, such as irreversible investments in capacity, to influence the behavior
of rivals. Intel, for example, has been bold in exiting businesses such as semicon-
ductor memory, demanding to be a sole-source provider and refusing to license
their designs, and announcing capacity expansions to signal their commitment
to would-be competitors.10 Similarly, when Nokia chose to divest itself of all
businesses other than telecom, it was signaling to its competitors its commitment
to a single industry.
Most recently, strategy research has begun to emphasize a fourth
approach, dynamic capabilities, which builds on the notion of core competencies
but focuses on the role of management in building and adapting these compe-
tencies to address rapidly changing environments.11 This development was stim-
ulated by the recognition that many successful or dominant firms fail to sustain
their performance as markets and technologies shift (think Memorex, RCA, Pan
Am, or Sears). In spite of having the resources, these companies failed to adapt
to changed circumstances. With dynamic capabilities, sustained competitive
advantage comes from the firm’s ability to leverage and reconfigure its existing
competencies and assets in ways that are valuable to the customer but difficult
for competitors to imitate. Dynamic capabilities help a firm sense opportunities
and then seize them by successfully reallocating resources, often by adjusting
existing competencies or developing new ones. Unlike earlier strategic frame-
works that were largely static, dynamic capabilities explicitly acknowledges that
as markets and technologies evolve, firms need to adjust by reallocating assets
and learning new skills. In the early 1990s, for example, Johnson Controls was
primarily a maker of seats for U.S. automakers. Their distinctive competencies
were in manufacturing and their relationships with car companies. Recognizing
that this was an increasingly competitive market and one in which they would
be unlikely to dominate, they invested in design and partnering skills that
enabled them to move into higher margin businesses such as design, engineer-
ing, and electronics integration. They adapted and extended their competencies
in the manufacturing of seats and their relationships with auto companies to
transform the company. Between 1995 and 2002, their shareholder return
improved 400%.
It is the ability to adapt and extend existing competencies that differenti-
ates dynamic capabilities from other strategic frameworks. This ability places a
premium on senior management’s ability to accomplish two critical tasks. First,
they must be able to accurately sense changes in their competitive environment,
including potential shifts in technology, competition, customers, and regulation.

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 Dynamic Capabilities at IBM: Driving Strategy into Action

Second, they must be able to act on these opportunities and threats; to be able to
seize them by reconfiguring both tangible and intangible assets to meet new chal-
lenges.12 These two fundamental capabilities are at the core of a firm’s ability to
survive and grow over time and represent the essence of dynamic capabilities.
“Winners in the global marketplace have been firms that can demonstrate timely
responsiveness and rapid flexible product innovation, coupled with the manage-
ment capability to effectively coordinate and re-deploy internal and external
competencies.”13 In IBM’s language this requires that leaders possess both strate-
gic insight and strategic execution. One without the other is insufficient for long-
term success since the marketplace is ever changing. If a firm has resources and
competencies but lacks these dynamic capabilities, it may make a competitive
return in the short-term but is unlikely to sustain this in the face of change.
Each of these approaches to strategy attempts to solve the puzzle of how
a firm can out-compete its rivals by either developing useful firm-specific skills
or positioning itself in ways that customers value and are willing to pay for
and that rivals cannot easily imitate. While earlier approaches to strategy were
largely static (e.g., develop a positional advantage and protect it), dynamic capa-
bilities call attention to the need for organizations to change over time and com-
pete in both emerging and mature businesses.14

From Theory to Practice:

Why Strategic Thinking Sometimes Fails
Although theories of strategy can be elegant in their formulation, they are
often less helpful in practice. What passes for strategy in many organizations too
often consists of three-ring binders, power point slides, and annual meetings as
carefully scripted as a Kabuki drama—and, just as in the Japanese version, those
who fail to play their roles often suffer an organizational fate much like the vil-
lains in the play. Worse, many strategists, especially academics who develop the
theory, typically don’t want to get their hands dirty with the myriad of details
necessary for successful execution. As a result, in many organizations a barrier
exists between strategists and operational executives. The failure of the conven-
tional strategic planning group to devise executable plans has often resulted in
some firms giving up on strategic planning departments.15 Therefore, timely
strategic insights often go unrecognized by those line executives responsible
for execution.
Compounding this problem, many organizational strategic planning and
review processes take place annually—not an immutable time frame that tech-
nology, customer needs, or competition adheres to. Firms that do annual plan-
ning in fast-changing markets and technologies are always behind. Worse, many
operating managers in competitive markets have little time for the reflection and
analysis that good strategy requires. The IBM saga over the past decade vividly
illustrates these dangers—and offers a possible solution.

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 Dynamic Capabilities at IBM: Driving Strategy into Action

Success, Failure, and Success:

Fixing Strategy at IBM
Through the mid-1980s, IBM enjoyed 40 percent of the computer indus-
try’s sales and 70 percent of its profit. In 1990, IBM sales were five times their
nearest rival, but growth had slowed to less than six percent. By 1991, their
stock price had reached the lowest point since 1983. From 1986 to 1993, IBM
had taken $28 billion in charges and cut 125,000 people from their payroll—
after avoiding layoffs for more than 70 years. On January 26, 1993, in the face
of a looming disaster, CEO John Akers resigned. After a seven-month search,
Lou Gerstner was appointed as CEO—the first outsider to run IBM in its history.
Reflecting the company’s condition, a Business Week reporter described Gerstner’s
appointment as “the toughest job in Corporate America today.”16 In describing
why IBM had found itself failing, Gerstner observed that “what happened to
this company was not an act of God, some mysterious biblical plague sent down
from on high. It’s simple. People took our business away.”17 More startling, after
reviewing IBM’s strategies, he concluded that “the company didn’t lack for
smart, talented people. Its problems weren’t fundamentally technical in nature.
It had file drawers full of winning strategies. Yet the company was frozen in
place . . . The fundamental issue in my view is execution. Strategy is execution.”
What IBM lacked was not the ability to foresee threats and opportunities but the
capability to reallocate assets and reconfigure the organization to address them.
After stabilizing the company in the mid-1990s, Gerstner described IBM’s
bet on the future this way: “Our bet was this: Over the next decade, customers
would increasingly value companies that could provide solutions—solutions that
integrated technology from various suppliers and, more importantly, integrated
technology into the processes of the enterprise.”18 The core competence required
to execute this strategy was the ability to integrate systems to solve customers’
business problems—open middleware (the software that permits applications to
be used across a variety of platforms) and services were key to this. Commenting
on whether IBM, a traditional hardware company, could make this transition,
Gerstner said, “Services is entirely different. In services, you don’t make a prod-
uct and sell it. You sell a capability . . . this is the kind of capability you cannot
acquire.”19
Competencies are embedded in organizational processes or routines
around coordination, learning, and transformation. For IBM, this meant it
would need to take its existing competencies in technology and quality and
add to them the capability to learn better how to serve the customer, integrate
the organization around the customer’s needs, and to transform themselves
from a great product company to one that solved customer’s problems. In the
old IBM, Gerstner observed that “all of [our] capabilities were of a business
model that had fallen wildly out of step with marketplace realities.”20 To change
meant walking away from the IBM history and the collapse of gross profit mar-
gins as they moved into services, but he was also optimistic, “History shows that
the truly great and successful companies go through constant and sometimes
difficult renewal of the base business.”21

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 Dynamic Capabilities at IBM: Driving Strategy into Action

Since 2002, Gerstner’s successor as CEO, Sam Palmisano, has continued

the transformation of IBM into an “on-demand business” using advanced com-
puter and software technologies to quicken the flow of knowledge within com-
panies and help executives respond instantly to changes. This entails offering
open architecture, integrated processes, and self-managing systems—selling
computing services, not computers.22 This has required a transformation of the
company around customer needs. For instance, in a partnership with the U.S.
Postal Service, IBM has developed software to optimize mail handling and ship-
ping while with Boeing they have partnered to create technologies for network-
centric warfare products. They have also partnered with the Mayo Clinic to do
breakthrough work on gene profiling and with Bang & Olufsen to develop an
electronic pill dispenser. Within IBM, this has required that the company re-
integrate itself to bring together experts to solve customer problems—not simply
to sell products or services. The most important element of this transformation,
however, was the radical shift in IBM’s approach to strategic insight and strategic
execution and embodied in how the company approaches strategy.

How IBM Does Strategy

Up until 1999, the strategy process at IBM looked pretty much like the
process at any large, complex organization. Developments in technology were
monitored, there were occasional projects to drill down into specific issues, and,
most centrally, there was the annual strategic review process in which business
unit heads prepared and presented their plans to the senior management group.
This strategy document purported to describe what was happening in the unit’s
marketplace (e.g., competitor moves, technology changes) and what the finan-
cial implications were for the business. These separate documents would be
rolled together for IBM in what was called “the Spring Plan.”
In 1999, things changed. In preparation for one of these review meetings,
Gerstner read one of the business unit’s strategic plans. Irritated by what he saw,
he called Harreld, the SVP of Strategy, into his office, threw the strategy paper
across his desk, and asked, “Are you supposed to be in charge of strategy around
here? This thing isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.” Knowing Gerstner, he
responded, “With all due respect, this isn’t the way we really do strategy. Surely
you don’t think this document was actually written by the business unit
leader?” Gerstner stopped, reflected for a moment, and acknowledged that
in his time as a group executive, he didn’t write those documents either. They
were farmed out to a staff expert and did not reflect the reality of the competi-
tive landscape. For example, during the 1990s, there were more than 400 strate-
gic planners within IBM whose primary role was to poke holes in the thinking
of general managers. The actual planning process was a staff exercise under-
taken to satisfy senior management, not an accurate reflection of what the
business needed to do to be competitive and certainly not a blueprint for action.
After a discussion of the weaknesses of the current strategic review
process at IBM and the realities of their markets, Gerstner told Harreld to go
away and think about engineering a dramatic step-change in how strategy could

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 Dynamic Capabilities at IBM: Driving Strategy into Action

FIGURE 1. The IBM Business Leadership Model

Leadership

Strategy Execution

Marketplace
Talent
Insight

Market
Results
Strategic Business Critical Tasks Formal
Intent Design Interdependencies Organization
Gap

Innovation Climate and 嘺 Performance

Focus Culture 嘺 Opportunity

IBM Values

Strategic Insight Strategic Execution

“Closing the gap requires both strategy to assess the opportunities and design
the business to address them and execution to assess and build the organizational
capabilities to deliver market results.”
—Bruce Harreld, SVP Strategy, IBM

be made more relevant at IBM—a process that would reflect the realities and
complexities of their businesses and involve the responsible general managers
in a real process of sensing the environment and seizing opportunities. What
emerged came to be labeled the “IBM Business Leadership Model” (see Figure
1) and encompassed a process of strategic insight (strategic intent, marketplace
insight, innovation focus, and business design) designed to systematically iden-
tify opportunities and strategic execution (alignment of people, structure, culture,
and process) designed to seize opportunities by ensuring that every strategic
initiative also had an associated plan for execution. In this way, the IBM Busi-
ness Leadership Model reflects the two fundamental dynamic capabilities of
sensing and seizing opportunities.
From this perspective, strategy doesn’t matter unless it changes what
the company does in the marketplace. Otherwise it’s “chartware.” Strategy is
not about how to beat the competition but understanding the client’s needs

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 Dynamic Capabilities at IBM: Driving Strategy into Action

and removing the barriers needed to help them—beating the competition is

secondary. It is the connection of knowing with great accuracy what the oppor-
tunities are with the ability to do the things necessary to accomplish them.
In a company of the size, complexity, and geographic reach of IBM it is
unrealistic to think about strategy as an annual, top-down process. To be suc-
cessful, IBM believes that the process must help line managers to be engaged
and competent in the strategy-making process. A central part of this process is to
keep strategy making at the business unit level with the people who best under-
stand the local marketplace—but also to have a process where general managers
are willing to blow the whistle and ask for help when they need it. Under the
old system, the annual strategy review process created an us-versus-them mind-
set where senior managers attempted to poke holes in the line-of-business plans.
Candor on the part of line managers was not rewarded. Furthermore, in the
strategic reviews, criticisms about other’s deficiencies exacerbated the tendency
for leaders to be conservative in their strategies. Under the new system, the
essence of strategy is “disciplined, fact-based conversations.” This approach now
involves more than 25,000 general managers at IBM in both the formulation
and execution of strategy.

The IBM Business Leadership Model23

As shown in Figure 1, the IBM Business Leadership Model emphasizes
the role of the general manager and the interdependence between strategy and
execution. Strategy is stimulated by leaders’ dissatisfaction, the perception of a
gap between current and desired performance. In the IBM model, this is either
a performance gap (a shortfall between expected and actual results) or an oppor-
tunity gap (a discrepancy between current business results and those achievable
with a new business design). General managers define their gaps in terms of a
clear business owner, financial metrics that quantify the gap, and a specific time
frame for addressing it (Figure 2 provides several examples). Closing the gap
requires both strategic insight to assess the opportunities and threats and strate-
gic execution to build the capabilities to deliver market results.

Strategic Insight
As shown in the left-hand side of Figure 1, strategy formulation empha-
sizes four interrelated disciplines: strategic intent, market insight, innovation
focus, and business design. While each of these disciplines is well known to
organizational strategists, IBM emphasizes the interdependence among these
elements as a key to successful strategy formulation.
▪ Strategic Intent sets the overall direction and goal for the organization.
This statement sets priorities for the achievement of strategic advantage
and defines the boundaries of any subsequent analytic effort. For exam-
ple, Palmisano’s 2002 declaration that IBM would become an “on-
demand company” led to the development by the software organiza-
tion of service-oriented architecture (SOA) to make software more adapt-
able and the consulting organization to emphasize component business

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 Dynamic Capabilities at IBM: Driving Strategy into Action

FIGURE 2. Performance and Opportunity Gaps

Performance Gaps Opportunity Gaps

Our revenue growth over the past 10 years has lagged the Current revenue growth per customer in
market (4% vs. 8%). Our goal is to break out of this pattern of our existing markets is growing only slowly
low growth and achieve 10% profitable revenue growth in the (5% per annum) and customer expectations
next 24 months. Achieving this result will result in an estimated are increasing. If we are able to move up the
$5 billion in top line growth. stack and provide solutions rather than point
Business Owner: VP of Line of Business products, we should be able to increase
revenues and profits by 20% over the next
The business has grown dramatically over the past 5 years. 3 years.
During this period the quality of our products has declined. Our Business Owner: Division GM
attempts at introducing six sigma have failed and we have lost 5
points in market share in the past 12 months. Each point lost Our R&D group has developed a new
represents roughly $500 million in revenue. Our intent is to technology platform which represents a
regain this market share over the next 24 months. potential disruptive technology in our
Business Owner: VP Quality industry. At present, we anticipate a first-
mover opportunity of about 12-18 months
The goal of our 2003 merger was to dramatically reduce costs if we can introduce this technology within
(estimated savings of $1 billion) and improve product devel- the next 6 months. Our current product
opment times (reduce times from 12 months to 6). In spite of development cycle takes 18-24 months.To
a reorganization, we have failed to achieve our time, quality, or succeed, we must shorten this cycle to 6
cost targets.We need to achieve our time-to-market of 6 months.
months within the next year. Business Owner:
Business Owner: VP Product Development VP Technology and Manufacturing

modeling to help clients more easily use IBM services. Absent a clear
strategic intent, it is difficult to generate a comprehensive fact-base for
market insight and business design.
▪ Market Insight involves a focus on understanding customer needs, com-
petitor moves, technology developments, and market economics. This is
a fact-gathering, analytical effort, the goal of which is to specify in detail
what is happening in the market, how profits are shifting, and the impli-
cations for the IBM business. This activity is often what passes for strategy
narrowly defined. It typically includes the development of an in-depth
understanding of the customer’s economic drivers (revenues, costs, eco-
nomic model) and leads to value propositions that speak to specific
buyer’s needs. For instance, the analysis may reveal opportunities to drive
customer revenue, reduce costs, or use assets more efficiently. For exam-
ple, IBM’s recognition that the customers wanted to buy solutions to
problems and not IT infrastructure led them to develop outsourcing
solutions.
▪ Innovation Focus challenges general managers to actively experiment
and challenge their thinking in the design and implementation of strat-
egy, including taking ideas from a wide range of sources and creating
pilots and experiments to shape industry change. Creativity is encouraged
not simply with new products and services, but also with operational and
business model innovations. Most calls for innovation implicitly focus on

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 Dynamic Capabilities at IBM: Driving Strategy into Action

the development of new products, but research suggests that innovation

in business models can contribute more to shareholder return.24 For
example, Amazon, Dell, GEICO, Apple iTunes, and Wal-Mart succeeded
not because of “new” products, but through business model innovation.
At IBM, this business model innovation has led to the company’s support
of open-source software, putting IBM intellectual property in the public
domain, and the development of the Engineering and Technical Services
business, a new $2 billion services play, in which IBM technical experts
help other companies design products and services.
▪ Business Design is based on the external insight gained from the three
elements above and specifies how the business will go to market. Busi-
ness design involves answering five key questions and answers the busi-
ness strategy question: “How will we compete?”
– Customer Selection—What customer segments do we choose to serve—
and what will we not serve? Customer selection can be defined on a
number of dimensions (e.g., customer types, purchase behavior, value
chain location, segment maturity, and price). The central challenge
here is getting clarity on who the target customers are and who they
are not. Southwest Airlines, for example, actively discourages cus-
tomers who have complicated travel itineraries. Abercrombie & Fitch
design their stores to appeal to a particular younger demographic
segment—and discourage older shoppers.
– Value Proposition—Given our customer segment, what is our offering
and how will we be differentiated from our competitors? Why should
any customer prefer our offering to anyone else’s? This involves spec-
ifying the tangible results specific customers will get from you versus
the competition and is especially important for displacing market
share leaders and creating new markets. It can be based on elements
such as product performance or cost, ease of use, quality and reliabil-
ity, or ease of doing business. For example, the value proposition of
Salesforce.Com, an on-line provider of CRM software, is to offer small
businesses CRM capability without having to purchase and operate
computer systems of their own.
– Value Capture—Given the answers to the first two, how will we make
money? This entails a deep understanding of the economics of the
offering and clarity about how the business will earn money. Progres-
sive Insurance, for instance, has successfully targeted hard-to-insure
drivers and uses sophisticated statistical analysis to discriminate
between those from whom they can make money from the genuinely
high-risk drivers. Wal-Mart enjoys a 22 percent margin advantage in
retail groceries. Iansiti and Levien estimate that two-thirds of this
comes from their ability to manage their eco-system and one-third
comes from operational efficiencies.25
– Scope of Activities—What will we do internally and for what activities
will we rely on our value net partners? These decisions flow from

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 Dynamic Capabilities at IBM: Driving Strategy into Action

clear marketplace insight, customer selection, and the value proposi-

tion. Those activities that provide a clear competitive differentiation
are kept and others become candidates for outsourcing or joint ven-
turing. For example, IBM has decided sharing intellectual property
can promote innovation and has made available many of their
patents. P&G has also decided that instead of doing all innovation
internally, they would open their innovation and begin to rely on
open-source innovation with partners.26
– Sustainability—How will we defend the profitability of our offerings
against competitor responses? Any successful strategy will generate
competitive responses. The issue is how to protect future revenue
streams by identifying strategic control points. These may range
from owning the standard (e.g., Microsoft, Qualcomm) to brands
and patents (e.g., Intel Inside, and Rolex) to cost advantages (e.g.,
Southwest, Wal-Mart). The choice here is to decide in advance how
to maintain profitability and to build this into the strategy.
While these components of strategic insight are comprehensive, there is
little here that is novel or unique to IBM. Most organizations with sophisticated
approaches to strategy would cover this same territory. What makes these ele-
ments so useful at IBM is the emphasis on complementarity—ensuring that they
are aligned and work together. If marketplace insight is done well but the busi-
ness design isn’t reflective of this, the strategy is likely to fail. Similarly, if the
business design is robust but predicated on inadequate market intelligence, fail-
ure is also likely. What makes this process unique at IBM is that general man-
agers are charged with being both rigorous in their analysis and consistent in
linking this insight to execution.

Strategic Execution
The right-hand side of Figure 1 illustrates the elements required by gen-
eral managers for the execution of their strategic plan. The strategy-making
process culminates in a clearly communicated business design and the allocation
of required resources. Implementation begins with an honest appraisal of cur-
rent organizational alignment and capabilities—identifying misalignments and
specifying the steps needed to correct them. Based on the business design, exe-
cution focuses on aligning four key organizational elements to ensure that the
business can deliver on the strategic intent:
▪ Critical Tasks and Processes—These are the key success factors necessary
to deliver on the value proposition and scope of activities specified in
the business design. They are the concrete tasks and interdependencies
needed to add value from the customer’s perspective. At DaVita, a $3
billion provider of kidney dialysis, the two major key success factors are
operational excellence (to control costs and ensure compliance with gov-
ernment regulations) and customer satisfaction (that helps patients
achieve better health outcomes and attracts higher value patients with
private health insurance). Identification of these key success factors is

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 Dynamic Capabilities at IBM: Driving Strategy into Action

what permits organizational alignment. Said differently, if the critical

tasks are unclear, it is not possible to evaluate whether the organizational
alignment will help or hinder the execution of strategy.
▪ Formal Organization—These are the explicit structures, metrics, and
rewards required to direct, control, and motivate individuals and groups
to perform the unit’s critical tasks. The question asked is “does the current
formal organization facilitate the accomplishment of the required critical
tasks and interdependencies?” For example, the complex matrix structure
of IBM has been identified as a hindrance to moving quickly in new mar-
kets, so new organizational designs were developed to promote
exploration.
▪ People and Skills—Does the unit have the requisite human resource char-
acteristics, capabilities, and competencies needed to execute the critical
tasks? Are people motivated and engaged? For example, one of IBM’s
technology-based business units realized that there was a large potential
consumer market for their product, but in developing their strategy they
discovered that they lacked any marketing capabilities required in the
new segments.
▪ Culture—Does the existing culture (expectations about how people need
to behave) support the accomplishment of the critical tasks? Given the
new business design, are there new behaviors that will be required to
deliver on the value proposition? One of IBM’s divisions that had been
competing on technical excellence in stable markets announced a new
growth initiative that placed a premium on initiative and risk taking only
to discover that the dominant culture was highly risk averse. The general
manager realized that to be successful required a significant shift in the
unit’s culture.
Business unit performance is a function of having the right strategy as
well as alignment or congruence among these four organizational elements.27
The successful execution of strategy critically depends on this alignment. What
is sometimes overlooked, however, is that whenever a strategy is changed, it is
almost always the case that the existing organizational alignment will also need
to be changed. The IBM Business Leadership Model forces line managers to be
explicit in diagnosing the current versus the needed organizational alignment
and to ensure that these changes are made by the top management team as a
part of their new strategy. Existing organizational architectures reflect old strate-
gies. Unless management actively realigns their business to reflect the new strat-
egy, execution will suffer.

IBM’s Dynamic Capabilities

Palmisano’s “On Demand Business” campaign is taking the next step by
transforming IBM from a set of conventional silos (e.g., hardware, software, and
services) to an integrated structure oriented around providing solutions for cus-
tomer needs. To make this new approach work, the entire role of the corporate
strategy group at IBM needed to change. If all the group did was to manage an

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 Dynamic Capabilities at IBM: Driving Strategy into Action

annual strategy process, they would be largely irrelevant to line managers—just

another staff function wasting valuable resources. To be successful, the strategy
group needed to help business leaders gain strategic insight and to help act on
these insights. General mangers needed to be involved in the entire process.
Under the old model, IBM’s strategy department was exclusively popu-
lated with strategic planning professionals who had strong skills in formulating
strategic insight. However, since few of these professionals had run a business,
their strategic executional capabilities were limited. Today, two-thirds of the
strategy organization is composed of successful general managers who join the
team for an 18- to 30-month period. These executives bring invaluable opera-
tional skills to the strategy team. Their presence has transformed the
department’s formerly academic planning culture to one that is much more
action-oriented. In return, these general managers develop improved strategy
skills, thus better preparing them for their next line management assignment.
To ensure that the strategy process provides the insight necessary to sense
opportunities and the execution required to seize them, a set of complementary
mechanisms have evolved. The specific mechanisms that underlie the two fun-
damental dynamic capabilities of sensing and seizing opportunities are outlined
in Figure 3. In this figure, the above-the-line activities include those actions
designed to both sense new opportunities and to seize them by reallocating
resources and reconfiguring the organization. In Jim March’s terms, these are
activities that promote “exploration” and learning.28 “Exploitation” is equally as
important and is accomplished through the existing organization—sometimes
referred to within the company as a “disciplined machine.” What is notable
about the IBM approach to strategy is less in what they do and more in how
they do it. Each of the elements shown in Figure 3 is replicable by competitors.
What is more difficult to copy is the integrated way in which these activities are
implemented. Figure 4 illustrates how the above the line activities map onto the
dynamic capabilities of sensing and seizing opportunities.

Sensing New Opportunities: Strategic Insight

▪ The Technology Team meets monthly and assesses the market readiness
and the potential of emerging technologies. This team draws on the deep
expertise of IBM Fellows and Distinguished Engineers. Decisions can
result in accelerated funding for a project or in its demise.
▪ The Strategy Team also meets monthly to examine the market results of
existing unit strategies as well as to explore new growth areas. Decisions
can result in new market entry, adjustments to existing business plans, or
complete exit from a business. This team is composed of a cross section of
general managers, strategy executives, and other key functional leaders.
▪ The Integration & Values Team is a group of 300 key leaders, selected
annually by the CEO and senior executives, who are considered responsi-
ble for integrating IBM through company-wide initiatives. These initia-
tives, known as Winning Plays, are corporate-wide strategic efforts (e.g.,
issues that require cross-organization interdependence). Each initiative

34 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY VOL. 49, NO. 4 SUMMER 2007

 Dynamic Capabilities at IBM: Driving Strategy into Action

FIGURE 3. The Strategy Process at IBM

Explore into
new spaces:
Strategic
Leadership
Forums
Technology I&VT
Team Winning Plays

Strategy
Teams
Corporate Emerging
Investment Business
Fund Opportunities

Deep Dives

IBM Business Leadership Model

Exploit existing capabilities and processes:

The IBM Company: “A Disciplined Machine”

• Metrics
• Structure
• Leader Behavior

has assigned leaders and, often, uses the “deep dive” process. Results are
reported quarterly to the entire Integration & Values Team and, in
abridged form, to the entire company.
▪ A Deep Dive is a structured process, typically requested by a general man-
ager confronting a performance or opportunity gap and staffed jointly by
the operating unit and the strategy group. This is an intensive, focused
process where a topic (e.g., a new technology or change in competition) is
scrutinized in great detail. This process is highly analytical and fact-based.
It typically results in a strategic decision to either pursue a market or
technology, to change strategy, or to exit a market. Intentionally these
efforts are not run to a preset time line; the work continues until all ques-
tions are answered, the decisions are clear, and the necessary adjustments
to the organizational model are clearly delineated.
Each of these processes helps ensure continuous scrutiny of the competi-
tive environment and involves line managers in this effort. The deep dives, for

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 Dynamic Capabilities at IBM: Driving Strategy into Action

FIGURE 4. Dynamic Capabilities at IBM example, are routinely called out by

business managers facing problems.
Strategic Elements Sensing Seizing
The technology team offers a way
Technology Team X to link technological advances with
Strategy Team X business needs. The strategy team
Integration and Values ensures dynamic adjustments to
Team/Winning Plays X X strategy and execution are made in
Deep Dives X a timely manner. The winning plays
Emerging Business provide a way of communicating and
Opportunities (EBOs) X focusing the organization on com-
Strategic Leadership pany-wide initiatives. The primary
Forums (SLFs) X capability in sensing opportunities
Corporate is the ability to make high-quality
Investment Fund X unbiased investment decisions under
conditions of high uncertainty. These
four mechanisms provide a multifac-
eted way of continually monitoring
and assessing changes, a clear decision process for making timely decisions, and
the ability to allocate resources in support of these decisions.

Seizing New Opportunities: Strategic Execution

In addition to these mechanisms that help identify opportunities, the IBM
strategic process also has a set of mechanisms to help seize them by reallocating
resources and, when needed, reconfiguring the organization. The key here is the
ability to recombine and reconfigure assets and structures as markets and tech-
nologies change. In addition to the Integration & Values Team and Winning
Plays described above, which also have elements that help seize opportunities,
three powerful mechanisms help ensure what Teece refers to as “asset
orchestration.”29
▪ Emerging Business Opportunities (EBOs) are an integrated set of
processes, incentives, and structures designed explicitly to enable IBM to
address new business opportunities and drive revenue growth. The EBO
process begins with the recognition that mature, well-established busi-
nesses need to operate differently from new, exploratory ones. To suc-
ceed, emerging businesses have different key success factors and require
a different style of leadership and different alignments of people, formal
organizations, and culture. IBM recognized that the current management
system rewarded short-term execution aimed at current markets. Trying
to operate new business within a mature one can be exceedingly difficult,
with the result that the new business is often killed. Further, the com-
pany lacked the disciplines for selecting, experimenting, funding, and
terminating new businesses. This led to the development of a process to
identify new growth opportunities and to establish separate new organi-
zations with their own leadership, alignment, and funding—all with
senior management oversight to ensure that the new businesses get the

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 Dynamic Capabilities at IBM: Driving Strategy into Action

resources needed to explore the opportunity. Under the new system,

these aren’t product upgrades or just technical opportunities; they’re
business opportunities—ones that can be turned into revenue-producing
businesses.
The EBO process begins when growth opportunities are identified
that require significant cross-organization integration to be successful.
Each EBO is typically characterized by a new value proposition—which
may cannibalize existing offerings, involves multiple groups within the
company, is in a high-growth domain but with offerings that may not be
well-defined, and requires evangelism to develop successfully. EBOs are
rigorously reviewed monthly by a senior sponsor against milestones, a
process some leaders equate to “root canals.” The combination of a clear
discipline for identifying and attacking new opportunities, senior manage-
ment oversight to protect the new business, and the ability to leverage
existing infrastructure allows the company to systematically experiment
in new areas, even as the rest of the firm focuses on exploitation. This
process drives asset reallocation and permits the company to reconfigure
itself.
In 1999-2005, 18 opportunities were identified, including Linux,
autonomic computing, blade servers, digital media, and network process-
ing. Some of these have succeeded and been folded back into existing
businesses; others have failed and new ones have been added. Life Sci-
ences, for example, was predicated on the potential opportunities offered
by the needs for new hardware, software, and services demanded by
pharmaceutical firms involved in proteomics and the promise of personal-
ized medicine. A number of earlier efforts within the company to address
these emerging markets had failed. However, since its founding as an
EBO in 1999, its leader, Carol Kovac, has grown this business to more
than $2B in revenues, has begun new businesses to address emerging
opportunities, and has evolved other startup businesses to a mature
category.
▪ The Strategic Leadership Forums (SLFs) are 3.5-day team-based work-
shops built around specific performance or opportunity gaps that bring
extended teams together for intensive work on problems or opportunities.
These workshops begin with work on refining the gap statement, chal-
lenging the strategy, a deep-root cause analysis of the specific underlying
causes of the performance or opportunity gap, and the development of
an action plan. Teams are selected to include all those responsible for the
issue to be addressed. During the SLF, groups are supported by members
of the strategy group and facilitation is provided by members of IBM’s
Global Executive and Organizational Capability group. This process helps
line managers to have a structured, candid conversation with a common
language—and to explicitly link strategic insight to execution in a disci-
plined way.
These forums were used to address significant strategic initiatives
such as accelerating the development of Emerging Business Opportunities

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 Dynamic Capabilities at IBM: Driving Strategy into Action

such as Life Sciences, Pervasive Computing, and Technology Services,

addressing performance gaps within mature businesses, linking IBM Fel-
lows and Distinguished Engineers to the on-demand effort, and even
resolving significant organizational conflicts across lines of business. A
typical SLF would begin when either senior executives called out a strate-
gic initiative or a general manager surfaced the need for a focused inter-
vention. Once identified, the strategy group would help identify team
leaders, build a fact base, and convene the SLF. At the SLF, there would
be disciplined conversations about the strategy, a root cause analysis of
the gap, the development of an implementation plan, and senior manage-
ment follow-up to ensure execution. Given the importance of the topics
addressed in these events, the SLFs were not typical corporate off-sites
but intensely focused, often emotional debates about the future of the
business. As Palmisano said in his introduction to one SLF, “I want you
to argue and fight but leave in agreement . . . the strategy is ‘IBM first.’”
The SLF is not simply education but a mechanism to solve major
strategic problems. Based on the success of this effort, the strategy group
now supports “mini-SLFs” throughout the company. This process, driven
by the IBM Business Leadership Model, provides a powerful common
methodology and language that is used throughout IBM and facilitates
a common systematic approach to strategic initiatives.
▪ The Corporate Investment Fund was developed as a way of providing
funding for new initiatives identified by the Integration & Values Team
or EBOs. This $500M fund was taken from existing units and specifically
designed to provide the resources to start new initiatives. Funding deci-
sions are made once a quarter. However, as Gerstner noted, “We worked
very hard at the process of starving the losers and investing in the big
bets. . . . The new ventures had to be protected from the normal
budgetary cycle because if things get tight, more often than not, profit-
center managers would be tempted to starve the future-oriented
projects.”30
The Corporate Investment Fund is not the conventional internal
venture fund found in many companies. Rather, it is designed with the
recognition that the annual budgeting process may not be sufficiently
responsive to fund new initiatives as they emerge during the year—
especially those that cut across business units and may not be attractive
enough for any specific business to fund by itself. Funds can be used to
support Winning Play initiatives or other projects that aren’t included in
the annual budgeting process. For example, after committing to the on-
demand transformation, the fund was used to support service-oriented
architecture in the software group and the development of enabling tech-
nology in the consulting organization. Funds have also been allocated to
permit the accelerated development of executive talent in China and
India.

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 Dynamic Capabilities at IBM: Driving Strategy into Action

Taken together, these processes emphasize strategic insight and execution

as well as general management leadership responsibility. While many organiza-
tions have several of these elements as a part of their strategy process, what is
different about the IBM approach is that they have an integrated set of mecha-
nisms to both sense and seize opportunities. This allows the firm to consider
trends in markets and technology, to identify issues that are relevant to custom-
ers, to examine them in detail, and to reconfigure assets to address them. Once
these decisions are made, this allows the new initiatives to be embedded into the
disciplined machine that characterizes IBM’s more mature businesses.

The Strategy Group at IBM

Strategy, and the role of the strategy group at IBM, has a very different
profile than conventional approaches. In the IBM context, strategy is an ongo-
ing, disciplined conversation between general managers and senior executives
about the future of the corporation—not an annual process or the work of a
group of internal consultants. As mentioned earlier, the strategy team itself is
composed largely of line managers who spend an 18- to 30-month stint deepen-
ing their strategic skills. These individuals are assigned by IBM’s senior execu-
tives without the strategy unit’s input. This not only broadens the perspective
of the strategy group, but is a valuable developmental tool for ensuring that the
future senior managers of the company have deep strategic skills.
One of the enablers of IBM’s strategy process is that the career strategists
within the strategy department have no designs on any other jobs within the
company; their role is to facilitate difficult or critical conversations with a focus
on the facts and not some larger but hidden agenda. Further, if the input from
the strategy group is to be effective, this team needs to be in place through sev-
eral investment cycles in order to ensure consistency of strategic choice over
time. Without this continuity, the aggregate effects of investments are unlikely
to give the strategy a chance to succeed.
The IBM Business Leadership Model explicitly makes three important
points. First, leadership by general managers requires both strategic insight and
execution. To be timely, this capability cannot reside in an annual, centralized
strategy process. Second, the strategy is anchored on either a performance or
opportunity gap as manifest in hard performance outcomes such as market share
gain, margins, growth, or profit. The metrics used to assess the success of strat-
egy implementation are always grounded in business outcomes—and where the
business is gaining or losing traction. In Harreld’s view, it is about only two
things: customer satisfaction and shareholder return.
Third, this process highlights the importance of alignment or comple-
mentarities among the components. For example, strategic execution occurs not
from attention to people or incentives or culture but from the alignment of all
of them with the critical tasks necessary to execute the chosen strategy. Effective
strategy is not simply the articulation of a strategic intent, but the linking of it
to innovation, solid marketplace insight, and an appropriate business design.
The overarching challenge is to ensure general management involvement and

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 Dynamic Capabilities at IBM: Driving Strategy into Action

ownership in this process—and not to let it become a staff function. As useful

as the IBM Leadership Model might be, the danger is that lower-level managers
might see it as another set of overheads—and might become cynical about it.
Part of the strategy group’s responsibility is to make sure that this does not
happen.

Dynamic Capabilities:
Driving Strategy Into Action
Harreld is the first to acknowledge that the IBM approach to strategy is
imperfect.
Amidst all the praise he received for transforming IBM, Gerstner was also
suitably modest and noted that when he left in 2002, IBM was in the same busi-
nesses that it had been when he arrived (e.g., hardware, software, and even
services). The real change required was for the company to reallocate assets and
to reconfigure itself to be able to compete in a different way. It meant walking
away from its history and long-standing business model. This required seeing
the marketplace differently—but Gerstner claimed that IBM already had the
right strategies. More importantly, it required a cultural transformation that
allowed the company to reconfigure itself and to reallocate resources so that
they could execute these strategies. As Gerstner noted at his last annual share-
holder meeting, “In the new IBM, we’ve always believed that our ability to exe-
cute is as important as the strength of our strategies.”31 This is the essence of
dynamic capabilities: the ability of a firm to sense new opportunities and to seize
them.
What the transformation of IBM illustrates is that while organizations are
often characterized by strong inertial forces that limit change, it is by no means
impossible. Teece argues this in saying that “Genetic engineering is possible with
organizations; but it is not easy . . . The key to sustained profitable growth is the
ability to recombine and reconfigure assets and organizational structures as mar-
kets and technologies change.”32 To accomplish such change, however, requires
that senior managers be able to not only sense the changes needed by their
firms, but also to be able to seize them by allocating resources and reconfiguring
the organization to address them. This involves seeing things realistically, being
willing to cannibalize existing businesses when necessary, and being ambidex-
trous or able to manage both mature and emerging businesses.33
In this regard, a key leadership element is the importance of fit or com-
plementarity among strategy, structure, culture, and process. As Michael Porter
observed, “Strategic fit among activities is fundamental not only to competitive
advantage, but also to the sustainability of competitive advantage. It is harder for
a rival to match an array of interlocked activities than it is merely to imitate a
particular sales approach, match a process technology, or replicate a set of prod-
uct features.”34 In this sense, dynamic capabilities composed of complementary
processes—such as the ability to reallocate and reconfigure assets—form the
basis of a difficult-to-imitate competitive advantage. The fact that such “soft”

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 Dynamic Capabilities at IBM: Driving Strategy into Action

capabilities cannot be easily purchased but must be developed over time only
enhances their value.
At IBM, these dynamic capabilities have been developed over time as an
integral part of how the company does strategy. It is the combination and com-
plementarities among those processes that promote strategic insight (e.g., deep
dives, winning plays, and ownership by general managers in the strategy-mak-
ing process) and those that link this insight to execution (e.g., EBOs, the Strate-
gic leadership Forum, and the Corporate Investment Fund), which allows the
firm to compete simultaneously in emerging and mature markets. This approach
permits the company to make small, frequent investments and to learn from
them. It encourages organizational learning—not solely by making smart deci-
sions from the top down, but through an evolutionary process of variation-
selection-retention.

Conclusion
Helping organizations develop dynamic capabilities is, we believe, the
fundamental and enduring task of executive leadership. As Alfred Chandler
has shown, organizations, especially successful ones, can stagnate over time.35
Pursuing the same strategy and sticking with the same core competencies may
make a firm successful in the short term but is likely to be fatal in the long term.
Senior leaders are responsible for ensuring that this does not happen. Unfortu-
nately, the evidence shows that too often firms get trapped by their own success.
The only way out of this trap is for senior leaders to help their firms develop the
dynamic capabilities that promote sustained competitive advantage.
In the past decade, IBM has undergone a remarkable transformation.
While there are many reasons for this success, at least part of it has been in their
ability to both sense and seize opportunities and to reconfigure the company’s
structure and competencies to address them. In strategic terms, these dynamic
capabilities have been made real through an ongoing process of disciplined, fact-
based conversations; a common language and problem-solving methodology as
manifest in the IBM Business Leadership Model; and a clear commitment by
leaders to compete in mature as well as emerging markets. This language and
process is employed throughout the company—from the senior executive levels
to first-level managers. It is an integrated way to focus on both the formulation
of strategy and its implementation.
Unlike other piecemeal approaches to strategy, the IBM process is one
driven by line management based on the realities of the marketplace as seen
in performance and opportunity gaps, not a staff exercise or slide deck. This has
moved the strategy-making process from an annual ritual to a continual process,
from an emphasis on planning to one on action, from a staff function to one that
line managers own, and from a concern with strategy only to a focus on both
strategy and execution. It has changed the role of the strategy group from that
of a critic to a partner in fixing problems—and one that is aligned with general
managers in identifying future problems and opportunities for the company.

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 Dynamic Capabilities at IBM: Driving Strategy into Action

Dynamic capabilities are not abstract academic concepts but a concrete

set of mechanisms that help managers address the fundamental question of
strategy, which is to develop a truly sustainable competitive advantage. Interest-
ingly, we are beginning to realize that sustainability is fleeting unless it is aligned
with capabilities to continually sense how the marketplace is changing and seize
these changes through dynamic organizational realignment.

Notes
1. Louis V. Gerstner, Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance? (New York, NY: Harper Business, 2002);
Paul Carroll, Big Blues: The Unmaking of IBM (New York, NY: Reed Business, 1993); Doug
Garr, IBM Redux: Gerstner and the Business Turnaround of the Decade (New York, NY: Harper
Collins, 1999).
2. M. Tushman, C. O’Reilly, A. Fenelosa, A. Kleinbaum, and D. McGrath, “Relevance and
Rigor: Executive Education as a Lever in Shaping Research and Practice,” Academy of Manage-
ment Learning and Education (forthcoming 2007).
3. A.M. Brandenberger and B.J. Nalebuff, Co-opetition: A Revolution in Mindset that Combines
Competition and Strategy (Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1997); R. Burgelman,
Strategy is Destiny: How Strategy-Making Shapes a Company’s Future (New York, NY: Free Press,
2001); M.E. Porter, Competitive Strategy (New York, NY: Free Press, 1980); C.K. Prahalad and
G. Hamel, “The Core Competence of the Corporation,” Harvard Business Review, 68/3
(May/June 1990): 79-91.
4. D. Teece, G. Pisano, and A. Shuen, “Dynamic Capabilities and Strategic Management,”
Strategic Management Journal, 18/7 (August 1997): 509-533.
5. Using the Google Scholar search function, a total of 4,170,000 cites were returned. A search
on “competitive advantage” returned 707,000 hits.
6. D. Teece, “Explicating Dynamic Capabilities: The Nature and Microfoundations of (Long-
Run) Enterprise Performance,” Working Paper, Haas School of Business, 2006, p. 23.
7. M. Porter, Competitive Strategy (New York, NY: Free Press, 1980).
8. E. Penrose, The Theory of the Growth of the Firm (London: Basil Blackwell, 1959); R. Rumelt,
Strategy, Structure and Economic Performance (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974);
D. Teece, “Economic Analysis and Strategic Management,” California Management Review,
26/3 (Spring 1984): 87-110.
9. Brandenburger and Nalebuff, op. cit.; D. Kreps and R. Wilson, “Reputation and Imperfect
Information,” Journal of Economic Theory, 27/2 (August 1982): 253-279; C. Shapiro, “The
Theory of Business Strategy,” Rand Journal of Economics, 20/1 (Spring 1989): 125-137.
10. R. Burgelman, Strategy Is Destiny: How Strategy-Making Shapes a Company’s Future (New York,
NY: Free Press, 2001).
11. Teece (2006), op. cit.; K. Eisenhardt and J. Martin, “Dynamic Capabilities: What Are They?”
Strategic Management Journal, 21/10-11 (October/November 2000): 1105-1121.
12. Teece (2006), op. cit.
13. Teece et al. (1997), op. cit., p. 515.
14. C. O’Reilly and M. Tushman, “Ambidexterity as a Dynamic Capability: Resolving the Inno-
vator’s Dilemma,” Research in Organizational Behavior, 28 (in press); M. Tushman and C.
O’Reilly, “The Ambidextrous Organization: Managing Evolutionary and Revolutionary
Change,” California Management Review, 38/4 (Summer 1996): 8-30.
15. R. Rumelt, D. Schendel, and D. Teece, Fundamental Issues in Strategy (Boston, MA: Harvard
Business School Press, 1994); R.J. Shea-Van Fossen, H.R. Rothstein, and H.J. Korn, “Thirty-
Five Years of Strategic Planning and Firm Performance Research: A Meta-Analysis,” paper
presented at the Annual Meetings of the Academy of Management, Atlanta, 2006.
16. Business Week, October 4, 1993.
17. New York Times, June 26, 1994.
18. Gerstner, op. cit., p. 123.
19. Ibid., p. 133.
20. Ibid., p. 176.
21. Ibid., p. 220.
22. IBM, The New Agenda: IBM and the On-Demand Era.

42 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY VOL. 49, NO. 4 SUMMER 2007

 Dynamic Capabilities at IBM: Driving Strategy into Action

23. IBM internal document, 2004.

24. IBM Global Services 2006. Expanding the Innovation Horizon: The Global CEO Study.
25. Marco Iansiti and Roy Levien, “Strategy as Ecology,” Harvard Business Review, (March 2004).
26. Henry Chesbrough, Open Innovation (Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 2003).
27. M. Tushman and C. O’Reilly, Winning Through Innovation (Boston, MA: Harvard Business
School Press, 2002).
28. James G. March, “Exploration and Exploitation in Organizational Learning,” Organizational
Science, 2/1 (February 1991): 71-87.
29. Teece (2006), op. cit., p. 46.
30. Gerstner, op. cit., p. 227.
31. Lou Gerstner, Annual Meeting, Savannah, Georgia.
32. Teece (2006), op. cit., p. 21.
33. C. O’Reilly and M. Tushman, “The Ambidextrous Organization,” Harvard Business Review,
82/4 (April 2004): 74-81.
34. M. Porter, “What Is Strategy?” Harvard Business Review, 74/6 (November/December 1996):
73.
35. A. Chandler, Scale and Scope (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1990).

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