Author: Bruce Guptill and Charlie Burns

This year’s IBM Connect event – formerly Lotusphere – clearly affirms and confirms IBM’s company-wide and –deep commitment to the inextricably intertwined IT and business realities of Cloud, Mobile, Social, Analytics, and Integration.
The event’s over-arching theme of “Social Business” established two years ago has taken hold and permeates IBM’s product and service positioning and messaging. We see IBM’s key positioning tenets of “Social Business,” “Innovation,” and “Transformation” continually carrying the message to the attendees.

However, Saugatuck sees a major challenge for IBM: Put simply, IBM risks being inconsistent or unclear in its core positioning, and stunting the effectiveness of its efforts with customers and the effectiveness of its business partners.  This opens the door for other vendors to define and articulate the market – leaving IBM as a powerful, but less influential and less profitable player.

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