Friday 12 July 2013

Corporate affairs

IBM's headquarters complex is located in Armonk, Town of North Castle, New York, United States. The 283,000-square-foot (26,300 m2) IBM building has three levels of custom curtain wall. The building is located on a 25-acre (10 ha) site. IBM has been headquartered in Armonk since 1964.

The company has twelve research labs worldwide—Almaden, Austin, Australia, Brazil, China, Dublin, Israel, India, Tokyo, Watson (New York), Zurich and Nairobi—with Watson (dedicated in 1961) serving as headquarters for the research division and the site of its annual meeting. Other campus installations include towers in Montreal, Paris, and Atlanta; software labs in Raleigh-Durham, Rome and Toronto; buildings in Chicago, Johannesburg, and Seattle; and facilities in Hakozaki and Yamato. The company also operates the IBM Scientific Center, Hursley House, the Canada Head Office Building, IBM Rochester, and the Somers Office Complex. The company's contributions to architecture and design, including Chicago's 330 North Wabash building designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, were recognized with the 1990 Honor Award from the National Building Museum.

IBM's Board of Directors, with 14 members, is responsible for the overall management of the company. With Cathie Black's resignation from the board in November 2010, the remaining 13 members (along with their affiliation and year of joining the board) are as follows: Alain J. P. Belda '08 (Alcoa), William R. Brody '07 (Salk Institute / Johns Hopkins University), Kenneth Chenault '98 (American Express), Michael L. Eskew '05 (UPS), Shirley Ann Jackson '05 (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute), Andrew N. Liveris '10 (Dow Chemical), W. James McNerney, Jr. '09 (Boeing), James W. Owens '06 (Caterpillar), Samuel J. Palmisano '00 (IBM), Joan Spero '04 (Doris Duke Charitable Foundation), Sidney Taurel '01 (Eli Lilly), and Lorenzo Zambrano '03 (Cemex).

Various IBM facilities

IBM Rochester (Minnesota), nicknamed the "Big Blue Zoo" IBM Avenida de América Building in Madrid, Spain Somers (New York) Office Complex, designed by I.M. Pei IBM Japan Makuhari Technical Center, designed by Yoshio Taniguchi IBM Haifa Research Lab, Haifa, Israel Corporate recognition and brand

In 2012, Fortune ranked IBM the No. 2 largest U.S. firm in terms of number of employees, the No. 4 largest in terms of market capitalization, the No. 9 most profitable, and the No. 19 largest firm in terms of revenue. Globally, the company was ranked the No. 31 largest firm in terms of revenue by Forbes for 2011. Other rankings for 2011/2012 include the following:

No. 1 company for leaders (Fortune) No. 1 green company worldwide (Newsweek) No. 2 best global brand (Interbrand) No. 2 most respected company (Barron's) No. 5 most admired company (Fortune) No. 18 most innovative company (Fast Company)

For 2012, IBM's brand was valued by Interbrand at $75.5 billion.

For 2012, Vault ranked IBM Global Technology Services No. 1 in tech consulting for cyber security, operations and implementation, and public sector; and No. 2 in outsourcing.

Working at IBM

IBM's employee management practices can be traced back to its roots. In 1914, CEO Thomas J. Watson boosted company spirit by creating employee sports teams, hosting family outings, and furnishing a company band. In 1924 the Quarter Century Club, which recognizes employees with 25 years of service, was organized and the first issue of Business Machines, IBM's internal publication, was published. In 1925, the first meeting of the Hundred Percent Club, composed of IBM salesmen who meet their quotas, convened in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

IBM was among the first corporations to provide group life insurance (1934), survivor benefits (1935) and paid vacations (1937). In 1932 IBM created an Education Department to oversee training for employees, which oversaw the completion of the IBM Schoolhouse at Endicott in 1933. In 1935, the employee magazine Think was created. Also that year, IBM held its first training class for female systems service professionals. In 1942, IBM launched a program to train and employ disabled people in Topeka, Kansas. The next year classes begin in New York City, and soon the company was asked to join the President's Committee for Employment of the Handicapped. In 1946, the company hired its first black salesman, 18 years before the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In 1947, IBM announced a Total and Permanent Disability Income Plan for employees. A vested rights pension was added to the IBM retirement plan.

In 1952, Thomas J. Watson, Jr., published the company's first written equal opportunity policy letter, one year before the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown vs. Board of Education and 11 years before the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In 1961, IBM's nondiscrimination policy was expanded to include sex, national origin, and age. The following year, IBM hosted its first Invention Award Dinner honoring 34 outstanding IBM inventors; and in 1963, the company named the first eight IBM Fellows in a new Fellowship Program that recognizes senior IBM scientists, engineers and other professionals for outstanding technical achievements.

An IBM delivery tricycle in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1965

On September 21, 1953, Thomas Watson, Jr., the company's president at the time, sent out a controversial letter to all IBM employees stating that IBM needed to hire the best people, regardless of their race, ethnic origin, or gender. He also publicized the policy so that in his negotiations to build new manufacturing plants with the governors of two states in the U.S. South, he could be clear that IBM would not build "separate-but-equal" workplaces. In 1984, IBM added sexual orientation to its nondiscrimination policy. The company stated that this would give IBM a competitive advantage because IBM would then be able to hire talented people its competitors would turn down.

IBM was the only technology company ranked in Working Mother magazine's Top 10 for 2004, and one of two technology companies in 2005. On October 10, 2005, IBM became the first major company in the world to commit formally to not use genetic information in employment decisions. The announcement was made shortly after IBM began working with the National Geographic Society on its Genographic Project.

IBM provides same-sex partners of its employees with health benefits and provides an anti-discrimination clause. The Human Rights Campaign has consistently rated IBM 100% on its index of gay-friendliness since 2003 (in 2002, the year it began compiling its report on major companies, IBM scored 86%). In 2007 and again in 2010, IBM UK was ranked first in Stonewall's annual Workplace Equality Index for UK employers.

The company has traditionally resisted labor union organizing, although unions represent some IBM workers outside the United States. In 2009, the Unite union stated that several hundred employees joined following the announcement in the UK of pension cuts that left many employees facing a shortfall in projected pensions.

A dark (or gray) suit, white shirt, and a "sincere" tie was the public uniform for IBM employees for most of the 20th century. During IBM's management transformation in the 1990s, CEO Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. relaxed these codes, normalizing the dress and behavior of IBM employees to resemble their counterparts in other large technology companies. Since then IBM's dress code is business casual although employees often wear business suits during client meetings.

On June 16, 2011, as part of the its centenary celebrations the company announced IBM100, a year-long grants program to fund employee participation in volunteer projects.

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