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  • November 2004
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IBM's Diversity Strategy: Bridging the Workplace and the Marketplace

By: David A. Thomas and Ayesha Kanji
  • Format:Print
  • | Pages:27
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Abstract

Explores how IBM incorporated diversity into its business strategy, making the case that workforce diversity is critical to marketing its products and services to its customers. In the early 1990s, Ted Childs, vice-president of Workforce Diversity, proposed to CEO Lou Gerstner the creation of eight diversity task forces. Delves into the organizational and cultural impediments to starting a diversity task force initiative and how IBM overcame these obstacles to implement an effective diversity strategy. After the task forces were established, they underwent tremendous growth and became global in scope. Childs also faces the challenge of taking a U.S.-based diversity strategy and applying it to IBM's global organization. Teaching Purpose: To demonstrate how a company can implement an effective diversity strategy and integrate it into its overall business strategy.

Keywords

Information Technology; Diversification; Business Strategy; Integration; Global Strategy; Organizations; Markets; Information Technology Industry; United States

Citation

Thomas, David A., and Ayesha Kanji. "IBM's Diversity Strategy: Bridging the Workplace and the Marketplace." Harvard Business School Case 405-044, November 2004.
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About The Author

David A. Thomas

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More from the Authors

    • November–December 2020
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    Getting Serious About Diversity: Enough Already with the Business Case

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    Race, Work, and Leadership: New Perspectives on the Black Experience

    By: Laura Morgan Roberts, Anthony J. Mayo and David A. Thomas
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    Beating the Odds: Leadership Lessons from Senior African-American Women

    By: Laura Morgan Roberts, Anthony Mayo, Robin Ely and David Thomas
More from the Authors
  • Getting Serious About Diversity: Enough Already with the Business Case By: Robin Ely and David A. Thomas
  • Race, Work, and Leadership: New Perspectives on the Black Experience By: Laura Morgan Roberts, Anthony J. Mayo and David A. Thomas
  • Beating the Odds: Leadership Lessons from Senior African-American Women By: Laura Morgan Roberts, Anthony Mayo, Robin Ely and David Thomas
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