Type Division of IBM Founder IBM Revenue 58.8 million USD (2012) | Key people Seymour Kazimirski Founded 1995 Parent organization IBM | |
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Industry IT services, management consulting Services IT, management consulting and outsourcing services Website www-935.ibm.com/services/us/gbs/consulting/ Headquarters Armonk, North Castle, New York, United States Profiles | ||
IBM Global Services, a division of IBM, is the world's largest business and technology services provider. It employs over 190,000 people across more than 160 countries. IBM Global Services started in the spring of 1991, with the aim towards helping companies manage their IT operations and resources.
Contents
Global Services has two major divisions: Global Business Services (GBS) and Global Technology Services (GTS).
IBM Global Business Services
IBM Global Business Services (GBS) is the professional services arm of Global Services, including management and strategy consulting, systems integration, and application management services. Revenues from the Global Business Services were $13.5 billion in 2014.
History
The beginning of IBM’s involvement in IT services can be traced back at least to 1989 when Eastman Kodak Company and IBM completed an agreement by which IBM designed, built and managed a new state-of-the-art data center for Kodak in Rochester, New York under the brand name ISSC, Integrated Systems Solution Corporation.
Also in 1989, IBM introduced Business Recovery Services, an offering that enables a business to continue operations in the event of an unplanned outage or disaster.
In 1992, the company formed IBM Consulting Group, as a new management consulting organization with service lines in Business Transformation and IT Strategy Consulting. This initiative was led by Robert M. Howe, IBM Vice-President and General Manager of IBM Consulting Group. The group was rebranded to IBM Business Innovation Services in 2001, and then IBM Business Consulting Services. As the management consulting became more entangled with more technology delivery, the integrated organization became known as IBM Global Business Services.
In 2002, IBM Global Services acquired the management consulting and technology services arm of PricewaterhouseCoopers, around the same time some of the other Big Four accounting firms were selling off their consulting arms (this was from intense pressure to avoid conflicts of interest in light of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act). PwC's consultancy business was sold to IBM for approximately US$3.9 billion in cash and stock. This nearly doubled the number of consultants within IBM Global Services, adding 30,000 consultants in 52 countries.
Organizational structure
IBM Global Business Services is organized into six service lines:
IBM Global Technology Services
IBM Global Technology Services (GTS) primarily reflects infrastructure services. It includes outsourcing services, business continuity and resilience, Integrated Technology Services, and Maintenance. Revenues from the Global Technology Services segment in 2012 totaled $40.2 billion, a decrease of 2 percent compared with 2011.
GTS is the leading e-business on demand and hosting services provider, according to IDC, Forrester Research, Gartner/Dataquest and Meta Group; the leader in providing high-availability services, networking services and storage services, according to Gartner Group and IDC; the leader in the emerging wireless services market, according to IDC.