Business Services Industry
Big Blue forges small alliances: outside 'agents' prosper as IBM hands off accounts. (Big Blue Stores Inc.)
Crain's Cleveland Business, August, 1993 by Thompson, Chris
As Big Blue shrinks, companies such as LDA Systems Inc. grow. But this isn't a case of small companies chipping away at the market share of giant International Business Machines Corp. Instead, LDA and a handful of other small computer services companies have linked hands with IBM and have prospered as IBM turns over pieces of its business to its new partners.
In the glory days of IBM -- before billion-dollar losses and mass layoffs -- there was an IBM salesperson for almost everything. That's not the case any longer as the company focuses more on serving its largest and its fastest-growing accounts. Smaller accounts are increasingly served by independent companies, which IBM refers to as "agents." There are seven IBM business agents in northeastern Ohio. "We are...
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