IBM’s Global Talent Management Strategy: The Vision of the Globally Integrated Enterprise

5. What specific human resource management and human capital indicators
suggested that a change was needed in how IBM approached its talent
management decisions? If you were an IBM business leader, would you care
about improving talent management at IBM? What would be the evidence you
would probably be seeing that would cause you to desire an improvement? If
you were an HR leader at IBM, why would you care about improving talent
management? Are the answers for a non-HR leader and an HR leader the same?
6. If you were a board member or a member of IBM’s executive team and you were
presented with the vision of the “Workforce Management Initiative” shown in
the case and told that implementing such an initiative would take several years
and cost up to US$100 million, would you embrace the initiative or resist it?
Why?
7. Consider the questions posed in the last section of the case study (pages 13-15).
How would you design the change-management initiative and the WMI itself
in answer to these questions? Why would you make those choices? What do you
think Randy and the IBM HR and executive team decided to do?