Ibm’s global talent management strategy: the vision of the globally

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?