I.B.M. trotted out its “smarter planet” campaign more than a year ago, starting with a speech by Samuel J. Palmisano, I.B.M.’s chief executive, at the Council on Foreign Relations. At the time, the campaign seemed an ambitious, though potentially risky, move. The vision of transportation, health care, cities, retailing, finance and other fields made more intelligent with digital technology — and yes, supplied largely by I.B.M. — could have easily fizzled and been portrayed as big-think puffery, out of step with an economy in a tailspin.
But I.B.M.’s gamble looks like a good one today. The smarter-planet campaign has covered Big Blue in the mantle of thought and technology leadership among its core customers of senior corporate executives and government officials. It has also delivered new business, helping I.B.M. hold up better than most of its industry peers; its stock price is up 50 percent in the last year.
Mr. Palmisano delivered a speech on Wednesday Tuesday — “Welcome to the Decade of Smart” — at London’s Chatham House, home of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, a policy think tank. Though not meant as a lessons-learned marketing tutorial, the talk is implicitly just that.
A few observations and excerpts:
– Play to your strengths. To pull off smarter planet-style projects is a big-systems challenge involving computer hardware, sensor networks, specialized software and hands-on work by industry experts. No technology company has all the pieces the way I.B.M. does, able to position itself as the digital general contractor for big projects, often financed with government stimulus money by governments around the world.
– Present your vision as a historic shift. “What we at I.B.M. had come to believe,” Mr. Palmisano said, was that there was a “seminal change in the way the world literally works.”
– It helps to have I.B.M.’s marketing muscle and relationships with corporate and government decision-makers. Besides its online, print and television advertising, I.B.M. did a lot of face-to-face evangelism. “We initiated outreach in more than 50 countries, both the established and emerging nations of the world,” Mr. Palmisano said. “We have held nearly 100 conferences on the subject of Smarter Cities alone, attended by more than 2,000 civic leaders.”
– Deliver enough success to support your theme. I.B.M. isn’t about to talk about projects that may be falling short. Still, Mr. Palmisano pointed to winners in several fields. In cities like Stockholm, London and Singapore, the company has helped deploy congestion management systems. Mr. Palmisano pointed to the benefits: “Traffic volume during peak periods has been reduced by 18 percent, CO2 emissions from motor vehicles were reduced by up to 14 percent, and public transit use increased by up to 7 percent.”
– Convert your customers to advocates. Speaking of corporate and government champions of smarter planet projects, Mr. Palmisano said, “These leaders didn’t wait for legislation to be passed, or an industry consortium to be formed. They reached across multiple constituencies, took the initiative and drove change.”
– Be candid about challenges. The smarter planet systems rely on immense data collection and analysis, raising privacy and security issues. “Some citizens have expressed discomfort at living in … not a safer society,” Mr. Palmisano said, “but a surveillance society.” (One of his speech writers, presumably, found the delightful piece from The Daily Mail in London in 2007 that pointed out the apartment in which George Orwell wrote “1984” now has 32 closed-circuit cameras within 200 yards.) But such challenges become brand and image-burnishing opportunities for I.B.M. Next month the company will stage a worldwide online collaboration, SecurityJam, inviting the participation of business and government security experts and leaders — all potential customers.