Business can be described as a cyclical trend of ups and downs—a continual evolution. Whether you think of change as painful, pleasant or perpetual, one thing is clear—strong leadership, skilled actions and long-term commitment are needed to carry your business through the process of evolving.

IBM wants to deliver practical, new strategies to help you update your business model and remain relevant with your customers in a shifting market. In this article—my first post on Business Partner Voices—I’m pleased to introduce the IBM Business Transformation initiative!

This initiative acknowledges the need to incorporate change over time. It encompasses three phases that are designed to help your company identify and optimize its core business competencies, prepare for and react quickly to shifting market demands, and develop deep expertise in solutions that drive more profitability. No one can accomplish all of this in a week, but getting started is easy.

The One-Day Workshop

IBM recognizes the needs of its Business Partners to remain compelling to customers and to be supported in ways that are timely and appropriate. With that in mind, there are several emerging and growing business models in IT that offer better margins for IT solution providers.

Earlier this year, IBM piloted a new workshop to help Business Partners get started on this journey of transformation. Or to put it more succinctly, help organizations evolve from a transactional business model to one that delivers higher value and profitability going forward.

This one-day workshop was provided free of charge to selected Business Partners that fit predefined profile parameters. The criteria for participation included:

• An existing IBM Business Partner
• Between 10-100 employees
• In business approximately three to eight years
• In a growth stage (not a start-up or a legacy business)
• Indicated an interest in moving away from a traditional business model
• Committed to investing in a new business model and ready to act immediately following the workshop

Embracing change

The IBM Business Partners were presented with a questionnaire to assess their business and leadership competencies. Then, the company’s leadership teams were brought together to develop a customized plan addressing basic business issues which might otherwise hinder the progress of evolving to a higher-profitability model.

This evolution requires that each Business Partner firm invest time, cash and resources into the process of transformation, in spite of the inherent risk that may be present. The advantage of changing business models is the potential to generate new efficiencies, new revenue streams and improved alignment with the fluid dynamics of the market.

Stay tuned

As IBM continues to deliver more of these workshops, we’ll use Business Partner Voices to discuss some of the basic business issues that are being encountered, and analyze the resulting impact on IBM Business Partners around the world. We’ll be sharing details about other phases and new features of the IBM Business Transformation initiative as they are rolled out.

I encourage you to contact me or your IBM sales representative to learn how these workshops and the Business Transformation initiative might help you get ready for greater success.

Sancia Matthyssen (@smatthyssen)