Hungry for change. Wildly imaginative. Disruptive by nature. Totally wired to the people who matter most. To some people, this might sound like your average teenager. In fact, these are the qualities companies will need to thrive in the near future, according to our newest CEO study.

Every two years, IBM talks to some 1,000+ CEOs and public sector leaders worldwide. We ask these executives: what are they thinking about? Where are they investing? What do they believe the Enterprise of the Future will look like? We also reviewed the differences between outperforming and underperforming businesses. This is our third global CEO survey. Here’s what we found.

Hungry for Change
The Enterprise of the Future is capable of changing quickly and successfully. Instead of merely responding to trends, it shapes and leads them. Market and industry shifts are a chance to move ahead of the competition.

Innovative Beyond Customer Imagination
The Enterprise of the Future surpasses the expectations of increasingly demanding customers. Deep collaborative relationships allow it to surprise customers with innovations that make both its customers and its own business more successful.

Globally Integrated
The Enterprise of the Future is integrating to take advantage of today’s global economy. Its business is strategically designed to access the best capabilities, knowledge and assets from wherever they reside in the world and apply them wherever required in the world.

Disruptive By Nature
The Enterprise of the Future radically challenges its business model, disrupting the basis of competition. It shifts the value proposition, overturns traditional delivery approaches and, as soon as opportunities arise, reinvents itself and its entire industry.

Genuine, Not Just Generous
The Enterprise of the Future goes beyond philanthropy and compliance and reflects genuine concern for society in all actions and decisions.

View Global CEO Study: The Enterprise of the Future

How our research was conducted

This study is the third edition of our biennial Global CEO Study series. This year’s research is based on in-person interviews with 1,130 CEOs, general managers and senior public sector and business leaders from around the world. As part of our research, we sought to understand differences between the responses of financial outperformers and those of underperformers.

For companies with publicly available financial information, we compared revenue and profit track records with the averages for those in the same industry across our sample. Companies that performed above average on a particular financial benchmark were tagged as outperformers, and those below the average were labeled as underperformers.

Download Global CEO Study: The Enterprise of the Future

PDF format, 848KB, 7Pages.

IDEAS from IBM • 05 May 2008

BUILDING YOUR ENTERPRISE OF THE FUTURE

Thoughts and views on the future of business—or the Enterprise of the Future, as we call it—are evolving quickly. We feel privileged to bring together the emerging thinking of so many CEOs worldwide.

This latest Global CEO Study should not be considered the end, but rather as a catalyst for ongoing discussions about where business and enterprises are headed. We look forward to working with you as you build your Enterprise of the Future.

For further information, visit our Web site: www.ibm.com/enterpriseofthefuture

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