IBM Global Business Services
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| Division of IBM | |
| Industry | IT services, management consulting |
| Founded | June 16, 1991 |
| Headquarters | Armonk, New York, United States Over 300 offices in 170 countries |
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Key people
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Seymour Kazimirski |
| Services | IT, management consulting and outsourcing services |
| Revenue | US$ 58.8 billion (2012) |
| Parent | IBM (1991–present) |
| Website | www-935 |
IBM Global Services, a division of IBM, is the world's largest business and technology services provider. It employs over 190,000 people across more than 160 countries. IBM Global Services started in the spring of 1991, with the aim towards helping companies manage their IT operations and resources.
Global Services has two major divisions: Global Business Services (GBS) and Global Technology Services (GTS).
IBM Global Business Services (GBS) is the professional services arm of Global Services, including management and strategy consulting, systems integration, and application management services. Revenues from the Global Business Services were $13.5 billion in 2014.
The beginning of IBM’s involvement in IT services can be traced back at least to 1989 when Eastman Kodak Company and IBM completed an agreement by which IBM designed, built and managed a new state-of-the-art data center for Kodak in Rochester, New York under the brand name ISSC, Integrated Systems Solution Corporation.
Also in 1989, IBM introduced Business Recovery Services, an offering that enables a business to continue operations in the event of an unplanned outage or disaster.
In 1992, the company formed IBM Consulting Group, as a new management consulting organization with service lines in Business Transformation and IT Strategy Consulting. This initiative was led by Robert M. Howe, IBM Vice-President and General Manager of IBM Consulting Group. The group was rebranded to IBM Business Innovation Services in 2001, and then IBM Business Consulting Services. As the management consulting became more entangled with more technology delivery, the integrated organization became known as IBM Global Business Services.
In 2002, IBM Global Services acquired the management consulting and technology services arm of PricewaterhouseCoopers, around the same time some of the other Big Four accounting firms were selling off their consulting arms (this was from intense pressure to avoid conflicts of interest in light of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act). PwC's consultancy business was sold to IBM for approximately US$3.9 billion in cash and stock. This nearly doubled the number of consultants within IBM Global Services, adding 30,000 consultants in 52 countries.
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