Making it clear that there will be no more pussyfooting this time, IBM Corp has resorted to a heavyweight axe to lay at the roots of the lingering dead wood this time around and in what is seen to be the first of a string of shuddering changes in its management and organisation, has made it clear that George Conrades, one of the two people seen as the front-runners to succeed John Akers as chief executive, does not have much of a future with the company. On Monday, the company announced that Conrades was being shuffled out of his post as general manager of IBM United States, where he had about 100,000 people reporting to him, to the post of senior vice-president, corporate marketing and services, reporting to senior vice-president Michael Armstrong, the other man most people have been putting into the frame with Conrades for the top job. Conrades is succeeded by Robert LaBant, who was general manager of Application Business Systems – the AS/400 business, where he succeeded in maintaining the momentum established by his predecessor. At 46, LaBant is considered too young to succeed 56-year-old Akers, who must retire when he is 60 but could go earlier. LaBant now reports to senior vice-president Terry Lautenbach. John Thompson, who had the job to which Conrades has been shuffled, and is also chairman of IBM Canada Ltd, takes over the AS/400, and also gets a seat on the Corporate Management Board; since Conrades keeps his seat there, the board begins to look overmanned. The US papers tried to get to speak to Conrades, but the Wall Street Journal, which treated the story as a sensation, was told that Conrades had decided to take the day off. IBM is expected to cut at least another 20,000 jobs next year: 1991 has been such a rotten year that it seems likely that the company will decide to set the cost against this year’s figures, suggesting that after charges, the company will report a net loss for the year on the first fall in turnover since 1946.
Content from our partners
