IBM (News - Alert) has announced the midmarket findings from the IBM Global CEO Study. The study "The Enterprise of the Future," was conducted about chief executives and it looks into the five basic enterprise defining attributes, problems midsized companies cope with change and reports a sizable gap between their need for change and their past success in managing it.

 

Even though midsized companies are seen to have significant challenges they are unfazed by them and to the contrary they are highly optimistic and are willing execute innovative methods.

 

The report says in the face of anticipated changes to external market factors, skill requirements, and regulatory compliance, the gap between the amount of change that CEOs anticipate and their company's past success with managing change is dramatic. More than eight out of ten or 86 percent of midsize businesses anticipate substantial change, yet just over half or 57 percent have had prior success in managing that change.

 

IBM has stated that the findings of this report are based upon a series of interviews and analysis conducted by IBM in late 2007 and early 2008. A total of 1,130 CEOs, business and public sector leaders from 40 countries representing organizations across a variety of industries and sizes participated in structured interviews. IBM consultants conducted more than 1,000 face to face interviews, with the remainder conducted by The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).

 

The study reveals that CEOs are midsized companies have realized that only by making bold strategic steps they could lift their company into a competitive one and they are taking the necessary steps to evolve in the rapidly changing environment.

 

"In today's rapidly changing global marketplace, CEOs of midsize companies recognize that the most effective path to sustained business success is through innovation, skills and active partnering," said Marc Dupaquier, general manager of Global Midmarket in IBM General Business. "It's clear that these firms are aggressively changing their business designs to expand into new markets and forge stronger relationships with a new class of informed and collaborative customer."

 

Many CEOs have identified three primary actions they must take to make their organization global: make deep changes to their mix of capabilities, knowledge and assets (60 percent), partner extensively (54 percent), and actively enter new markets (51 percent).

 

CEOs of midsized companies are better placed than their corporate counterparts in agility and willingness to respond to demanding customers and their highly fragmented needs. They have figured out that customers nowadays are highly informed of their needs.

 

And on this rise of social minded customers, CEOs agreed that customer expectations around corporate social responsibility ('CSR' (News - Alert)) are increasing and that CSR will play an important role in differentiating an enterprise in the future.

 

These CEOs would prefer not to take their chances against the informative customers and tend to keep their reputation as high as possible because the trend of customers buying from a firm on their past records is fast evolving. According to the survey, they plan to increase their CSR investments by a sizeable 34 percent over the next three years.