But what also helped IBM to register this impressive performance are its “shared value” initiatives wherein the company co-creates value with its competitors, and also focuses on creating environmental value with its take-back offers.
IBM knows that companies all over the world find it difficult to raise finance from formal lending institutions to meet their IT needs. Thus finance is a non-product ‘business eco-system gap’. Hence, IBM started offering financial services to the customers. The company offers zero-interest loans to customers who want to buy its products.
Importantly, IBM also fills its product gaps by extending loans to companies that have to buy non-IBM hardware and software products – that is solutions from its competitors. In an interview to The Hindu BusinessLine, Mr Sapan Jain, Vice-President, IBM Global Financing, India/South Asia, IBM said that “this zero per cent financing is for software, hardware purchases/leasing and can be extended to non-IBM related products as long as IBM invoices the transaction.”
In India, IBM is introducing its product recycling programs, as part of its product end-of-life management initiative. IBM offers to take back used IT hardware products categorised as electronic waste. Since corporates in India have to deal with e-waste in a responsible way, IBM has offered to step in. “With faster technology obsolescence, we gone beyond financing to take backs,” said Jain.