IBM Brazil

: the implementation of an innovation-based strategy

Abstract

The internet and digital revolution brought a lot of changes into society, including businesses. Companies had to find ways to reinvent themselves to survive on these newmarkets and develop new competitive advantage. Innovation is considered to be a smartway for companies to place themselves in a relevant market space. However, the choice to have an innovation-based strategy can be tricky and requires investments on internal capabilities. To better understand innovation-based strategies and its implications, this case study investigated a Blockchain implementation project developed by IBM Brazil. The development of this case study took in consideration interviews performed with IBM employees, extensive literature review on innovation capabilities, innovation as strategy on high-tech companies and Blockchain for business, and analysis of secondary sources. From this study we can highlight the findings that: (1) Innovation-based strategies can cause disturbance on operations that can led to amateur mistakes even on well established companies. (2) Constant development of innovation capabilities is essential to guarantee high-tech companies’ competitiveness. (3) Pet projects among a well developed product ecosystem can bring great publicity, clients, and a steady revenue stream. In addition to the case study and the Literature Review, this dissertation includes a Teaching Note in order to help instructors to prepare the in-class case discussion.

Date of Award	23 Jan 2023
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Nuno Magalhães Guedes (Supervisor)