IBM Corp. has boosted its presence in Orange County. Now it’s making that presence known.
The company recently kicked off the first in a series of executive roundtable meetings here, which are expected to take place each quarter.
Before last year’s buy of Costa Mesa-based FileNet Corp., IBM kept a relatively low profile in the county. Now IBM employs 2,100 people here, a 62% increase after buying FileNet. Most are in sales, service and software development.
The roundtable is “not a sales call,” said Matt Doretti, territory manager for IBM in OC.
So what’s in it for Big Blue?
“New business might be fostered,” he said.
But that’s not the intent of the series, which is set to include speakers from companies other than IBM.
The aim of the executive meetings is broad: to help keep OC globally competitive, Doretti said.
Workdays for global companies don’t end at sunset. Companies have to figure out how to manage products “that follow the sun,” he said.
The series was Doretti’s idea.
Doretti, who grew up in Anaheim, moved back to OC in June. He’s held executive and management positions at IBM for the past 23 years in Michigan and New York.
He said his family’s move to OC was a lifestyle decision,to be near other family members. He said he was excited to be going to a football game with his son and his father.
“I’m going to my first high school football game in 28 years,” he said.
Doretti’s desire to root in OC is one of his motivations for getting together OC executives.
“I want to see sustainable growth in the region for my children and my grandchildren,” he said.
A topic for future discussion: innovation.
“I really want to bring that message back to OC,” he said.
Doretti said he’d also like executives to wrestle with the subject of the county’s high cost of living.
“We’re challenged by the cost of living,” he said.
This is a priority topic for business groups in OC, namely the Orange County Business Council.
IBM’s executive roundtable series is more of an informal brainstorming session, compared to other groups, such as the Orange County Technology Action Network, or Octane for short.
Aliso Viejo-based Octane has some of the same objectives: to create, grow, support and fund business in OC, according to Gary Augusta, executive director.
Dwight Decker, chief executive of Newport Beach-based Conexant Systems Inc., and Tom Moebus, a former vice chancellor at the University of California, Irvine, started Octane.
There are connections.
Lee Roberts, FileNet’s former chief executive and now IBM’s general manager of content management software, is on Octane’s board. Richard Bakalar, an IBM telemedicine expert, recently spoke at Octane’s medical device conference in Irvine.
But back to innovation,IBM’s bent.
The company surveyed local executives this year and found that 65% of respondents said they are going to make a “radical business model change” that goes beyond new products or better ways of doing things, Doretti said.
Another future topic: protection and the use of intellectual property.
At the first meeting, about 17 human resources executives from technology and medical device companies attended. Media weren’t invited so the executives could talk more freely, Doretti said.
Randall MacDonald, senior vice president of human resources for IBM, led the two-hour session on global competitiveness. The single biggest change in human resources these days is managing a global work force, he said. Can the IBMer in U.S., China and Poland relate?
“How do you make connections with people and are they accepting of one another’s cultures?” MacDonald said.
“The globalization of the workplace will continue to have far-reaching implications,” MacDonald said.
The meeting also touched on ways to steer more young people toward science and math.
Another hot topic is workplace flexibility, key to boosting productivity and revenue, according to IBM. MacDonald calls it “personalization of the workplace.”
Job sharing is an example. Two women workers may agree to share a job and split the salary to spend more time with their children.
At IBM, 40% of its workers don’t go into an office.
Doretti said many of his OC team is mobile. IBM established its “eMobility” program in the 1990s. In 1995, IBM had 10,000 mobile workers. Today there are 115,000.
The hard part is fostering collaboration, Doretti said. His staff gets together on Mondays.
IBM uses technology to foster a “virtual team,” he said.
“People are coming across regional boundaries working cooperatively,” he said.
