When Rob Thomas took on the dual role of senior vice president of software and chief commercial officer at IBM, he inherited one of the toughest balancing acts in business: aligning long-term product innovation with short-term commercial performance. Few leaders are tasked with overseeing both the engineering pipeline and the global sales organization of a century-old technology giant.
Thomas says that combination has sharpened his understanding of why many large companies fail to innovate. “It comes down to one word,” he says. “Iteration.”
