1 Research Paper Guidelines Specific guidance on the research paper submission is provided below:...

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1 Research Paper Guidelines Specific guidance on the research paper submission is provided below: The research paper will be written in the first eight weeks of the course. The research paper will be the final course product and will be due the final day of the course. The research paper will be graded on both content and format. A 12-15 page (excluding appendices, table of contents, abstract, reference, and bibliography) research paper (case study) is required. This paper represents 35% of the final course grade. Students will select a firm operating in the international business environment. This paper will be prepared consistent with the current APA Manual and will have a minimum of ten different references (No Wiki’s or Pedia’s). Some of the bibliography and references will most likely come from the firm you have chosen: source documents, e.g., annual reports, and financial statements. As such this reduces the need for peer reviewed sources. However, peer reviewed sources are still important and should be listed in the bibliography/reference section(s) and cited in the paper as appropriate. This paper is due the last day of class. In addition, the research paper will be prepared consistent with the following guidelines: 1. This serves as an introduction to the Research Paper. Provide an overview of the research design of the paper. Introduce the various topics that will be addressed in the research paper. Identify the method(s) that will be used to collect the data for the topics and how that data will be evaluated. 2. There will be a brief discussion of the firm to include its principle goods and services, market share, geographic locations where it operates, and major competitors. 3. Evaluate and discuss whether the firm could benefit by using Activity Based Costing (ABC). The discussion should include what factor(s) influenced your decision, the ramifications of implementing ABC in the international business environment, and how you would structure the distribution of costs using ABC for your firm. 4. Evaluate and discuss whether the firm could benefit by using standard costs. The discussion should include what factor(s) influenced your decision, the ramifications of costs, quantity, and variances, and the ramifications of using standard costs in the international business environment. 5. Evaluate and discuss how the firm could benefit by analyzing future projects in terms relevant costs. This discussion should include the firm’s future plans, such as, expansion, consolidation, and downsizing and how relevant costs could be used in the decision making. 6. Summary and conclusion(s). The discussion should provide a brief summary of the previous sections, and the conclusions you have reached. This research paper is due the last day of class. Use the link in Module 9 to submit your paper. You will only be able to submit this paper once.

David · Accepted Answer

Running Head: IBM RESEARCH PAPER
Assignment Title 
Student Name 
Course Name 
Instructor Name 
Date
IBM RESEARCH PAPER  1 
Abstract 
International Business Machines is a world renowned technology giant. Most of the business 
around the world makes use of some or other products or services provided by IBM. A large 
multinational and well-diversified technology companies incur variety of costs that have an 
impact on their business profitability and efficient utilization of resources. Research on various 
cost management system is essential to improve the overall resource allocation and to have 
enhanced level of control over the various costs associated with the activities. ABC system will 
be an appropriate, suitable costing system to manage their overall cost in the business. Making 
use of relevant cost is essential for the company to obtain the best outcome from IBM future 
investment.
IBM RESEARCH PAPER  2 
Table of Contents 
Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 3 
International Business Machines an Overview ............................................................................... 3 
Activity Based Costing ................................................................................................................... 5 
Standard Cost System ..................................................................................................................... 9 
Relevant Cost Associated With Future Projects ........................................................................... 10 
Summary and Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 12 
References ..................................................................................................................................... 14
IBM RESEARCH PAPER  3 
Introduction 
Cost management is crucial for every business, efficient and effective resource allocation 
and utilization is essential to reach the pinnacle. IBM is a large multinational corporation that 
makes use of more resources for various activities in their entire business activities across the 
globe. Financial statements, annual report and the financial model of IBM is used as the primary 
sources of data for performing the research. ABC method and standard costing method are 
analyzed for their relevance to IBM business to know and recommend the best cost management 
system for the company. Future strategy of IBM is determined by analyzing the importance of 
relevant cost associated with their decision making. It is essential for every organization to 
perform such research on the cost management so that they can have better control and 
management of cost to achieve better success and market position. 
International Business Machines an Overview 
International Business Machines (IBM) was incorporated on June 16, 1911, in New York 
as a Computing- Tabulating-Recording Company. IBM is recognized for providing various 
technology solutions to their clients across the industries (U.S. SEC, 2016, p. 1). They develop 
products that enable the client to leverage the data, deep expertise in their industry, best business 
process, information technology and broader ecosystem of alliance and partners.  
The major business operating segments of IBM are (U.S. SEC, 2016, p. 4):  
 Cognitive solutions – Provides best technology solution that will provide great insight 
into the client business it provides a descriptive, perspective and predictive analytics to 
the client. 
IBM RESEARCH PAPER  4 
 Global Business Services – It deals with the consultation, application management 
services and the global process services. It is considered as digital reinvention for the 
clients. 
 Technology Services & Cloud Platforms – IBM provides a comprehensive IT 
infrastructure services, technical support services, integrated software and cloud platform 
for the clients.  
 Systems – Provides solution to meet the hybrid cloud and the cognitive solutions of the 
client. Servers, storage and operating system software solution are provided to client. 
 Global Financing – It provides client financing, commercial financing and 
remanufacturing and remarketing financing.  
IBM has a broad spectrum of clients, and they provide services to industries like 
financial; energy; companies that designs, build and fly the airplanes; running of trains; 
healthcare; medical solutions; fashion industry; entertainment; who manages the cities; food 
industry and teaching, etc. (IBM, 2016, p. 1). They provide services and solution to all business 
and professionals across the globe. IBM is operating in more than 175 countries, and they make 
the best use of the locally available experts in providing assistance and service to the clients 
(U.S. SEC, 2016, p. 8). 
IBM is continuing to make a huge investment in the countries like China, India, Eastern 
European countries, and Southeast Asian countries, Middle East and Africa and Latin America 
(HBS, n.d.). IBM has major business markets in Canada, United States, United Kingdom, Japan, 
Italy, Germany, France, Austria, the Caribbean, Belgium, Switzerland, Cyprus, Spain, Denmark, 
Norway, Greece, Malta, the Netherlands, Iceland, Portugal, Israel, Finland, Sweden and Ireland 
(Refer Appendix I for revenue by region).  
IBM RESEARCH PAPER  5 
IBM is operating in a highly competitive market, and they are a well diversified company 
that results in more intensified level of competition in each and every business segment of the 
company. The competitor's size range from a large corporation to small and a focused enterprises 
[P9]. The major competitors of IBM are Alphabet Inc. (Google), Microsoft Corporation 
(Microsoft), Amazon.com, Inc. (Amazon) Oracle Corporation (Oracle), Cisco Systems, Inc. 
(Cisco), SAP andSalesforce.com (U.S. SEC, 2016, p. 9). IBM faces geographic specific 
competition across the globe from the small enterprise of the specific region.  
The market share of IBM as a server system vendor is 13%, in business intelligence and 
the analytics software is 12.7% (Statistics, n.d.) [Refer Appendix 2 Figure 1]. In cloud leadership 
IBM has market share about 18% (ChannelE2E, 2017) [Refer Appendix 2 Figure 2], total big 
data market share of IBM is 9.3% (SiliconAngle Media, 2016) [Refer Appendix 2 Figure 3], 
enterprise mobility management software market share is 4.9% (Amazon AWS, 2015) [Refer 
Appendix 2 Figure 4] and software market share is at 8% (SiliconAngle Media, 2016) 
[Refer Appendix 2 Figure 5].  
Activity Based Costing 
Activity Based Costing (ABC) is a method of costing in which resources that are 
consumed various activities are determined and the cost are allocated finally based on the 
resources utilized (Edwards & Technical Information Service, 2008, p. 1). Overhead costs are 
associated with every business but an appropriate allocation of costs are essential so that 
company like IBM can easily evaluate those business segments that are consuming more costs 
and those are consuming lesser costs. ABC has few steps involved in them and should be made 
on a systematic basis (Edwards & Technical Information Service, 2008) [Refer Appendix 3. 
Figure 1). 
IBM RESEARCH PAPER  6 
In this case, first, the IBM has to identify various activities that are involved in their 
business for every business segment. Certain activities are commonly present in all the business 
segments. Certain costs can be directly allocated to the particular activity,

1 Research Paper Guidelines Specific guidance on the research paper submission is provided below: The research paper will be written in the first eight weeks of the course. The research paper will be...

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