CONTENT:
Financial Analysis for IBMNameInstitutionFinancial Analysis for IBMInternational Business and Machines (IBM) company history dates back to 1890 when many immigrants relocated to the United Sates. In the beginning, IBM was only operating in New York City. After operating for some years, it expanded its offices and to various parts of New York State, Michigan, Toronto, Washington DC, and Canada. Founded on June 16 1911, in Endicott, New York, IBM has remained a leading company in innovation. The company only dedicates approximately 20% of its services to the manufacture of its hardware while 80% of its services are mainly consulting in the computer and technology industry (Aswad & Meredith, 2007). In the period that the company has been in operation, some of its practices have been controversial while others have helped it in meeting customer and shareholders` demands. The number of patents held by IBM is an evidence of the company`s commitment to innovation. For instance, from 1993 to 2007, the company was awarded more than 38,000 U.S patents, and managed to invest around $5 billion a year in research, engineering, and development since 1996. Currently, IBM`s current active portfolio has more than 26,000 patents in the US and more than 40,000 patents globally as a result of its investments (Aswad & Meredith, 2007). Furthermore, IBM has been quite effective in promoting organizational management by launching effective campaigns to create new assets, optimizing the existing assets, and analyzing data. In1914 Thomas Watson joined the company and became the company`s president within one year. It was through his leadership that the company embarked on expanding its products and services (IBM Website, 2013). During that period, the company mainly focused on the production of large-scale custom built tabulating solutions for businesses. Evaluate the company`s vulnerability to current financial threats such as a recession, higher interest rates, and global competitionCurrent Financial Threats for IBM from Recession Recession is a period of a negative economic growth, which may be caused by many factors. For a recession to be a financial growth for IBM, it must have occurred in the region or countries where the company has its operations. For this reason, it is not possible to determine which countries have a threat of recession or which ones do not. Fundamentally, recession is characterized by a low GDP and high unemployment rates (IBM Website, 2013). IBM may be affected by a recession that occurs mainly in the US or in Europe. This does not mean that a recession in other parts of the world where the company has operations will not affect, but the magnitude may be higher if it affected some of the leading economies in the world. Organizations with high bank loans are largely affected because they are likely to have a challenge in repaying their loans due to slow economic growth. IBM reported a total debt of $33,269, and $31,320 in the financial perio...