IBM’s big workforce in South Florida replaced over the years by virtual offices

IBM made technology history when it introduced the IBM PC at its Boca Raton campus in 1981, which at its peak had about 9,600 employees.

Today, the tech giant has moved far away from PC sales, reduced its workforce in the state and refocused its business to stress expanding technologies such as big data, cloud services, mobile, social media and cognitive systems, which learn and interact with people, like IBM Watson.

IBM has six offices in Florida, including its main office for the Miami area in Coral Gables and a center in Boca Raton.

Staff at all these centers handle sales, marketing and support, as well as other functions. In Boca Raton, the company also has a team for developing software.

The IBM cloud services group in Boca Raton is developing cloud services to help IBM employees better leverage, automate and deploy the company’s internal communications on the cloud.

IBM does not release figures on its workforce at local or regional levels, but worldwide it had 379,592 employees at the end of last year, down from 431,212 a year earlier. It no longer publishes figures on its U.S. workforce in its annual reports.

Like many other high-tech companies, many employees at IBM now have virtual offices, working from home, while traveling to or from any place they happen to be. In addition, for specific projects, IBM imports specialists — either in person or virtually — from anywhere in its network.

IBM executives were not available to speak with the Herald for this article because the company was in a regulatory quiet period before reporting its quarterly earnings.

IBM is changing its business focus to generate new business from rapidly growing sectors like cloud services, big data, mobile, cognitive systems and other advanced IT systems and services.

The company has struggled in recent years. Corporate revenues in 2014 were $92.8 billion, down from nearly $99.8 billion in 2013, which in turn were off from 2012.

In 2013, 57 percent of IBM’s worldwide revenues came from services (including the new areas of focus), 26 percent from software, 14 percent from hardware and 3 percent from other areas. In the past, hardware was the core of IBM’s business.

IBM has a client portfolio in South Florida that includes businesses, government departments, universities and other organizations.

For example, IBM’s Intelligent Operations Center for Smarter Cities developed a system that allows Miami-Dade County to remotely monitor water consumption, detect leaks and share information throughout its sprawling park system. This network includes over 260 parks, Zoo Miami, beaches, marinas, golf courses and other sites covering 12,845 acres.

This IBM system allows for better water management, reduced consumption and hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings, according to IBM.

Another advanced IBM monitoring system is being used in Sun Life Stadium.

The Miami-Dade Police Department is employing an IBM predictive analytics system that allows police to spot new and unknown crime patterns that can help the department’s operations. The system uses information such as property stolen, time of day, weapon used and victim details to profile what kind of suspect typically commits a certain crime and to generate a suspect list.

In addition, Miami-based Southern Wine & Spirits is using an IBM wireless warehouse system.

The city of Fort Lauderdale is using an IBM advanced data and analytics tool, which uses Big Data, that will help the city deter crime and better deploy its resources, the company said.

IBM has a large group of active and retired employees in Florida, according to the company, and many participate in charitable and community affairs.

Nearly 60 percent of active IBM employees and 9 percent of retirees in the state are registered on the company’s On Demand Community volunteer site, and provided more than 620,000 volunteer hours over the last decade.

IBM employees pledged more than $880,000 to the annual charitable fund. There were 72 community grants last year for a total of $23,000 and other grants throughout the state totaled more than $220,000.

This story was originally published July 17, 2015 at 8:30 PM with the headline "IBM’s big workforce in South Florida replaced over the years by virtual offices."