IBM's 1990s Restructuring (1991-1995)
IBM lost billions as mainframe demand collapsed. CEO Lou Gerstner cut the workforce from about 373,000 in 1991 to roughly 225,000 by 1995, a slow bleed of headcount across successive rounds.
The cuts, combined with a pivot toward services and software, returned IBM to profitability and eventually to record earnings.
IBM became the canonical case of a legacy tech firm using years of gradual headcount decline to change its business mix.
Salesforce, a mature software company, appears to be managing a similar slow headcount decline while shifting toward AI, only on a much faster cycle.
