ILOG: lessons learnt

ILOG is an INRIA spin-off which was created in 1987 to develop and market Intelligence LOGicielle (ILOG) components. A few years later, ILOG devised a commercial model, established itself in the United States in 1992, and was introduced on the Nasdaq. In 1997, it made its first acquisition. Eleven years later, in 2008, Pierre Haren, ILOG's CEO, sensing that difficulties linked to the economic crisis could be fatal for the company, agreed to sell it to IBM. He had been in charge of ILOG since the founding of the company, and this experience taught him numerous lessons. These included the difficulty of attracting and keeping mathematical geniuses capable of devising software engines; the importance of managing cash-flow ; the cyclical and nonlinear nature of the economy, technology and markets ; China's seemingly unstoppable boom raising the question of the location of new companies; and the necessity to develop a system view, regardless of whether one is a CEO or the head of a country.