Companies in western Europe and Latin America are also joining the university trend. Recent mergers have underscored the importance of corporate universities. For example, Daimler-Chrysler CEO Jurgen Schrempp in a Chicago speech emphasized the role of Daimler's university in unifying the merged Daimler and Chrysler companies. Schrempp says the university will help instill the two companies with a common culture. Also relying on a corporate university is Citicorp's merger with Travelers Group, which will use the university to train employees in cross-selling each other's products.
Some corporate universities offer courses to the public in an effort to profit their companies.
Many use the Internet, which provides a simpler, less expensive way for companies to provide all of its workers with training. Since many employees expect their companies to provide them with skills for their next jobs, many corporate universities attempt to offer actual degrees, often by joining with conventional universities. Services accounted for 29 percent of IBM's 1998 revenues, and Gartner Group predicts that services will make up 46 percent of IBM's revenues by 2003. IBM Global Services' Sam Palmisano has worked tirelessly to include services with all IBM products and solutions. Analyst Steve Milunovich says this strategy is effective because the world of computing is becoming increasingly more complicated and mission-critical.