How to change variable value in an If statement in Bash?

I'm not very familiar with bash scripting. This seems like its an easy problem to solve but my lack of experience with bash has me baffled.

I have a file which contains a list of Ip addresses and the corresponding Virtual machine name. What I want my program to do is get the ip and check for it in my file. Then when a match is found assign the Virtual Machine name to the variable VM so I can use it later.

IP = 10.XXX.XX.10
cat /usr/lib64/nagios/plugins/be_vcenter_names.txt | 'VM = awk -F " "  {if ( $1==$IP) VM=$2}'
echo $VM # nothing shows here

#

/usr/lib64/nagios/plugins/check_esx3 -D <DataCentre IP> -u <User> -p <password> -N $VM -l cpu -s ready --trace 3 | grep counterId\>12 | tail -1 | awk -F ">" '{print $15}'| awk -F "<" 'PERC= $1/200 {print "CHECK_ESX3 OK -\"${VM}\" cpu ready="PERC"% | cpu_ready="PERC"%;;"}'

FYI the last command works with a virtual machine name. The problem with my code is whats above the # signs

Also the following command works

cat /usr/lib64/nagios/plugins/be_vcenter_names.txt | 'VM = awk -F " "  {if ( $1=="10.XXX.XX.10") print $2}

Thanks for your help. I'll be happy to give more info as needed