Indiana Jones, IT Manager Think Globally, Act Locally Hazardous Dut y ABB created a system that propels local ideas for new products and projects around the world and through an approval process at a speed that would leave most large companies agape. But final approval sits with finance in Zurich, and it has to go through umpteen levels of review before it even shows up in Zurich. Then, based on keywords in the proposal, some of the principal players are tapped to comment on it, and a manager must then sign off on the revenue commitments. IT executives at U.S. multinationals say it's important to pay attention to the same things that govern success in IT domestically - basics such as hiring practices, security and the communications infrastructure. But there is perhaps no more important a task than deciding which aspects of IT should be standardized across the globe and which should be tailored to local situations - and how to propagate local ideas globally.
Companies claim to have achieved success with a surprisingly wide variety of methods.
There were five to 15 of us, from all areas of the business and from all across the globe. Make It Simple General Motors Corp. has also adopted strong corporate standards internationally, with minimal local variations. GM prefers to deal with as few vendors as possible, says Jose Eiras, CIO at GM Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. The upshot of standardizing on products and services from just a handful of vendors is simplified application integration and reduced support costs, Eiras says. GM engineers at design centers in the U.S., Europe, Brazil and Australia use the same computer-aided design and manufacturing tools and design environment, making it easy for engineers to collaborate.