Question

The biggest challenges I saw for this position were the same ones NAO was facing: reducing vehicle development time and structural costs, increasing market share, achieving world class levels of customer enthusiasm, and integrating the various functional departments of NAO. We expected to know we had been successful when 99% of the projects were delivered on time, on budget, and with expected benefits, and when the people in NAO took great pride in this organization. Of course, we are all also working to increase profitability and market share. That was to be done by working with the process information officers, the sector information officers, and with the regional information officers. Our virtual teams had to be flexible to really understand the needs of our internal customers and to help them figure out ways to meet those needs.

One of the Business Unit Information Officers was Maryann Goebel, CIO of the Truck Group. She had over 24 years of experience in information systems, gained from working in 10 different large companies first as a programmer/analyst, and later as an IT executive or in a functional area as an IT specialist. She came to GM in April, 1997 from Bell Atlantic/NYNEX Mobile, where she helped a relationship with an outsourcer turn around. She described her GM job.

The challenge was to make GM number one again. Management believed in the right value set, and consistently delivered the right message. Ralph was the perfect leader for the challenge because there was a lot of history between EDS and GM. In the Truck Group, I found a team who had embraced the GM 5 core values that worked for me: continuous improvement, customer enthusiasm, teamwork, integrity, and innovation. As the CIO of the Truck Group, I reported to two people, Dan McNicholl, the CIO of NAO and Tom Davis, the head of the Truck Group. This business had 45,000 people on the payroll, and I had about 16 employees and 17 contractors reporting to me. There were some other people in the sector that look like IT people, and we often worked with them. We bought services from EDS, and they supplied whatever individuals were needed to meet the service levels we agreed to.

The job of CIO of this sector was a new position. No one focused on this job before me. The reception was very positive, in fact some managers welcomed me with open arms. Most of the managers were interested in my views as an outsider and helped me get to know their organization. I knew I was getting the right message across when several individuals who were initially afraid, I was there to "steal their resources" called me up to ask for my involvement in their IT projects. They finally trusted me.

Some of the tasks I was initially asked to do were to evaluate a proposal for services from EDS where the Truck Group manager wanted to know if this was a realistic reasonable cost for the services offered. I had to really evaluate what was in the numbers in the proposal. Another service I offered was to bring an outside perspective to the Truck Group. I was not afraid to ask a lot of questions, and since I was new to GM, I didn't take for granted many of the things more experienced managers do. I was also a participant in decisions on how the business should be run. I believed that unless you were participating, you were only an order taker. But there is much to do to be a participant. I read briefings, networked with knowledgeable individuals and asked lots of questions to get up to speed.

The biggest challenge I saw in August 1997 was achieving globalization of the IT functions that supported the Truck Group. The structure had the US and Canadian organizations reporting up through the truck team. But other international operations didn't report in the same way. The challenge was to help management of this group understand the global picture, which meant figuring out how to collect, process, and disseminate the management information. I'll know I will have been successful through metrics on customer satisfaction, not on internal efficiency. Establishing the metrics was another challenge.

Cherri Musser joined IS&S as the IO of Business Services which included human resources, finance, legal and purchasing. Musser spent 23 years working in information systems at Texas Instruments, then came to GM in November 1996. When she left TI, she was the VP for research and development for the Texas Instruments Software Business. She joined the new GM IS&S team because,

Ralph wanted to keep information systems efforts focused on the customer and business value. The opportunity to address the IT needs of a company the size of GM—and to build a new IT team to do it— was too good to pass up.

I saw my job as working with the functional areas such as human resources, finance, purchasing, legal, facilities management, etc. to look for synergies across the company. I was looking for ways to drive common systems. We already had a purchasing systems project underway. We were thinking about how to transition to supply chain. For every plant that GM brought up, the plant manager had selected his or her own administrative system.

We worked on convergence. This was done by convening a strategy board for each functional area. For example, the strategy board for finance consisted of the corporate CFO, the CFOs for NAO, GMAC and Delphi, and the corporate comptroller. We met once per month to discuss the process we were using to reach common systems. A similar board was set up in human resources, and that one included the president of GM University and the top human resources individuals in each business unit. Another board was set up for procurement and materials management.

Describe in detail how General Motors leveraged IS to enable global collaboration. What were the challenges encountered at General Motors by enabling global collaboration, and how would you suggest to resolves these challenges?

Answer 1

Describe in detail how General Motors leveraged IS to enable global collaboration.

General Motors achieved global collaboration by working in virtual teams that contained regional officers,process inforamation officers and sector information officers. Information System was leveraged to enable global collaboration in General Motors.

The team at General Motors consisted of people sharing their experience from all walks of life such as Maryann Goebel, CIO of the Truck Group who had 24 years of experience working in the the Information Systems, so she was found very useful to achieve global collaboration for General Motors. The current CIO at General Motors found a team that believed in the five core values : continuous improvement, customer enthusiasm, teamwork, integrity, and innovation. With the help of some other people like Dan McNicholl ( CIO of NAO ) and Tom Davis ( Head of the Truck Group), General Motors sprinted towards growth.

What were the challenges encountered by General Motors by enabling Global Collaboration?

The challenges faced by General Motors by enabling Global Collaboration were related to the scenario of how the IT Department functions were operating and to bring globalization to IT functions. The challenge was to help management of this group understand the global picture, which meant figuring out how to collect, process, and disseminate the management information. Another challenge was to establish the metrics.

How would I suggest to resolve these challenges?

I believe that Information and Technology are at the heart of all successful companies worldwide. Focussing on your R&D and IT sector with managed teams and proper training can bring growth to the company in terms of market share and quality. When all the departments such as Finance, Human resources, purchasing,etc in a company like General Motors work hand-in-hand with proper management teams to lead them, globalization can be achieved in a very short period of time.