How to Overcome Resistance to Global IT Standardization
There’s inevitable tension between enforcing global IT standardization and allowing flexibility at the local level. Here’s how to find the right balance.
CIO — One of the most vexing challenges for CIOs is finding the right balance between enforcing global IT standards (for efficiency) and allowing far-flung business units some flexibility to match IT to local business needs. But after an arduous journey, Nestle, the world's largest food company, has achieved a balance that has been successful for its business, according to research by Michael Wade.
Wade, a professor at the IMD business school in Switzerland, shared Nestle's experience with the Society for Information Management's Advanced Practices Council. The familiar story begins with duplicated processes and costly systems that inhibited sharing of information and best practices. As one Nestle exec put it: "We had 10 definitions of 'sugar' in Switzerland alone. There was very little global standardization of data, systems or processes."
To increase global efficiency, Nestle began an SAP installation--the world's largest at the time. There were 15,000 processes to reconcile, and the project encountered lots of resistance. But Nestle's CEO continued to push for standardization, and gradually the cost savings and benefits became clear. In two years, the percentage of Nestle business units using standardized processes jumped from 30 percent to 80 percent. Among other benefits, standardization made it easier to integrate acquired companies.
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