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INFLUENCE BUSINESS STRATEGY THROUGH I.T.
Mr. David Barnes: If you went back 40 years ago, there were no things called CIOs. Technology was
a back-room-type thing. Where we’re at today to be effective with technology, we talk about a CIO
helping to influence the setting of strategy. What new things can we do in the marketplace, how we can
improve our profitability, that is the CIO of today’s talk.
I’m Dave Barnes, and I am the CIO and Senior Vice President of UPS. 1907 is when we started, and we
were a messenger company back then. And we had a vision of what would happen if you could link
the whole U.S. with a very high level of service company, and we changed to become that.
Innovation was part of how our founder looked at life, looked at his business, and bred in all of us.
Back in 2000, Fortune had an interesting insight on us. They had seen the transformation of UPS as a
trucking company without technology manifesting itself into a technology company with trucks.
So, how did we get from here to there? If you think of an organization as large as UPS, you have to
have effective governance mechanisms. Ideas are coming in, multiple lines of business, from multiple
types of customers and different customer segments. So, all of these things have to come
together, and you have to have a process, which allocates capital.
How does one give priority for a project, and how does one insure that projects that are deemed to be priority are actually worked
through the end of the life cycle, and actually deliver the value?
Mr. Jordan Coletta: It really starts with the customer, it ends with the customer, ‘cause they’re the ones
who ultimately receive it, and everything in between really is that creative process of bringing the best
thing out that meets the original objectives.
Mr. David Barnes: One of the aspects that our founders had instilled in all of us is the idea of
constructive dissatisfaction.
We ask UPSers to take a look at everything we do, to see if it can be done better. Ideas will come
from our drivers. They will come from people sorting packages. They will come from our clerical work
forces. They will come from our customers. We blend them all in together, so there isn’t that I’ve done
this same job forever. The same job doesn’t exist here. We are always changing our jobs, changing
our roles.
Mr. Jordan Coletta: You know, it’s funny, if you believe in the mission, you don’t worry about the years.
You are not like really watching the clock, you are really kind of watching the progress it just happens
to be there if the clock runs.
Mr. David Barnes: Receptiveness to communication being part of the operation, and the whole team
viewing technology as theirs. It makes it easy for us to rapidly adjust. On an average day, we deliver
15.1 million parcels, but there is this period that comes every year, it’s Christmas season. We get to
December, we scale that up to over 20 million packages a day. So, we have to work year in and year
out to be able to allow that type of scalability.
How we go about that is having the ability to bring in some of the largest, most advanced technology
companies in the world to help us. One of the key strategic partners we have, for instance, is IBM. They
can help us achieve higher levels of innovation, and that translates into higher level business success.
Early on we had realized that this was going to be a major storm, so we started at that point, order
reacting the shifting of aircraft, the shifting of our vehicles, the changing of our delivery schedules,
providing customer service, providing the information, providing support to our employees. UPS
is on it.
At the actual hitting of the storm, we brought up - wiFire brought up wide band networks. We had let
in the relief agencies and let them make use of them. We’re the eighth biggest airline in the world, so
we played a key role in moving a large amount of logistical supplies all the full breadth of UPS has
made available.
I have two daughters, and when they ask in class, what does your daddydo, it is an interesting thing
over how their answer changes. Today, they would probably use the words, he’s the guy who makes
the computers work. And on a good day, he’s the guy who is helping lead innovation.