Fast Talk: The New IT Agenda

Robert Carter

FedEx Corp.
Executive Vice president and CIO
Memphis, Tennessee

My most strategic technology bet? The Internet. That's right, the Internet. We've only scratched the surface of its power.

We keep thinking of new ways to communicate with customers. We recently launched FedEx InSight, a Web-based application that lets customers check on the status of inbound shipments regardless of who sent them; you don't need a tracking number. Basically, it allows customers to manage their own supply chain. They can sign up to be notified about delays -- for instance, if their package was caged by customs on an inbound flight and they need to take action. We're always trying to maximize package visibility.

That same agenda applies to our internal operations. In June, we're launching a new handheld platform called FedEx PowerPad for 40,000 of our couriers. With PowerPad, couriers can send and receive near-real-time information and updates from any location via a wireless network. They no longer have to return to their van to upload information or refer to a manual for shipping rates.

How do I make the case for IT spending? Cost savings, for one thing. We still get nearly 600,000 calls a day to 800-GO-FEDEX. Calls that result in a tracking request cost about $2.30, and we get about 100,000 of them per day. By contrast, on FedEx.com, we're averaging more than 2.4 million tracks a day, and each one of those transactions averages just under a nickel. We're saving about $25 million a month. And best of all, customers prefer doing business with us on the Internet.

Dawn Meyerriecks

U.S. Defense Information Systems Agency
CTO
Falls Church, Virginia

My job is to use technology to reduce the risk to American lives. Everybody here, right on up to Secretary Rumsfeld, is convinced that IT has become the force multiplier in the global war on terrorism. And we're held to that expectation: The standing army today is smaller than the reserve force during Operation Desert Storm/Desert Shield. So it all comes down to the right information, at the right place, at the right time.

One of our most strategic IT investments is collaboration. Putting together the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines is a lot like a corporate merger. But we have four-star commanders in multiple locations, and we don't have the luxury of flying everybody to a big meeting to slog through negotiations. With collaboration, we're able to deliver more expertise, from just about anywhere in the world, to solve problems and make recommendations on how to prosecute a mission.

Consider battle-damage assessment. After a strike, we use Predator near-real-time video for our intelligence follow-up. We stream the information to multiple locations -- maybe to a tent 50 miles away, maybe to a command center 2,000 miles away.

How do we measure ROI? In some ways, it's similar to how an industry does it: We charge our customer on a fee-for-service basis. But in other ways, it's not at all like business. It's hard to come out and say that the 18-year-olds under [U.S. Army] General Franks's command are safer because we provide the right IT capability. But at the end of the day, if we're not as efficient as possible in implementing technology, people will die.

Mike Prince

Burlington Coat Factory
Vice president and CIO
Burlington, New Jersey

I'm in a different position from other CIOs. This company's sales have not fallen off a cliff; they're pretty steady. So our IT investments not only react to problems, but they also create opportunities. And they all relate to better execution.

Linux figures prominently in our agenda. We are spending millions of dollars on Linux-based point-of-sale systems, and we will have roughly 5,000 of those devices by the end of the year. There's a lot of Linux on the edges of our network, but what I'm really betting on is a deepening of that: Linux in the data center.

Looking ahead, the most promising technology for retail is radio-frequency identification. E-ZPass, the tag that you put in your car to go through a tollbooth without stopping to pay, is a form of RFID. We're just kicking around ideas at this point, but there are a lot of impressive applications. If we could put a chip with its own serial number either on the price tag or the garment label, we could streamline the movement of merchandise throughout the supply chain and track what's on store shelves faster and cheaper.

That's important. The trick to being a company like Burlington Coat Factory isn't about making massive, high-risk investments -- it's about maintaining a lean operation. As a discount retailer, we can't sell a garment for less than the traditional department store does unless our cost structure is better. Technology is critical for squeezing costs out of our operation and getting to the core of who we are. It doesn't fundamentally change the business, but without it, we would lose our magic.