CIO — Atefeh Riazi’s quarter-million frequent-flier miles are testament to the fact that it’s not such a small planet after all. As CIO at Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide, Riazi has spent the past three years rolling out global applications, such as collaborative workflow systems, creative asset management, knowledge management, messaging and security for the New York City-based marketing giant. Most recently, Riazi has been trying to convince the Asian, European and Latin American offices to replace their legacy systems with North America’s SAP enterprise resource planning system for finance, human resources and production. A common enterprise system, she says, would provide Ogilvy’s 400 offices in more than 100 countries with access to real-time information so that they can make quick decisions, better respond to market changes and cut costs.
Despite impressive business benefits, Riazi wasn’t expecting an easy sell. She knows all about the resistance that comes from trying to convince Ogilvy’s four regional IT directors and their direct reports to relinquish the legacy systems they had handpicked to meet their specific needs in favor of a standardized platform. She was prepared for the worst.
Then the euro came along, magnifying the typical antiglobal, antihomogenization sentiment she’s witnessed a thousand times. For many Europeans, the euro was yet another threat to their local identities, so they were particularly sensitive to any standardization efforts, be they at work or at home.
Fact is, globalization adds new dynamics to the workplace, and CIOs who stick to the true-blue American business formula will fail. They must abandon the idea of force-fitting their visions into worldwide offices and move toward a global infrastructure built collaboratively by staff from around the world.
More than Emotions
The heightened sensitivity following the euro subsided quickly, says Riazi. But it illustrates how easily emotions can affect the workplace, especially when dealing with global projects where it’s not just individuals interacting but representatives of entire nations. Take the international battle lines drawn over the U.S.-led war in Iraq. Or the ripple effects at worldwide stock exchanges after the latest corporate scandals. What effect do international affairs—be they political, social, cultural or personal—have on companies’ global IT efforts? And what, if anything, can IT chiefs do about it?
To work effectively in a global environment, you first need to understand the dynamics at play. Antiglobalization isn’t just about misplaced emotions, says Christopher Bartlett, professor of business administration at the Harvard Business School in Boston and author of Managing Across Borders. Standards often leave managers little wiggle room to make the right choices for their businesses.
