Experience Base – Innovation Comes in All Shapes and Sizes

Kent Kushar, CIO, E&J Gallo Winery Profitability Analysis Tool at E&J Gallo Winery

“We developed a product management tool called the Gallo Edge that allows chain stores to do a by-store, by-bottle, shelf-space profitability analysis. The innovation here is both in the technology itself and in the fact that we are providing our external customers with a product that helps them get smarter about their business. Make your customers smarter about your whole category, and they’ll do more business with you.”

Carl Ascenzo, CIO, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Competitive Collaboration at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts

“We took an innovative approach to application development by partnering with a competitor on an e-prescription pilot. The application allows physicians to use handhelds to write and send prescriptions. By getting together on this project, we and our competitors were each able to complete the rollout in less time and for less money, and push the industry forward.”

Earl Monsour, Director of Strategic Technologies, Maricopa Community Colleges Wireless LAN at Chandler-Gilbert Community College, one of 10 Maricopa Community Colleges in Arizona

“We implemented a wireless LAN for the entire college-all campuses. Access is available to students, faculty, staff and administrators. Although there are already many instances of pockets of wireless access at other organizations, we saw the innovation in an anytime, anywhere implementation. This was a true team effort involving the faculty, staff and administrators of the college.”

Jim Burdiss, CIO, Smurfit-Stone Container Integrated Acquisition Project Plan at Smurfit-Stone Container

“We developed an integrated project plan for a very large acquisition. We treated business-process change, technical change and training as one large process, with IT leading the charge. We completed the project in 30 days and for $4.5 million, when a silo approach would have taken four to six months and twice the budget.”

Scott Hicar, CIO, Maxtor Self-Service Kiosk at Maxtor

“Working with our customer service operations team, we created a self-service kiosk that improved the customer experience, reduced operating costs and allowed the call center to invest some of that savings in additional support staff. The real innovation lay not in the application but in the fact that we were able to make solid improvements within the environmental constraints of the last two years, when most companies were still licking some expensive e-business wounds.”