Borders to Hire New CIO as Part of Its Turnaround Effort

Borders has been having a difficult time competing with Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble. The Ann Arbor, Mich.-based bookseller reported its fourth quarter and 2006 results yesterday, which included a $151.3 million loss for the year. Yikes. Glad I don’t own their stock. Anyway, in an effort to stop the hemorrhaging, Borders’ management also unveiled yesterday its long-term strategic plan, which includes

• improving inventory turns
• shifting investments away from underperforming segments of the business (e.g. Waldenbooks and international stores) toward its U.S.-based super-stores
• possibly selling its international segment
• likely closing some Waldenbooks locations

IT will also play a key role in Borders’ turnaround effort. As part of its strategic plan, the company will enhance its core Borders superstore system to support its merchandising, assortment planning and supply chain initiatives. Borders will also debut a new proprietary e-commerce site in early 2008 (Amazon currently runs Borders.com.) And the company is hiring a new CIO, whose name it will announce soon, so stay tuned.

Martin Hodgett, CIO of Orchard Supply Hardware, was appointed to Provilla‘s board of directors. Provilla provides data leak prevention solutions. Hodgett joined Orchard Supply in September 2006 after working for Accenture for 22 years. He was part of the Accenture team that worked with Best Buy executives to develop its plans to outsource IT operations to Accenture. Hmmm…I wonder if he’s pushed for Accenture to take over IT ops for Orchard Supply?

John McCoskey joined PBS as its new CTO. He is responsible for the technology efforts associated with PBS’s move from analog to digital broadcasting. McCoskey comes to PBS from Comcast Media in Denver, Colo. where he was most recently vice president of product development.  Heidrick & Struggles placed McCoskey at PBS.