The clearest evidence that globalization is at the center of Manpower Inc.'s IT strategy isn't the flags of 30 countries at the entrance to its corporate headquarters in suburban Milwaukee. It's on the whiteboards around global CIO Rick Davidson's office, where one morning, dozens of elementary French expressions are penned in red dry-erase marker.
Qu'est-ce que c'est?
"As global CIO, I have to drop my U.S.-centric thinking and ask, 'How do I provision IT globally, and what's the best way to do that?'" says Davidson, who's studying French and already speaks Spanish. "One person's offshore is another person's onshore."
Since late last year, Davidson has led the staffing company's internal IT department in a process for global IT management it calls the Manpower Way. Manpower has about 580 IT staff around the country, including large development teams in Brussels, Belgium; Milwaukee; Paris; Sydney, Australia; and Tokyo. Manpower Way is an effort to get all those offices working the same way--the same project-management standards, financial measurements, time-reporting systems, and--where possible--the same technologies.
Manpower's goal is to create a more-efficient IT organization, so developers share their work and avoid duplicating efforts. For example, the Brussels development team is developing software that offices will use to take orders for temporary staffing from customers. Country-specific IT teams will be able to fine-tune it to their needs, but they must follow Manpower Way's rules, such as using IBM WebSphere to build extensions.
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