Whilst Busch was heavily involved in setting the company's strategy for its internal IT, he still tried to stay engaged in the day-to-day matters and admits that there are some differences being a technology company CIO, rather than one in another industry.
-The biggest difference is that the [internal] customers are very technical, so you relate to them on an engineering and business basis," he said.
Busch agrees that there have been changes in the role CIOs play within businesses. He believes that, rather than historically having to be an advocate for IT, executives are now increasingly aware of the opportunities.
Busch joined Intel 15 years ago, and his current role includes responsibility for Intel's internal IT systems worldwide, as well as involvement in working with other internal groups on business strategy.
With a total IT spend of US$1 billion per year, Busch has a large budget to play with. But he argues that the same questions about what's the business value of the company's IT investment are still assessed, as they would be in any organisation. -The Intel management culture is sceptical and demands data," Busch said.
New IT projects at Intel are worked out jointly between the IT department and the person who had responsibility for the project from a business point-of-view. Goals are then set out to measure the success of the project, he said.
-Scepticism is understandable, but can be answered with the right management tools," Busch said. -I operate under the same constraints and scepticism as any other CIO."
-We go through the same processes as everyone else on justifying this stuff," he added.
Yet, Busch revealed that mistakes can still be made. He describes a strategy Intel worked out about four years ago which involved standardising desktops on 166MHz Pentiums, only to find that when it wanted to upgrade to the next operating that they weren't powerful enough. This resulted in IT having to take on a big capital cost for replacements. Since then Busch said the company had moved to a model of steady replacement.
Another change which Busch discussed was to its helpdesk setup, which has 400 staff worldwide dealing with queries from within the company. Busch admits that in the past the helpdesk had been one of the biggest sources of dissatisfaction which Intel employees had with IT.
According to Busch, Intel tried to change this by putting a lot of focus into the helpdesk area -- stabilising the workforce and providing them with customer service training.
New technology tools, such as remote control which allowed them to solve user problems, were also implemented. It also put measurement processes in place, and has been using the feedback to improve the processes, Busch said.
Asked what technology areas he's focussed on at the moment, Busch pointed to security, deployment of wireless around the company, and e-business initiatives.
