Stories by Rick Swanborg

Getting maximum results from innovative IT investments is an art. Business users may need incentives to take advantage of new capabilities that wait to be exploited.

Discovering IT innovations that you can apply to your business can be a disorganized and frustrating process. The hottest technology may be inappropriate for your business needs. It's time-consuming to identify and validate new technology with limited IT resources. In addition, traditional ways to learn about useful technologies, such as IT conferences and research reports, may not provide enough proven ideas that are good matches for your business needs.

Intel's research and development group was the first internal segment to increase efficiency with an infrastructure- and platform-as-a-service approach, improving its server utilization rate from 59 percent in the first half of 2006 to 80 percent today. By reducing infrastructure spending and avoiding building new data center facilities, the company expects to save nearly $US200 million. Following this success, Intel decided in early 2009 to build an enterprise private cloud for its office and enterprise groups.

3M's reputation for innovation is well established, but the company wanted to include more staff in the ideation process. Traditionally, access to the company's annual Markets of the Future brainstorming sessions was limited. By employing a new internal social networking platform, 3M was able to foster creativity and collaboration among all its employees around the world. In the two weeks the tool was open to employees, it attracted more than 1,200 people, who generated over 700 new ideas, which resulted in nine new markets for the company to explore.

Make every interaction meaningful: It's the Marriott philosophy. This is not an easy task given the multitude of Marriott brands and the plethora of campaign management tools used to contact customers. By partnering with brand leaders and marketing leaders, Marriott's IT department built a unified framework for engaging with customers.

IT organizations in diversified companies-particularly those grown through acquisition-wage a seemingly endless battle against unnecessary IT diversity and related costs. Conceived, planned and executed in 18 months, UnitedHealth Group's (UHG) Hercules program proves the complexity can be conquered, while protecting or improving IT's service levels. By creating a standard desktop configuration and consistent management processes, Hercules reduced total cost of ownership to US$76 per month per desktop, from over $240.