Change Agents 2Change Agents 2

SNAP–ON: DOUBLE ROLES
As both CIO and president of one of Snap–on Inc.'s three business units, the questions Al Biland is most often asked are how does he get it all done, and what keeps him from hoarding the IT goodies for his own group?

Biland had a smaller operating role when he came to Snap–on in 1998, managing the company's information business. Since that business-aggregating and selling vehicle–repair data to automotive–component manufacturers-was so IT–intensive, it fell under the CIO's purview. In April 2001, a business–unit leader, Dale Elliott, moved up to become CEO, and in the subsequent restructuring the diagnostics group was added to Biland's plate.

What makes the setup work at Snap–on, a maker of tools and equipment for specialists such as car mechanics, is the organization and Biland's ability to delegate. Dennis Leitner, VP of IT, runs the IT group day to day and leads the implementation of major initiatives. Each business division has a manager of business–IT integration-people on the IT group's payroll who spend as much as 80% of their time learning what a business unit is doing and how IT can help make it happen. Biland's IT role is mostly in long–range planning, strategy, and setting up metrics to track performance. It's similar on the business side, with three division presidents who lead their product areas reporting to Biland. "You have to design an organization that can run without you being there making every decision," he says.

There's little danger that Biland could hoard IT resources, even if he were so inclined. To create annual budgets, every C–level exec sits through long–range planning sessions for each division, and it's from those that business priorities are set. IT spending priorities follow from that.

Given the technical nature of Snap–on's diagnostics products, it wasn't a leap into darkness for Biland to lead the group. He quickly put his IT philosophy to work on diagnostics products-out with proprietary, homegrown code and in with industry–standard software. And so the current version of one of its handheld diagnostic tool is based on Windows.

But the past 2–1/2 years haven't been an easy time to take over a business unit. The diagnostics and information group has had to battle flat and at times declining quarterly sales with cost–cutting and productivity improvements. In its most–recent quarter, the group managed to increase operating income 12% from the previous year, while sales dipped 6.5%.

Biland is now part of an effort to force a lot of the same lean–manufacturing and process–improvement thinking into functions such as human resources, administration, and, yes, IT. So IT groups are being asked to do "value–stream mapping" of a function such as implementing software, comparing the "as is" way of doing it and figuring out what's needed to get to a "should be" process. "We've taken that discipline off the plant floor and are applying it to IT and the staff functions," he says.

Biland doesn't consider his business–technology understanding a luxury for a business–unit leader. One of his priorities as CIO is to keep the top 75 executives up to date on business–technology trends. "We take that education role very seriously," he says.

Biland doesn't exclude himself from that. He knows he doesn't have time to stay as up to date on business technology as he needs to, so chief technologist Brad Lewis' responsibilities include keeping Biland in the know on emerging technologies. -Chris Murphy