Metals & Natural Resources:<br>Tech Projects Aid Corporate DecisionMetals & Natural Resources:<br>Tech Projects Aid Corporate Decision

Two industries skilled at reshaping the physical landscape -- metals and forest products -- are seeing their competitive worlds reshaped by consolidation. More than 30 steel companies declared bankruptcy in the past three years, and many of their assets are on the selling block.

For paper companies, consolidation includes a $3 billion merger between Mead Corp. and Westvaco Corp. late last year, as well as Weyerhaeuser Co.'s acquisition of Willamette Industries Inc. earlier this year. As a result, companies in both sectors are simplifying their technology to trim unnecessary costs and create better IT environments for future acquisitions.

That's the case at Alcoa Inc. Through numerous acquisitions in the past five years, the company's revenue surged from $7 billion to $22.9 billion in its latest fiscal year. Alcoa is consolidating 50 data centers in North America. The company also is rolling out Oracle 11i as its common enterprise resource planning platform.

"Name an ERP system, and we probably have it somewhere in Alcoa," says Barry Summers, director of architecture for Alcoa's global information systems department. Creating a consistent environment will lead to significant cost savings. "But it's also important for trying to position the company for future growth," he says.

Boise Cascade Corp. is consolidating small servers and converting more of its servers to run the Linux operating system. It hopes to save $300,000 a year that way. About 15% of Boise's Windows servers could be converted to Linux, CIO Robert Egan says. The company also has about 10 new servers that run Linux. "Those would have been Windows servers a year ago."

At Georgia-Pacific Corp., business leaders understand that IT plays a critical role in the success of mergers, acquisitions, and reorganizations, CIO Chuck Williams says. One thing that's helped tech workers earn respect is IT's leadership-development program. Workshops held throughout the year emphasize the direct link between IT activities and business results. The skills learned in those workshops are helping employees now, because Georgia-Pacific is in the process of splitting into two companies.

The program is making it go a lot smoother, Williams says, "in terms of sorting out money, services, and people's lives."

Return to the 2002 information 500 homepage