TODD HALE, CIO OF OFFICE DEPOT

Migration after the merger: when speed is of the essence

Todd Hale, CIO of Office Depot, is in a hurry. He and his team are managing the integration of Office Max s systems with Office Depot s (see Throttling Up Integration, page 67). The sooner they can complete this integration, the faster they can improve business results.

A s CIO of Office Depot, what are your priorities? I have four main priorities. The first is how we take the

IT platforms of two multi-billion dollar companies and bring them together in a single IT platform that we can run the business on. In 2014, we spent close to 80% of our discretionary resources on this integration. The second priority is providing secure, stable and consis- tent systems. The third area is how we enable and improve business results through the use of technology. The fourth is a continual focus on increas- ing the efficiency and effectiveness of IT.

How important is security in rela- tion to your priorities? Security concerns the whole company, not just the customer-facing side of the business. The core commitment of our IT organisation is to make sure that our platforms are stable, meet all uptime requirements, perform as expected, and make everyone feel confident in the security they provide.

I think that the team is doing a great job of focusing on best practices and doing what we can to ensure security, while also carrying out the appropriate maintenance programs to make sure that the technology we use is main- tainable and supportable. This helps to provide security, but it also helps to provide consistency.

66 CAPGEMINI2014 ANNUAL REPORT

COMPETITIVENESS + INNOVATION