IT leadership can be a high-wire act of managing game-changing projects at the
breakneck speed of business.
Here’s how the Premier 100
make it work. BY JULIA KING
THE REWARDS OF RISK-TAKING
A LIT TLE OVER T WO YEARS AGO, GlaxoSmithKline’s new president revamped the pharmaceutical maker’s North American operating model, triggering a massive business and I T transformation. Changes included shifting from a product-centric view
of the business to a customer-centric approach, re-
engineering the sales and sales incentive processes
and revamping all systems that support those
processes. Other initiatives involved equipping
salespeople with iPads and mobile apps, and dis-
mantling the centralized IT organization to embed
tech experts in various business departments. From
start to finish, the whole revamp took 15 months.
