CIO 100 COMPANIES IN Manufacturing

6. Unilever

Neil Cameron, Unilever global CIO says the company has had a year of good progress, both for IT and the corporation as a whole. IT operations at Unilever have begun to use a four quadrant model, which will be in place globally by 2010, dividing up responsibilities into strategy and planning, business partnering, innovation and services.

13. GlaxoSmithKline

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) maintained its position as the second biggest pharmaceutical company in the world with sales of £22.7 billion and £7.8 billion in profits in 2007. The vast majority of that was from its drugs sales, making up 85 per cent of its business, but its consumer healthcare portfolio with well-known brands including Aquafresh, Macleans, Lucozade and Ribena and over-the-counter remedies like Nicorette, Gaviscon, Panadol and Zovirax, contributed a not-so-shabby £3.4 billion last year.

14. BAE Systems

The IT team at BAE Systems has continued to build on last year’s achievements. Its programme of mid-range virtualisation is going very well, according to Chris Coupland, director of the Corporate IT Office at BAE Systems.

25. AstraZeneca UK

In 2006 an AstraZeneca IT transformation programme was set up by Richard Williams, Global CIO, challenging existing processes, streamling operations, identifying common processes across IS and building a culture of innovation and customer focus.

26. BOC

The BOC incumbent CIO, Peter Dew, stepped up to head IT operations when BOC merged with Linde until earlier this year, when he was succeeded by Ronald Geiger, previously with SAP.

29. Rolls Royce

Rolls-Royce has had an extremely busy year, and at the time of writing had a bulging order book, worth £40.9 billion, thanks in part to orders from the Middle East and Asia doubling. The company has had very high growth in its marine power and energy sectors, with the rising oil price driving the market.

43. ICI

No wonder the ICI web site labels 2007 'a year of change'. The company, once one of the major pillars of the FTSE 100, with its very name, 'Imperial Chemicals' a hallmark of its longevity, was a UK operation that was also truly international player - but it finally lost its independence after 60 years of operation only a few months back.

53. Diageo

In October last year Diageo's then CIO Robin Dargue left to join the Royal Mail, being replaced by Brian Franz, who joined finally in March, being headhunted from PepsiCo International, where he was senior VP and CIO. He will report direct to Diageo chair Nick Rose.

58. Ford of Europe

The famous Model T Ford was launched in October 1908 and rapidly became the world’s best-selling car. One hundred years later Ford is a company struggling to make a profit. Ford said despite doing well in Europe it would not return to profit in 2008 and may not do so in 2009 but was aiming instead to become a break-even company. In June it completed the sale of its Jaguar and Land Rover business to Indian steel maker Tata.

72. Nestlé

Nestle is one of the world’s leading supplier of consumer food brands, part of that relentless success is down to the company’s investment in technology and process improvement.

83. Land Rover and Jaguar

Michael Ali, IT Director for Jaguar Land Rover describes his role as not just managing desktops, servers, telecoms, and applications but managing the IT relationship with management.

92. Scottish & Newcastle

In April it was acquired jointly by Heineken and Carlsberg in a £7.8bn transaction, with the company's assets being split between them, it is unclear if the company's existing IT innovations will survive the transition.

View all Manufacturing Companies»
View all CIO 100 Companies»