After finishing his accounting and finance studies in the UK, one of Haider Rashid's first and most formative experiences with corporate IT was in 1982 when he was working as a sales and marketing manager for ICI in his native Pakistan.

"We were just starting to computerise our operations and I was talking with the local CIO, explaining to him the details of how my business ran," he says.

"I was outlining how we managed the pricing of the products we sold to retailers, how we agreed volume discounts, set targets and fixed sales incentives. He told me it was all far too complex to automate with any IT system, and that we needed to simplify our business processes."

Rashid took away some important insights from that early encounter: that the IT systems implementation process can be used to simplify business processes; that a genuinely good CIO will strive to really understand the user perspective; and that IT can change how people operate, to make them more effective in their jobs.

"Successful IT changes the way people work, for the better," he says.

Turning the business around

After a stint heading up regional sales of the Dulux brand of household and decorative paints for ICI, Rashid moved on to selling industrial chemicals and later agrochemicals for ICI. He then moved to Germany's Hoechst in 1987, continuing his career in the world of agrochemicals.

There was a big draw to the sector for him. "I'm from Pakistan, where agriculture accounts for around 25% of the gross national product and provides about 50% of the country's employment. I could see how agrochemicals could help the country reach the next level in productivity."

First of all he had to help his new employer raise its game. At the time the Hoechst unit was in poor shape, he recounts. "I arrived during the throes of a commercial crisis, that could have seen it closed down. Helping turn around that business was one of the achievements I am most proud of."

Rashid's involvement in sales management, marketing management and country management roles was time well spent. "We restored pride in the operation," he says, "chiefly by helping people see how they could contribute to their own success. Over a four-year period we tripled sales, and the unit went from making large losses to major profits."

M&A activity

Rashid's success in Karachi did not go unnoticed at Hoechst HQ. After a three-year period as MD of its AgrEvo subsidiaries in Pakistan, he was handed the coordination role for controlling activities at Hoechst's Frankfurt corporate centre.

There, he participated and led several board-level M&A and strategy projects, including the 1999 merger of Hoechst and Rhne-Poulenc of France to form Aventis. He also led the subsequent post-merger integration, moving with his family to France.

That set the stage for a leadership role in the wave of consolidation and integration that was sweeping through the chemicals sector around the turn of the decade - a series of projects that taught him a lot about the nature of change.

"The danger in doing a big integration project is that the company name gets changed and the organogram changes, but 95% of the people involved in the merger are left doing exactly the same job and in the same way as before. True change has to go much further and touch everyone's job and behaviour."

Access all areas

And it is the relationship between change management and IT that intrigues Rashid. "IT touches every part of the operation and can provide IT management with an end-to-end view of business processes," he says. "IT gives me the passport to enter all parts of the business."

Over the years Rashid has grown to appreciate how that panorama has enabled him to become a better business leader. "To be able to do a good job as a CIO, it's absolutely essential to have an understanding of how different parts of the business use IT.

One big advantage I have with my background in sales and marketing is being able to sit across the table from my customers and really understand their viewpoint, and talk with them in their own language."

Cross-cultural experience

As well as being able to develop some cross-functional expertise, Rashid believes he has gained from the richness that stems from his cross-cultural work experiences.

"Once you have lived in two or three different regions you begin to realise how culture drives different behaviours. It makes you more open to new ways and new ideas," he says.

That breadth of business and cultural experience primed Rashid for his move into IT leadership. In 2000, he became senior vice president for IT and e-activities at Aventis CropScience, its $5 billion agrochemical and biotech subsidiary. With a budget of €130 million and an IT workforce of 350, he also led the integration of CropScience, achieving synergy savings of €400m.

After two decades in the chemicals sector, that experience led him to a different industry and one of the top jobs in global IT. For the past six years Rashid has been group CIO for ABB (Asea Brown Boveri), the Zrich-based power and automation engineering giant, which generates $35bn from activities that span electric power systems and products, process automation and robotics.

At ABB, he has positioned IT to put forward its change agenda in terms the business understands and values, ensuring they are in synch with its needs.

ERP made simple

In contrast to the highly profitable organisation it is today, with more than $5bn net cash on its balance sheet, ABB was struggling in several key areas in 2003 when Rashid joined. Its stockprice had fallen dramatically, it was in negative cash flow and $9bn in total debt.

"We needed to turn the company around and it was vital IT was seen to participate in that recovery," he says. Steps were taken to remove $120m from annual IT costs; a major outsourcing deal was struck; and Rashid and his team embarked on a massive programme of rationalisation.

"That is what was needed at that time, but as we moved out of that phase I saw that we needed to change the way we worked at ABB in ways that would contribute to the long-term success of the business."

The best example of this is the massive investment being made in "One Simple ABB" - a major change programme that includes the rationalisation of a sprawling ERP portfolio. The 510 separate ERP systems that had been deployed around the world over many years are being reduced to a small set of "instances" based around the SAP Business Suite.

"By the end of this year, 90% of our activities will be processed by just 20 ERP systems and we will have implemented shared service centres in finance and accounting and in human resources," he says, citing how the cost of revenues of running finance and accounting and HR will be cut by some 40%.

Reducing costs, driving growth

With the current economic cycle demanding it, he is confident he can continue to drive economies. "Once again we are looking to take $100m of costs out of the operation, but we also have one eye fixed firmly on growth. We want to leverage the platform of One Simple ABB to move the business to the next level."

Company auditors have already reported to the ABB board that they have never before seen a project of such scope carried out with so little disruption to the business.

Rashid puts its success down to a strategy which was developed from the top down with the full support of the executive committee, and then planned in detail from the bottom up.

As for his own success, he says he is indebted to two of his past masters: "Two guys, both named Jürgen. One [Jürgen Krürger], an old boss of mine back in Pakistan, the other a former CEO of ABB [Jürgen Dormann]."

They gave him some invaluable lessons in leadership: the calm analysis of problems. "They taught me to take a 20,000-foot view of a problem, to understand the priorities and to move forward with what is critical - and to ignore everything that is not."

Haider Rashid's career path

1982-87
ICI Pakistan, Karachi
Sales manager for paints and chemicals before moving into agrochemicals

1987-94
Hoechst Pakistan, Karachi
Head of corporate planning, after serving in marketing and country sales roles

1994-97
AgrEvo Pakistan, Karachi
Managing director

1997-98
Hoechst, Frankfurt
Head of controlling function (corporate centre) and board project leader

1999-2000
Aventis, Strasbourg
Head of integration, responsible for integration across the entire Aventis group

2000-03
Aventis CropScience, Lyon
Senior VP, integration, IT & e-activities, and member of the executive committee

2003-present
ABB Group, Zrich
Senior VP, CIO and head of corporate real estate

Illustration: Noli Novak