Filippo Passerini understands the importance of thinking through plans before making a move. He attributes his business and personal style to lessons learned while playing competitive chess as a teenager: "You can think and anticipate as much as you want, but you can only think for so long. The clock is ticking. At some point, you need to move."

Over the years Passerini has mastered other key aspects of the game. He understands the requirement in business to keep one step ahead of a rival, the value of a considered but adaptable execution of strategy, and the need to take decisive game-changing moves.

Passerini studied data analysis and decision-making and earning his PhD in statistics and operating research from the University of Rome, then joined Procter & Gamble in 1981, and has remained at the company for his entire career.

First taste of working overseas

After signing on as a systems analyst, over the next five years he worked his way up to the position of design manager in management systems in his native Italy. By 1986, he had his first taste of living and working overseas, in P&G's operations in Turkey.

Passerini says he realised very early on that there are benefits to being mobile: "It is such a valuable experience working in different parts of the world with people who have a variety of management styles and backgrounds.

"I constantly try to engage with people both inside and outside of the business. I want to fully understand all of the different aspects of the business so that I can join up all the dots. I'm constantly trying to seek out new ideas, and look for ways to turn those ideas into value.

"Creativity is good," he continues, "but innovation is better. And for innovation to work, you really need to understand the business." Indeed, it is a business Passerini has been able to study from many different corners of the globe. After Turkey, he was posted to the UK. "Even there I travelled a lot!" he says, recalling the regular shuttles between the laundry and paper business in the north-east of England and the UK beauty and health operation in Egham, near London.

Senior experience, leadership challenges  

His first director-level appointment came three years into the UK stint, sending Passerini across the Atlantic to Mexico in 1994 as director, management systems. "When I worked in Latin America in the early 1990s, I implemented SAP," he notes.

A complex project that consolidated resources, improved service levels and touched almost every part of the business, the experience provided a valuable lesson. "Leadership is about managing challenges and resources for maximum agility and responsiveness," he says.

After a variety of subsequent vice president positions in the US and Greece, Passerini hit a major career milestone when he became head of the company's global business services operations in 2003, based out of P&G's HQ in Cincinatti, Ohio. A multi-functional unit established in 1998, its raison d'tre is to provide high-value, low-cost shared services to P&G's varied global businesses.

IT as a commodity

When he added the CIO title in 2004, he renamed his organisation "Information Decision Solutions" to reflect its new services orientation, and to dilute any perceived affiliation with IT.

"I considered that IT had become a commodity," he says. "It's a bold statement, I know, but that is how it was." And while he is adamant that there are numerous ways technology can enhance business value, Passerini believes this is true only if it is deployed as part of a solution to a genuine business problem.

"This is what excites me about the CIO role. IT is uniquely qualified to play a transformational role in business. A CIO's deep understanding of business processes is so different to other executive positions. It's like no other. Let's face it: finance, is finance, is finance. Sales, is sales, is sales." In contrast, he says, the world of the CIO is all about change.

Game-changing moves

One thing that hasn't altered for Passerini is his employer. But the 50-something says the pace of the fast-moving consumer goods industry keeps things fresh. "The name of the game is the speed of innovation," he says. "I think it is vitally important to be agile and to be able to act quickly." He notes how P&G has been quick to deploy 65 state-of-the-art telepresence studios over the last year.

Referring to another game-changing move he has instigated, Passerini believes use of virtual reality has helped build agility into the company's consumer focus group operations. Panel participants can navigate their way along virtual shelves of P&G products and competitor lines to mimic how consumer behaviours play out.

"It has significantly accelerated cycle times," he comments. "Before we delivered this solution it could take four, five, sometimes six weeks for feedback from a focus group. Now the whole process is more or less real-time. It is scientific and it is repeatable."

Savings of more than $600 million

Passerini is justifiably proud, too, of the shared service business he heads, which is innovative in structure, scope and philosophy. P&G has gone on record saying that the unit has saved the company more than $600 million to date.

"The model we have created for shared services is considered one of the most progressive in the industry," he says. "It is not an easy one to approach, but it is very powerful in the way it blends offshore and outsourced services, with centralised and consolidated operations, and de-duplication of services."

In internal benchmarks, the unit regularly scores higher in employee satisfaction surveys than any other P&G unit. It is one of the parts of the sprawling P&G business empire where ambitious employees most want to work.

The "department formerly known as IT" has been completely re-organised and re-focused by Passerini. "For the IT professionals that work with me, it has meant moving from an organisation that was enabling the business, to one that is accountable to the business."

Running the IT department like a business

This has been one of the most important steps in a transition that has taken P&G to a position where IT has become embedded in the business, and run like a business.

"The core P&G business has its margins, its profits and its sales targets. I believe the philosophy should be exactly the same in shared services," Passerini explains.

"Business has to continually drive higher profits and achieve better margins. It will also look to break new markets with innovative new products. These activities can't be exclusive."

In the same way, he insists his shared services unit show incremental improvements in customer satisfaction levels and be constantly chipping away at the cost base.

Higher quality, lower cost  

He says he has observed an attitude that has prevailed for too long among some IT shops: that at any one time it is possible only to deliver lower-cost services, or higher-quality services.

"It is too binary: it is the unacceptable science of the either/or," he says. "Business is not like that! We need to deliver high-quality, low-cost services. And at the same time, we must be delivering those winning breakthroughs that can really change the business."

So what pleases Passerini most about his life as a CIO? Married with grown-up children, he says he has always enjoyed living life to the full and no longer worries about maintaining the work-life balance.

"I think we are moving away from that concept," he says. "Work-life balance has become work-life blend. That works well for me. My life is completely blended, which means I no longer need to juggle!"

For more on P&G's successes with lean IT, see our "Doing more with less" feature.

Illustration: Noli Novak