OV: How would you describe your career and background?
Pressler: During my 15 years with the IT organization at Dow Chemical, I worked on and oversaw a wide variety of IT initiatives such as large ERP implementations and several e-Business initiatives, including conceptualizing and implementing a global marketplace consortium for the chemical industry.
Throughout my time in the chemical industry, I was able to leverage my business degree as well as the global experience I gained living and working on four continents. I believe this type of experience is imperative to successfully perform the role of CIO in today's marketplace where investments in technology are evaluated based on the business value the investments deliver. When I joined Wind River 18 months ago I was able, from day one, to bring a new perspective to the IT organization by employing my business expertise in conjunction with my technology background in a way that allows me to partner with my internal clients and drive overall business success.
OV: What is the role of your organization within WindRiver Systems?
Pressler: My perspective is that any modern IT organization must focus on contribution to shareholder value in order to be successful. Wind River's IT department is doing this by increasing productivity for our clients, improving time to market of Wind River products, and enabling sustainable growth for the company. At the same time we strive to get more from every dollar we invest in IT.
At Wind River, IT has three areas of focus.
Make it easier to do business with Wind River. This is everything from enhancing our external web site to providing the infrastructure for seamless license installation with Wind River's products.
Continue to improve operational efficiency. This includes continued improvement of the Customer Support System, ERP, CRM and Engineering Systems.
Provide a work environment that empowers Wind River employees. Internally referred to as Wind@Work, this initiative spans a large set of technologies, such as VPN, intranet, email, and voice communications, that are all focused on providing productivity improvements for the way we work everyday.
In order to accomplish this, we are running our organization as an internal service business. This assures that we focus on measuring and prioritizing all of our initiatives (according to the ROI) and at the end of the day increase shareholder value.
OV: What have been the biggest challenges since you joined WindRiver in 2001?
Pressler: The current business climate is very challenging to most high tech companies. More than ever high tech companies are focused on meeting revenue and profitability targets. For Wind River IT, this translates into balancing two factors: we have had and continue to rapidly adjust to changing business demands while continuing to take advantage of long-term opportunities.
OV: What are your top priorities going forward? What is the vision for IT at WindRiver?
Pressler: Given the economic environment, we continue to emphasize making sound business decisions by focusing on the fundamentals - our customers, our finances, our processes, and our people.
Every initiative in the IT Portfolio is continuously evaluated to assure absolute alignment with critical business objectives. An example of this is the reengineering of our software release process - an investment that will enable Wind River to improve time-to-market and improve the customer experience with Wind River products. Another strategic investment is a business intelligence platform that enables a better understanding of internal metrics and enhances decision-making.
Looking ahead we see opportunities to enable a variety of emerging channels for our products. Another area of focus will be to maximize the value of our existing IT investment by continuously streamlining our business processes.
The focus on the fundamentals also means that there is less of an appetite to experiment with new technology; for example, we are actively postponing application upgrades unless the ROI can be demonstrated. My advice to IT start-ups is that they focus on showing significant ROI based on hard-dollars (real, achievable, and measurable savings). They need to be committed and accountable to solve "my" business problem instead of selling "their" product. This is what will establish trust and long-lasting win-win partnerships.
OV: What do you think is interesting in technology today? What's hot in high-tech?
Pressler: I am fortunate to be surrounded by people that work in a section of the high tech industry that is making an ever-increasing impact on all of our lives. We have crossed the transition from analog to digital. We are going to see more and more connected devices combined with creative new business models that allow us to interact with whatever, wherever we are. All these devices will need extremely reliable software. As the leader in the embedded industry we see the emergence of Integrated Embedded Platforms (IEPs), similar to what happened in the ERP or CRM space. These platforms will enable our customers to overcome the tremendous challenges they are facing in integrating ever-increasingly complex software components.
Another interesting trend that I believe will have profound impact is the delivery of software as a service. We have seen the wave of this evaluation with an increasing availability of ASPs. Another indicator is the increased transition to subscription models. In the end it means that one pays on a regular basis for the "consumption" of software while at the same time the software is continuously evolving. While too early to judge which business model will succeed, this will change the economics and the way we look at software.
Backgrounder: Armin is the CIO of Wind River Systems. He joined Wind River from Dow Chemicals where he was Global e-Business Program Office Director and was actively involved in formation and launch of Elemica (http://www.elemica.com), the Global B2B backbone for the $600 billion chemicals industry. In this role he also established the e-business IT program office resulting in coordination of all Dow's global e-initiatives. Previous to that he lead the Global IT applications for Dow Agro-Sciences where he was responsible for implementation and integration of the company's applications and information systems of a $2.3 billion unit. Prior to that, Armin lead significant IT efforts for various global projects including SAP implementations for acquired companies in Brazil, Argentina, India, Thailand, Hong Kong, Philippines, Taiwan and China.
About WindRiver Systems: Wind River is a worldwide leader in embedded software and services for creating connected smart devices. Wind River provides software development tools, real-time operating systems, and advanced connectivity software for use in products throughout the Internet, telecommunications and data communications, digital imaging, digital consumer electronics, networking, medical, computer peripherals, automotive, industrial automation and control, and aerospace/defense markets. Wind River is How Smart Things Think™. Founded in 1983, Wind River is headquartered in Alameda, California, with operations worldwide.
