Doris Hall has chalked up a stellar track record devising strategies and building systems for supply chain-logistics. For the past seven years, she has been vice president and chief information officer for BAX Global Systems, a $3 billion worldwide business-to-business freight-forwarding company. She has led the charge in building global operating systems networks for clients such as  Microsoft. Prior to BAX Global, she was a senior IT manager for systems development at Emery Worldwide, supporting 600 business units worldwide.

Now, Hall is taking in stride a corporate logistical change that will alter the IT organization and her reporting structure. In 2006, Deutstche Bahn AG, a $50 billion global railroad company based in Germany, acquired BAX Global, formerly owned by Brinks International. BAX Global is being merged with Schenker, Europe's largest multi-modal freight carrier, under the DB Logistics umbrella. Together, BAX Global and Schenker will have about 50,000 employees in more than 1,000 offices in 100 countries.

Recently, Enterpriseleadership.org spoke with Hall about how she is preparing the IT organization for the merger of the two companies. Here's what she had to say:

EL: Can describe your IT organizational structure and how it fits  into the Deutsche Bahn organization?

DH: IT at BAX Global is entirely centralized, and that's also true for Deutsche Bahn. We don't have any outsourcing. Because we were purchased by Deutsche Bahn, we're going through a transition; we're a global organization, but we're one of several global entities owned by Deutsche Bahn. All of these entities are gradually being integrated under the Deutsche Bahn umbrella.

In the U.S, we're still two separate organizations, BAX Global and Schenker, but we're working together as one. The organization is in a state of flux. We're changing from being the global corporate office to being the regional office for the Americas (U.S., Canada, and Latin America). I report directly to the CEO of the Americas. Deutsche Bahn has a global CIO who I have a strong dotted-line responsibility for adhering to standards. I also have to make sure we're in lockstep around the world when it comes to the selection and delivery of our IT solutions.

Within my organization, we have IT leaders in Canada, and in most of the Latin American countries. Below these people, we have a vice president of infrastructure who oversees the support of the backbone, and another vice president who has responsibility for applications. This's the traditional way the IT organization is split.

EL: Given the structure of IT, how does it work with the business  units to make sure their technology needs are being met?

DH: The IT staff sits within IT, not the business units. We have a director for strategic operations and finance and another for customer facing. Both of these individuals align with the business by helping to decide what needs to be done, and then passes the tasks over to the IT group that will execute them. That's the way we're moving.

Many of the functional groups have a "super user" whose primary focus is on technology in their group. For example, the super user in finance sits at a fairly high level in that group. This person doesn't do any coding or specification writing. However, this person understands how the finance systems work, answers any questions about them, and helps the group to use technology to do its job. By understanding what our customers do and what they need, the sales and marketing super user drives most of our Web initiatives. Super users work very closely with IT, and we depend on them a lot.

EL: What does your governance model look like and what changes are  you going to make to it on a regional level?

DH: About four times a year, all of the regional CIOs around the world, along with leaders from the corporate group, meet to discuss how well we've been adhering to the strategic direction for IT, and what might we be doing in any specific region that could influence the direction of the strategy.

In the Americas, we've been developing our governance model. The executive team, which is headed by the CEO, currently meets at least four times a year, but we are looking to increase that number. I have governance in the business through this group. I also have governance in IT through yearly face-to-face meetings. Meanwhile, governance in IT also gets carried out through bi-weekly conference calls and one-on-one meetings with staff. I travel a lot to meet with staff leaders.

EL: You've specialized in delivering global logistical supply chain solutions. What advice would you give to CIOs who are making major changes in this area?

DH: The global nature adds another layer of complexity. I'd tell new CIOs, especially, not to make it any more complex than it needs to be. It's complex enough. This is an area where you'll find users who want to be very creative, and they tend to request every feature that comes to mind. I can't tell you the number of times we've built and deliver something that was so complex and abstract, no one could use it.

People don't trust a system that's not flexible; we aren't in a precise business. I'd emphasize being careful. Don't insist on building a system that will make all the decisions for you. Everything doesn't have to be completely automated -- use technology to do the things that you know the system can handle very well. In our business, that usually translates to tracking where your goods are and gathering the info so you can report on it in a meaningful way.

EL:  You've done some pilot projects from RFID tabs. What's your  opinion about this technology?

DH: At BAX Global and Schenker, we've done a couple of RFID projects to get some synergies in managing our warehouses. We thought we might move these pilot projects into the transportation area country by country, but we haven't seen the need for that yet. We know how to do it. The pilot projects in our warehouse worked fine, but they didn't give us any more benefit than what we had with our existing technology. Deutsche Bahn has started to see a lot of benefit from using RFID in large transportation rail and passenger rail services.

EL: What formal quality best practices do you use in IT?

DH: I've used the balanced scorecard, but it hasn't worked well within IT. We tend to come together as a corporate team and decide what our direction will be. Right now, we have the strategy and direction to execute our merger plans.

The closest formal best practice we have is the IT Infrastructure Library. It provides a good framework for controls and practices for managing our IT infrastructure. We're using most of the ITIL service support functions, and we have several infrastructure managers who've gotten certified in ITIL.

We do use a bit of CobIT for security, but we don't pull these best practices out of a book and follow them to the letter. We tend to tailor things, as well as follow collections of best practices.

EL:  What are some of the key process improvements you've made as  CIO?

DH: Bringing in ITIL has been one of our major process improvements. We've made a number of improvements in our global infrastructure. Putting together an IT steering committee to help decide the right things to do is another key process improvement. We've made process improvements in communications so we could have effective all-hands meetings, as well as one-on-one meetings, with the IT management team.

EL: You've been a speaker at several IT venues. What have you gotten  out of that?

DH: I always manage to get something out of each venue. I like listening to my peers in other industries talk about how they handled situations in their organizations. These people also make great sources for networking. I get a lot out of presentations given by CEOs or consultants with expertise in leadership.

EL: Do you belong to any CIO organizations?

DH: About four years ago, I was active on the CIO Executive Board, a selected members-only organization. Participation involved spending a lot of time writing and speaking, but during the past few years, I've found it difficult to get away for some IT conferences. So, it's not fair to be involved with an organization if you can't do what's expected.

EL: Any particular IT leadership books you'd recommend to other IT  professionals?

DH: I liked the The New CIO Leader written by Ellen Kitzis, a senior vice president of the Gartner Group, and Marianne Broadbent, a senior fellow at the Gartner Group. My favorite book, however, is Larry Bossidy's Execution. I'm not really a big Peter Drucker fan. I tend to  give Pat M. Lancioni's Death By Meeting to my managers; because the book is very small and a very concise fable, the managers can get a lot out of the each reading within a few minutes.

EL: What attracted you to the supply chain logistics?

DH: It just kind of happened. I started out in manufacturing and then moved into warehouse distribution. By that time, I had the beginning of a good track record in logistics. I also found it to be a very interesting area because it's complex. IT people who like to solve puzzles will find logistics very addictive.

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Elizabeth M. Ferrarini is a writer from Boston,  Massachusetts. Reach her at elizabethferrarini@yahoo.com.