ITO Improves Flexibility and Efficiency for Textron

As one of the world's leading multi-industry companies, Textron boasts a diverse array of brands, including Bell Helicopter, Cessna Aircraft and E-Z-GO golf carts, as well as robust manufacturing, industrial and financial divisions. That diversity has made Textron into a successful $12 billion company with more than 44,000 employees in nearly 40 countries, but has posed significant challenges as well.

The Goal: A More Unified Company

"Textron has been on a journey to transform ourselves from a holding company to an operating company," explains Ken Bohlen, executive vice president and chief innovation officer for Textron. "I knew that change to an organization's existing structure from the inside is oftentimes hard to accomplish, so we decided to begin looking at outsourcing. We found there were some very positive benefits, including changing the organization, bringing the network infrastructure up to date, taking care of our people and reducing costs."

In October 2004, Textron signed a $1.1 billion, 10-year IT outsourcing agreement with CSC. Under the terms of the agreement, CSC would implement a global IT infrastructure, including a new network, consolidated data center and service desk operations, and refresh mainframe and midrange systems, desktops and engineering workstations. About 250 Textron employees joined CSC in the process.

Laying the Groundwork for Success

Denise McKnight, Textron vice president of infrastructure, says the Textron and CSC team spent the first five months after cutover in January 2005 laying the groundwork for the massive IT transformation. Establishing program management, a governance model and measurement tools. "There were a lot of back-end processes, but they were very foundational to what we're doing now and why we've been so successful," McKnight says. She and Bohlen agree that taking the time to do the foundation work correctly is the reason the transition has gone smoothly.

CSC is implementing and transitioning sites to the new Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) network, with North America already transitioned and Europe and Asia near completion. In addition, the team rolled out a global service desk, migrated two mainframes and consolidated servers in CSC data centers in Connecticut and Chesterfield, United Kingdom. Tim Ellis, CSC account executive for Textron, believes that the transition to a new and refreshed infrastructure will not only bring Textron leading-edge technology. But also help the company address the challenges of diversity by introducing global standards and shared services.

"This new integrated network will globalize Textron and allow them to not use point-to-point network solutions anymore," Ellis explains. "It will enable the company to function as a leveraged business versus 10 individual businesses, and give them flexibility with how they interact and share information."

For More Information

Read CSC World feature story and interview and Textron CIO Ken Bohlen.

To learn about CSC's outsourcing offerings, please contact us.