Ford Europe's blueprint for $75m IT cuts
Ford Europe is planning to cut $75m (£46.8m) in IT spending as part of a global plan by the company to reduce costs by a fifth in...
IT director for Ford Europe, Richard Thwaite, told Computer Weekly that savings would come in Europe from deferring and reprioritising existing projects; by efficiencies in IT staff working practices; and by a lessening of reliance on purchased services. More effective application maintenance would provide 10% of the savings, he said.
In April, Ford said it planned to cut $9bn from its operating costs globally.
Thwaite said, "We are going to prioritise application development and re-examine all work around key business priorities. Where projects do not deliver immediate payback they will be cancelled or deferred.
"There will be a reduction in scope of some of the bigger projects - for example, we may only deploy to the bigger markets in Europe - and where some things don't improve the making and selling of vehicles - for example payroll where we were looking at an upgrade - we will defer."
The exact details of the ways IT will contribute to the cost-cutting will be drawn up at a meeting with senior European vice-presidents in the business.
Thwaite said this meeting would enable decisions to be taken from the perspective of the whole business.
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