Project Eagle lands Goodyear a place in CIO 100

The US edition of CIO magazine, a publication aimed at senior IT executives, has named Goodyear Tire & Rubber one of its 2012 CIO 100 winners. Upon receiving the accolade, Goodyear vice-president and chief information officer Jim McKinnon said “winning the CIO 100 award is tremendous recognition for the success of our multi-year project, which has aligned all of the company’s operations in Europe, the Middle East and Africa on a common business platform.”

The tyre maker was voted into the top 100 by a judging panel made up of CIO editorial staff, former CIOs and industry experts on the basis of its ‘Project Eagle’ initiative. CIO magazine describes the project as follows: “In 2008, the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company launched Project Eagle, an initiative to align all of the company’s European legal entities. Goodyear also wanted to stay flexible enough to adapt to changing business and market environments. By making business processes simpler and standardising much of the operations in all 110 countries where Goodyear does business, the company was able to reduce cumbersome back-office processes, data maintenance and huge amounts of paperwork in all business functions. Moreover, through standard processes and single-instance SAP ERP system support, Goodyear was able to improve data transparency, driving a much better business decision process. With close collaboration between IT and business, the Eagle Project has been able to save Goodyear $91 million a year.”

“This initiative was a collaborative effort involving an integrated business and IT team, and it has resulted in greater operational efficiency and significant cost savings. We introduced the latest technology while simplifying and standardising business processes across many countries,” commented Horst Ebert, Goodyear’s IT director for Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Winners of the 2012 CIO 100 awards were chosen based upon technology innovation and measurable business value. “Our 2012 winners are an outstanding example of the transformative power of IT to drive everything from revenue growth to competitive advantage,” stated CIO magazine editor in chief Maryfran Johnson.