Hewlett-Packard (HP) recently honored our Information Technology (IT) organization for its outstanding use of the company's software to optimize its global processes and capabilities.

The Palo Alto, Calif.-based technology solutions giant presented IT with an Excellence in Agility award for "speed and reliability in implementing changes and adapting to business needs."

The award was part of the annual HP Software Awards of Excellence program, which applauds organizations that use HP software to achieve exceptional business outcomes. Kellogg was recognized for its implementation of an integrated software package that allowed IT to centralize its change-management activities worldwide while becoming more flexible and responsive to the needs of our business.

"Partnering with HP not only provided us with a single software toolset that could be effectively utilized worldwide," explains Deb Lesavoy, vice president, IT Governance and Service Management, "but it also gave us a proven framework of best practices, documented processes and a common terminology that we could apply across our organization. Together, all of this helped reduce our change-related risk as well as improve efficiency and results."

Helping improve and move

For example, IT increased the number of business-requested changes processed by its systems by a remarkable 40 percent from the fourth quarter of 2007 to the first quarter of this year. In addition, the number of emergency changes requested each month was cut in half.

Using the HP software package has also greatly reduced the time it takes IT to generate documentation regarding change requests, approvals, controls and testing required to comply with audits mandated by the Sarbanes-Oxley federal anti-fraud law.

"Previously, four days would elapse while staff tracked down paperwork filed across several buildings," says Sheila Bridge, senior director, IT Global Compliance and Controls. "Today, using HP software, we can produce the evidence for audits in just one half-day - less than a quarter the time that was needed before."

The ability to easily track and report the number of business-requested changes executed by our IT employees globally has yielded another advantage: It has given IT the ability to document and demonstrate its ongoing shift in focus from tactical activities to more strategic IT projects.

The HP software also played a significant role in the soon-to-be-complete relocation of our Global Data Center.

"Managing the myriad changes related to the Data Center move would have been impossible using manual processes and spreadsheets," Sheila says. "With HP software, we not only moved our Global Data Center on schedule, but we did so while maintaining perfect availability."

By implementing an integrated, centralized package of HP software solutions, our colleagues in IT were able to accelerate and automate the moving process while minimizing risk, costs, impact and inconvenience.

Universal recognition

Deb and Sheila accepted the Excellence in Agility award on Kellogg's behalf during the 2008 HP Software Universe event, held last month in Las Vegas.

HP further recognized Kellogg and our IT achievements through a video presented at the event featuring an interview with Sheila. An audio podcast and Kellogg profile were also posted to the company's website, HP.com.

Other 2008 HP Software Awards of Excellence recipients included Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase, Georgia's Gwinnett Medical Center and Chilean insurance provider BICE Vida Compañía de Seguros S.A.