Eight Symantec Visionaries Named at 2006 Symantec Vision Event
For the past two years, industry leaders from around the world have been recognized at Symantec’s annual Vision event for their innovative use of technology in running their businesses. At last year’s Vision event, Visionaries such as Doug Eney from Carnival Cruise Lines, Kevin Gungiah from The Weather Channel, Chris Johnson from BellSouth, Madge M. Meyer from State Street Corporation, and Dr. Naoki Matsuo from NTT Communications were highlighted.
This year more than 60 customers from around the world were nominated by the Symantec sales and services organizations. The nominations were evaluated based on technology innovation, business value impact, and involvement of Symantec partners and services. Based on the results of the evaluation process, a total of eight customers were selected as Visionaries. Each of the Visionaries were recognized by John W. Thompson, Chairman and CEO, Symantec, and Janice Chaffin, CMO, Symantec, on May 8, 2006 at the Symantec Vision event held in San Francisco, California. These customers, which represent a range of industries and global markets, are acknowledged and applauded for their innovative use of technology in driving down costs, optimizing operations, securing information, and improving customer experiences.
“Each of the 2006 Visionary Award recipients has demonstrated strategic application of technology to minimize IT risk and reach important business goals,” said John W. Thompson, Chairman and CEO, Symantec. “From enhancing the customer experience and increasing data security to driving down costs and optimizing operations, these award winners serve as an inspiration to other business leaders around the world seeking to leverage technology for solving today’s business challenges.”
The eight Visionaries include Michael McGibbney from American Express, Yves Baguet from Clearstream, Gary Clark from DHL, Bob Burritt from Kettering Medical Center Network, Laura Fucci from MGM MIRAGE, Guillermo García from Banco de Chile, Eun Sik Kim from Shinhan Bank, and Jim Craig from Sisters of Mercy Health System. Summaries on each of these Visionaries are included below.
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Michael McGibbney
Director of Technology Infrastructure, American Express
Boosting IT Value with a More Agile Data Center
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Michael McGibbney, director of technology infrastructure at American Express, is recognized for reducing data center cost and complexity while delivering enhanced services to the company’s more than one million customers worldwide. McGibbney and his team designed a centralized, agile data center environment to help deliver significantly greater value from IT. For application performance management, American Express selected Symantec i3 software. By standardizing application performance management across the data center, American Express reduced IT staff training requirements while lowering total cost of ownership for managing application services by as much as 70 percent. In addition, the solution improved application uptime to more than 99.9 percent. |
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Yves Baguet
Director of Technology, Clearstream
Protecting Customer Transaction Data
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Yves Baguet, managing director of technology for Clearstream, one of the world's leading providers of clearing and settlement services for the equity and bond markets, is recognized for maintaining an IT infrastructure that helps safeguard the financial transactions of more than 2,500 customers across the globe. Because a serious system outage could compromise customer information and even cripple the securities markets, maintaining a solid technology infrastructure is an imperative. Baguet's team standardized on Symantec data center management products and, as a result, failovers now take a matter of minutes or even seconds—rather than several hours. In addition, Baguet was able to redeploy IT staff and eliminate associated software licensing costs, saving the company more than $600,000 annually. |
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Gary Clark
Senior Vice President of Infrastructure Services and CTO, DHL
Standardizing Software Infrastructure as Part of a Global IT
Consolidation Initiative
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Gary Clark, CTO and head of infrastructure services at DHL, is recognized for using technology to achieve the shipping giant's aggressive IT consolidation goals. To improve data center availability while reducing cost and complexity, Clark and the DHL IT team consolidated more than 160 data centers to just three locations in the major operating hubs of Europe, the Americas, and Asia Pacific. As part of this initiative, DHL standardized its software infrastructure on Symantec data center management products, including Veritas Storage Foundation and Veritas Cluster Server. As a result, DHL has saved millions of dollars in employee productivity and hardware cost avoidance, while improving delivery of IT services that support the company's daily delivery of millions of packages to more than 220 countries. |
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Bob Burritt
Network and Technology Manager, Kettering Medical Center Network
Leveraging Technology to Support the Highest Levels of Patient Care
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Bob Burritt directs networking and technology for Kettering Medical Center Network, a group of five hospitals and 51 medical facilities in the Dayton, Ohio area. Burritt is recognized for utilizing technology to assist healthcare professionals in diagnosing small problems—before they become big ones. Kettering relies on an extensive network of handhelds, laptops, and other systems to facilitate patient care. Due to the sensitivity and criticality of up-to-date patient information, Burritt and his team must keep all 6,000 of the hospital's connected devices continuously secure and available to aid more than 10,000 caregivers with the treatment of patients. The company's comprehensive threat management solution, which combines software, appliances, and early warning services from Symantec, has produced an annual staff time savings of $200,000. In addition, with these preventative solutions, less than one percent of IT staff time is now spent on virus mitigation or security issues, freeing Burritt and his team to focus resources where they are needed most—supporting caregivers and their patients. |
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Laura Fucci
Vice President and CTO, MGM MIRAGE
Managing Email Compliance While Driving Down Associated Costs
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Laura Fucci, Vice President and CTO of MGM MIRAGE, which owns and operates 23 world-renown resorts and casinos, is recognized for innovative use of technology to manage increasing email compliance requirements. Fucci is spearheading efforts to meet skyrocketing .PST file volume while addressing various IT compliance requirements around email retention and discovery with a solution based on Veritas Enterprise Vault software. Anticipated results extend across the business value chain, from elimination of the time the company's employees and contractors spend managing their .PST files for 14,000 email accounts—average aggregate of 700 hours each day—to tiered storage for lower cost and greater operational efficiencies. |
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Guillermo García
IT Vice President, Banco de Chile
Improving Customer Service While Driving Down Costs
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Guillermo García, IT Vice President and Head of the Production Department at Banco de Chile, Chile’s second largest financial institution with more than $20 billion in assets, is recognized for developing a more streamlined IT infrastructure designed to serve the growing needs of its commercial banking customers. García and his team designed a next-generation data center to ensure the security, availability, and integrity of customers’ financial information and to facilitate customer transactions. The new data center, which is supported by Symantec data center management solutions, has helped Banco de Chile increase systems availability to 99.999 percent and accelerate transaction processing by 400 percent. Using Symantec software, Banco de Chile has improved service to customers while greatly reducing the complexity of its IT environment and recouping its investment in just two years. |
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Eun Sik Kim
CIO, Shinhan Bank
Improving the Management of Customers’ Financial Data
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Eun Sik Kim, CIO of Shinhan Bank, one of the largest banks in South Korea, is recognized for dramatically improving the management of customer data, a challenge that recently doubled when Shinhan Bank merged with Chohung Bank, the first financial institution in Korea with more than 100 years of history. In an effort to keep up with growing volumes of customer information as cost-efficiently as possible, Kim and his team standardized the bank’s data center software infrastructure, structuring the solution around Symantec storage and server solutions. The standardization effort has reduced the amount of time required to configure storage from an average of five hours to less than one hour while reducing unplanned downtime by 50 percent. In addition, productivity of the IT staff increased by 30 percent and the performance of applications improved by 30 percent. |
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Jim Craig
Director Client Systems, Sisters of Mercy Health System
Maximizing IT Investments with Better Email Management
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Jim Craig, director of client systems at Sisters of Mercy Health System, is recognized for protecting and improving the efficiency of e-mail communications across a network used by more than 26,000 employees and 3,100 physicians. Craig and his team designed and deployed an integrated e-mail messaging management solution powered by Symantec Brightmail AntiSpam and Veritas Enterprise Vault software from Symantec. These solutions email volume by 70 percent and are projected help save more than six terabytes of storage and significantly reduce hardware expenditures. |
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