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Computerworld - Jim Fortner has built a career at The Procter & Gamble Co. on promises kept. Every year, he says, "I sit down with [CIO] Filippo Passerini and tell him what our promise is." This year, that pledge included cutting $50 million from the IT infrastructure budget.

So far, Fortner, general manager of IT infrastructure and corporate real estate for Cincinnati-based P&G's global business services division, has delivered savings by asking his teams to attack several projects. Those include installing a videoconferencing system and mitigating rapidly rising storage and telecommunications costs.

To help address the latter, his team created a Web-based system that delivers "personal consumption reports" that show managers and individual employees the dollar value of the IT resources they consume every month, including such things as BlackBerry services. "Those are charges that they don't normally see but [do] incur," Fortner says. By providing that visibility and suggesting alternatives, the company has saved millions.

Kevin Haukebo, associate director of global business services, describes Fortner as energetic and a great communicator. "He helps us drive home the business value equations for the programs we're running," Haukebo says. Fortner coaches the team to stay on message and "get your sound bites down on key measures that business people will understand," he adds.

"I look at myself as a hired gun every year," Fortner explains. "I step back and say, 'OK, what does the company need from me that I can uniquely deliver?' It's not enough to just take in oxygen and be an employee. I try to make a difference, [and] I accept full accountability."

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