What It's Like to Work at Guinness Bass Import

Computerworld -

Interviewee: Lynda Gutman, CIO
Company: Guinness Bass Import Co., a division of Guinness/UDV (United Distillers and Vintners), which is owned by food and drink conglomerate Diageo PLC
Main location: Stamford, Conn.; parent company is based in London
Number of IT employees: 12 in the division, plus 10 consultants; 1,000 in Guinness/ UDV worldwide
Number of employees (end users): 300 in the division
What are the most important systems at a beverage importer? "[Enterprise resource planning] and systems that enable us to understand what's happening in the marketplace - what's being sold where, how we're doing in the pubs as well as the off-trade [retail stores]. We have a three-tier distribution system in the U.S. Our customer is actually the distributor, but what we need is the information on who they are selling to and how much. . . . We're starting to look at data mining and data warehousing. We have a data warehouse, but it needs to be revamped."
Major IT initiatives: "We've just completed an SAP design for finance, order-to-cash, procurement and logistics. The SAP design is all Web-enabled; it will allow customers to enter orders and see order status. But it's not yet implemented - that will be the big project next year. We're also gathering the depletions information for our data warehouse. We're looking at the timeliness of [the data] and so forth, as well as trying to get it by account as well as by customer."
Do the holidays put any additional pressure on IT? "No, our huge selling season at Guinness Bass really starts in January for St. Patrick's Day. UDV [which sells Smirnoff, Johnnie Walker, Jose Cuervo and other brands of distilled spirits and wines] has its own IT, and they might feel a bigger impact."
IT training for next year: SAP AG software training, and each IT staff member will have an individual training plan.
Employee reviews: Annual performance reviews are conducted by managers
Career-path options: "We are part of such a large company that while career paths aren't defined, there are opportunities at UDV, Guinness or other Diageo companies. There are people who move across the water or go back and forth."
Workday: "It's relatively flexible as long as you're here during our core hours. Usually people arrive between 8:15 and 9 a.m. and leave between 5:30 and 6 p.m. We also have summer hours - we leave early on Fridays."
Really? "It's a very stable workday. Balance of work and life is very important to the culture here, so