DES PLAINES, IL - Wheels CIO, Larry Buettner appeared on a panel discussing Global IT issues at a recent Computerworld Premier 100 conference in Palm Desert, Calif. The panel included CIO's from FedEx Kinko's, Bausch & Lomb, and XL Global Services.

At Computerworld’s seventh annual Premier 100 IT Leaders conference, IT executives from the four companies with worldwide operations shared their expertise in a discussion titled “Executing the Global Agenda” highlighting some of the lessons they’ve learned while sharing a bit of the tactical maneuvering that is often part of the process.

The executives had different needs for their distinct global businesses, but their messages often revolved around the same core issues -- improving communications in languages and cultures around the world while finding ways to merge diverse IT systems and make the resulting systems work well for everyone in the larger operation.

For Wheels Inc., the biggest IT hurdle recently has been a project to synthesize operations in 10 countries into one standardized system, said CIO Lawrence Buettner, according to the Computerworld report. “It was a major challenge for us to get everyone to agree on what we had to do,” Buettner said. “We’re going to spend a lot of time communicating -- overcommunicating -- what we have to do.”

Buettner was also presented an award for being one of Computerworld's Premier 100 IT executives.