The attraction of the data warehouse was the ability to hold all company data in one place. Mott has an aversion to data marts, where snapshots of sections of the database are stored across the organization. The data has to be refreshed frequently to keep it current but between refreshes the company is running on historical data. This did not fit in with Wal-Mart's needs and Teradata offered a way in which the data could be kept in a single store and viewed without first having to create a data mart. Using parallel-processing servers meant that overhead was greatly reduced and accessing data in real time meant that any changes were immediately apparent to the user.

The successful adoption of Teradata proved that Mott's "business benefit above all" philosophy could pay dividends. In addition, he increased staffing by 40 per cent to enable applications to be produced to reduce Wal-Mart store inventories and speed up the supply chain. These measures helped Wal-Mart to outguess the market, keep prices down, increase profits and reduce wastage. Wal-Mart's profits had stalled but the shake-up paid immediate dividends with a 14 per cent growth in profit in the first year.

Another lesson that Mott learned was the power of boardroom representation. As an executive member, he was privy to the concerns and initiatives of the business. He believes strongly that IT can only benefit the business if the CIO is involved in the high-level decision-making process. As a board member, the CIO can often support a business initiative by tweaking the IT infrastructure.

Mott's conspicuous success and forward-thinking approach attracted Michael Dell's attention and, after 22 years at Wal-Mart, Mott was hired to work the same magic on Dell's inventory in 2000.

Dell had pioneered the internet as a sales channel. By definition, this meant the company came to rely heavily on its IT systems to drive the business. When it comes to lean, the company borders on the anorexic, and if any enterprise defines just-in-time marketing it is Dell.

The similarity between the requirements at Dell and his previous job at Wal-Mart was attractive to Mott. He had cracked the skill of rapid market response and could hone this at Dell, which now orders parts every two hours and never stocks more than a four-day inventory.

A need for speed

One of Mott's mantras is that "the quicker you get in and get out of a project, the more likely you are to succeed", and he feels that a single, joined-up plan is the only way to achieve targets.

"I'm a firm believer in moving everything concurrently," he says. "I've seen too many cases where things get broken down into five programs and they never get finished. By the time you get through the second program, there are five new two-year programs. Starting things concurrently is essential because so many things are moving -- and it's not just IT, it's the business," he says.

Mott's holistic approach reaches beyond his remit as the IT chief. Not only does he meet regularly with his teams and the HP global sales force, he also likes to hear from customers about their concerns. These meetings ensure a consistent message across all departments in the company.

In the 1990s, Wal-Mart was a giant within the US, but Dell's global reach added new complexities to the challenge of keeping the IT department focused. As Mott told CIO magazine at the time: "There are complexities, but my job is to ensure these complexities are not an excuse."