Very interesting article in Tech Republic today about the changes in Ford, from an IT perspective. What's particularly appealing is that they've done lots of the things that I've advocated in other big organisations: the simple stuff like standardisation, consolidation of effort, streamlining the application landscape, etc... All the stuff that many of us knows needs doing across these big, lumbering companies. Especially the ones who have a long history and an associated mash-up of legacy systems scattered across the world. But what's especially interesting about Ford is that they've proven the investment in the change actually reduces overall cost and  allows for a much more agile and efficient organisation.