Geoff Penney的Charles Schwab Corp.: Bleeding edge, and proud of it

Charles Schwab Corp.技术有多重要？公司首席信息官Geoff Penney有很少的答案，如果有的话，竞争对手可能是最重要的。“我们在执行委员会有两个CIO，”他吹嘘。“美国有很多公司。没有一个。”

Penney, a Schwab executive vice president, has held the CIO job since 2001. His predecessor and current boss, Dawn Lepore, Schwab's vice chairman for technology, operations and administration, also sits on the executive committee, along with chairman Charles Schwab, CEO David Pottruck and seven others.

“施瓦布应该是任何人的顶级技术创新者名单，”马萨诸塞州剑桥剑桥的主要分析师Jaime Managill说。“组织结构肯定会谈。”

然而，在信息技术支出中，旧群体施瓦布甚至没有在最近的经纪工业研究中爆发了基于波士顿的研究公司的结束通信。Schwab 2004年的7.3亿美元预算大约是1.3亿美元，而不是10千万八千万，斯特尔斯＆Co.和20亿sh sh Merrill Lynch＆Co。

Of course, Schwab is historically a retail firm, focused on fewer businesses and lacking the back-office complexity of a top investment bank. But Schwab depends heavily on technology and gets plenty of bang for its buck. It serves half of its 8 million customers online and is aggressively upgrading its professional and institutional research and trading capabilities.

Forrester的惩猎者说：“这是一家不断问自己的公司，'我们如何为客户做出更好的事情？”技术始终是答案的一部分。“

技术也有底线影响：虽然施瓦布在第一季度收入增长32％，达到11.9亿美元，费用增加了17％，达到9.43亿美元，净收入增长了127％，达到1.61亿美元。

“我们非常重新回到生意，”佩尼说，比较了公司的3％和2001年营业收入下降的提高结果，分别比较了2002年和2001年的52％。“在恢复期间，我们不会忘记成本效益，但我们开始真正考虑创新以及我们如何帮助将增长恢复到顶线。”

A native of London, Penney, 58, earned a BA and Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry from St. John's College, Cambridge. He pursued business technology, he says, because "I was interested in problem solving, and I wanted to do it in the real world rather than the laboratory."

After three years managing systems for Eastman Kodak Co.'s U.K. subsidiary and three years as a project manager at London financial software house BIS Applied Systems, Penney joined Bankers Trust Co. in 1976, managing technology projects in London and New York until 1993. He then spent four years with Fidelity Investments in Boston as a senior vice president of technology before jumping in 1997 to Schwab as head of financial products and international technology.

Penney recently discussed Schwab's technology with Institutional Investor Assistant Managing Editor Jeffrey Kutler.

您是否监督所有业务单位的技术？

公司的大多数技术人员向我举报。包括所有技术服务 - 操作，基础架构，网络和桌面。第二群人与我们的商业领袖合作，但也向我报告。他们参加我的会议和商界方面的会议。这种交叉协作可确保我们构建适合在一起并整合的系统，同时理解并对业务响应。我们被组织为与最佳分散的响应能力结合出最好的集中成本效益。

How have the recent market cycles affected the tech organization?

When I joined in February 1997, technology was 1,200 people. At the peak, in 2000, we employed 3,700. In 2001 and 2002 we reduced our spending and capacity substantially, and today we have about 2,500.

Did the crunch force you to hold spending down, and has it loosened up?

Over several years spending has been basically flat. The mix of the spending, however, has changed substantially. We've been saving on operational costs and increasing our investment in technology. At Schwab there is an insatiable demand for technology. At any given time there are ten good ideas for every one that we have the bandwidth and money to execute. Rather than cut technology, we want to invest as much as possible while minimizing the ongoing production and maintenance costs.

Are you saying that Schwab's investment in technology never slackened off?

尽管支出更谨慎，但对未来技术的投资并没有停止。例如，在经济衰退的年份，我们对我们的投资咨询提供了大量的工作。此后我们在无线频道上工作。我们的成本减少努力包括降低设备和人员的能力，并制度化我们可以继续受益长期的成本效益技巧。其中部分来自使用Linux操作系统转换为基于英特尔的计算平台。我们还围绕自动[或自动托管]计算的相当大的努力，我们称之为有机，以及电网计算[根据需要需要的绘制容量]。

What do those trendy concepts say about Schwab's willingness to test the bleeding edge?

We always look for innovation. We do not like to waste money. But we are very happy to be close to the bleeding edge. Indeed, Schwab has a long history of building technology that enables business change to happen. In the 1970s, Chuck Schwab made the key decision not only to bring the firm's back-office computing system in-house but also to connect all of the client representatives to the system through terminals that enabled us to pass orders to the market directly. The cost model was very different from wiring or phoning orders across the country, and it enabled the discount brokerage business to thrive.

Do you have an R&D function?

在西海岸，我们有很多进入硅谷的新兴技术。我们的四人先进技术集团介绍了各种技术领域的内容，寻找有趣的例子，并将其带到在业务中工作的技术人员。尽可能快地到达原型和飞行员是必不可少的 - 这就是您与先进技术有关的。

你什么时候决定转移到Linux的？

We made the decision in the third quarter of 2002. We had a pretty big plan for 2003, beginning with the conversion of some production applications that were not too risky. But we built that up rapidly, and our big move was converting the Schwab.com Web servers in July 2003. It took only a few months to go from that decision to multiple million dollars of savings. We could do that because Linux is close to Unix, and we have a fair amount of Unix expertise in-house.

Is there more benefit from Linux than the pure cost savings?

What I'm most interested in is the hardware savings. The easiest way to move a Unix workload onto Intel-compatible hardware is to use Linux. But we also have a terrific relationship with Microsoft, with some very important business applications running on its technology. That's also on an Intel platform, which is fine.

What's exciting on the horizon?

一个开发，最重要的是Schwab SoundView资本市场以及Schwab 1月份与SoundView技术组合并的整合。我相信将有真正对具有真正独立于投资银行的研究的施瓦布流动资金网络中的顶级贸易执行。现在我们拥有机构研究的所有能力 - 来自华盛顿研究组的SoundView，政策和经济研究的所有能力 - 来自华盛顿研究组的投资分析，用于定量研究的投资分析（在Schwab股票对个人投资者的评级中使用的大部分数学建模）和技术John Mendelson在我们的市场分析组中分析。将这些独立的研究能力添加到我们的执行能力中，我们处于一个非常强大的地位，使机构购买和销售股票的方式变动。我希望我们为机构做出

投资者我们为个人做了什么。