Visteon sources about $100 million in production materials monthly and expects to leverage the Internet to help with sourcing decisions. "We're looking for the best-qualified suppliers available around the world," says Bent, "and the Internet is helping us reach those suppliers quickly and efficiently." He says the savings have been significant, but declines to give a specific figure.

As part of its transition away from Ford, Visteon is about to launch a new organizational model for its 800 IT personnel. Currently, Visteon's IT staff is decentralized around the globe. Effective Jan. 1, Visteon will begin to run its IT organization "like a business within a business," Bent says.

Although the IT staff will continue to be located worldwide, the IT operation will be run as a single group rather than as multiple teams. IT "account managers" in areas such as human resources or operations will oversee the IT people in their function areas. Those managers will report to the VPs of those areas, as well as to Bent.

Operations within Visteon will be billed for IT services and support based on a utility model, Bent says. The IT organization will sell desktops, for example, as a service and charge a per-month fee to each group within Visteon that uses the service.

The same will go for storage. "We will sell storage space per gigabyte, per month," Bent says. This will push Visteon's IT organization to compete against services that can be purchased from outside vendors. "To make the IT organization successful, it should operate like a business," he says.

A successful CIO must be an effective communicator, and Bent is known for his good communication skills. He's open and approachable, whether it's with businesspeople or technology people, says Preston. "He's not intimidating and he's not seen as a geek," says Preston. "It's fairly unique to find someone who can straddle the technical and business worlds equally. Dave's success is based on his ability to do that."

Bent also exhibits an equanimity born of self-confidence. "Even when life gets heated, he's cool under pressure," says Preston. That's important, because Bent is responsible for all vendor relationships, including dealings with SAP, a strategic business partner.

Also helping in the relationship with SAP is Bent's fluency in German. In his free time, Bent says, he enjoys watching Formula One auto racing and playing with his 7-year-old twin daughters, who also speak German.

Bent's fluency undoubtedly helped when meeting with SAP CEO Hasso Plattner during a recent visit to SAP offices in California. That work with SAP and other business partners is helping lay the groundwork in Visteon's transition from Ford. But it's Bent who's building the IT framework to support the House of eVisteon.

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Photos by Andrew Sacks

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