October 16, 2000

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IT Management
Irving Miller Toyota

By Eric Chabrow

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e aware of your weaknesses but emphasize your strengths. That's the credo Irving Miller preaches as head of Toyota Motor Sales USA Inc.'s Office of the Web. Miller sees his strength as being a communicator. He relies on the information technologists on his team and Toyota's IT department to provide the technical knowledge he needs to run Toyota's Web ventures.

Miller, a VP and a 20-year veteran at the Torrance, Calif., company, has spent almost his entire career as a marketer in the auto industry. But he says he's had enough exposure to IT to qualify him to run an organization that requires a leader with technical know-how, marketing sagacity, and the business savvy to succeed. "I got my first laptop in 1990," he says. "I've had one fixed at my side ever since."

In 1995, as corporate manager for advertising and merchandising for the Toyota division, Miller helped launch the automaker's first Web site. Fifteen months ago, Toyota created its Office of the Web, which sets the company's Internet policies and oversees its Web sites, intranet, and extranet. Miller's office also heads Netcar, a company project to Webify the automobile through telematics--a combination of computer and telecommunications technologies.

Miller sees his role as providing direction and articulating expectation. "Then I get out of the way to let these people do their jobs," he says. "I don't need to be an expert in technology, but I need to surround myself with good people who are."

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