Matt Villano

When officials at Toyota Motor Corp.s San Francisco-based Motor Sales division opted to create an Office of the Web to handle e-business one and a half years ago, they wanted to hit the pavement with all cylinders firing. Optimally, the department would be up in a matter of weeks. Business to Consumer National Manager Keith […]

Back in 1997, ordering golf course maintenance equipment from Cleveland-based Lesco Inc. was as difficult as trimming the courses themselves. When supplies ran low, customers—landscapers at more than 7,000 courses across the country—were forced to call one of the companys retail stores, where sales associates used IBM AS/400 green-screen terminals to dial in to the […]

Albert Fretz has been known to work 70-hour weeks to finish difficult projects. Fretzs bosses at Talk2 Technology Inc., a Salt Lake City-based telecommunications company, love and encourage such dedication. His family—a wife and four young children—does not. Luckily for Fretz, theres always the CEO to turn to. Were not talking about a chief executive […]

Its a chilly fall morning at the 34-year-old Robert Mondavi Vineyard, and in their offices high atop a warehouse filled with casks of wine, the duo that constitutes the companys entire investor relations department has everything under control. Jeanette Bowling, the companys investor relations coordinator, sips from a mug of steaming coffee as she responds […]

On a brisk and sunny day at Marist College, in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., the schools data processing facility overflows with life. An IBM S/390 mainframe computer, a new version of the age-old answer to corporate computing, hums like a vacuum cleaner. Students hop around the machines administrative terminal, noting information here and there, smiling, nodding, and […]