I.T. CONNECTS
THE STEELCASE
GLOBAL
COMMUNITY
Robert Krestakos
vice president and chief
information officer
GRAND RAPIDS
Photo: Mitch Ranger
There have been massive
changes in all aspects of
our business since I came
to Steelcase in 1992.
First, everyone wondered if
personal computers were a
fad. Another game-changing
technology had to do with
software—back then, people
were asking if they should
build their own software or
buy it. Steelcase, like other
large corporations, used
IBM mainframe computers, and there were no PCs.
The software was largely
built and run by IBM. Over
the past 20 years, I’ve
watched a transformation
from very separate ways
in which information was
processed to a very holistic
view of how data should
flow through the company.
The DNA of Steelcase is
research oriented and insight
driven. We build this into
our products, and technol-
ogy is fundamental to how
people will work in the
future. media:scape—with
its screens, displays, and
connections for computers
integrated into the setting—
is very forward-looking. But
before we designed it, we
studied how we travel and
where, how much it costs,
and how much it would
cost to add technology that
would allow us to do high-
quality video conferencing.
What happened was that
we lowered our travel costs
while finding other, unan-
ticipated benefits that came
from the technology, includ-
ing new levels at which
people can connect and
enrich their meetings. This
surprised a lot of people.
We went from, “Wow, this
is cool, you should try this,”
to, “This is fundamental
to the way we work now.”
People really do get to know
each other through telep-
resence. Those who would
rarely have the opportunity
to be in the same room tell
you that they feel like they
actually know each other.
