Boeing 2007 Annual Report Download - page 8

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2007 stands out as a year of significant — and accelerating — progress.
improvement to ensure both our
current and future competitiveness
through developing strong leaders;
driving a continued focus on both
top-line growth and bottom-line
productivity; ensuring functional excel-
lence (consistently following proven,
common processes); maintaining a
strong focus on ethics and compli-
ance; driving a culture of openness,
sharing and innovation; and acting
with a sense of stewardship toward
the world in which we are privileged
to live and work.
Boeing Internationally:
Global Growth, Productivity
and Citizenship
We strive to build and sustain long-term
relationships and embed Boeing as a
respected member of communities and
cultures all around the world. We rec-
ognize that great ideas also originate
from places outside Boeing. So, more
than looking solely to sell our products
and services globally, one of our abiding
goals is to both cultivate and access
the best thinking and technology—
wherever it may be found.
I will cite what we are doing in India as
one example among many.
Air India entered the jet age on the
wings of the Boeing 707 more than
four decades ago. With air travel in
India growing at a phenomenal
25-percent annual rate, we are in the
fortunate position of being the leading
supplier of commercial airplanes to
Indian carriers. That entails some
collateral responsibilities. We are help-
ing India build its aviation infrastruc-
ture. We are also buying from local
Indian companies, tapping into an
amazing talent pool in engineering
and information technology. Several
of these companies supply high-end
aviation-related software to our com-
mercial business. These companies—
and others— could play an increas-
ingly valuable part in driving both
growth and productivity for the total
Boeing enterprise.
While IDS is new to India, it is uniquely
positioned, given the breadth and
depth of its capabilities, to provide
defense products that fit almost all of
India’s major stated procurement needs.
Those include multirole fighters, attack
and heavy-lift helicopters, anti-ship
missiles and naval training and anti-
submarine aircraft.
In India, people from our two core
businesses share offices and work
closely together in support of a com-
mon strategy. In following an inte-
grated approach to doing business in
this market, we are bringing “the best
of Boeing” to India and “the best of
India” to Boeing and our customers.
Accelerating Learning
and Sharing
It is said, there is strength in diversity.
Nothing could be truer, if one makes
the critical assumption, as we do
at Boeing, that our success is fueled
by a culture of sharing that brings a
diversity of people and viewpoints to
innovating and to solving problems.
We
have a great diversity of people
and creative talent inside Boeing, and
that is reflected in a long-standing,
well-deserved reputation for doing
amazing things and making a real dif-
ference in the world. Our people work
on programs that are as challenging
and different as the 787 Dreamliner,
which involves technologies that will
influence the course of commercial
aviation for decades to come, and the
Ground-based Midcourse Defense
program, in which we have repeatedly
demonstrated the ability to “hit a bullet
with a bullet” in space with this impor-
tant missile-defense project.
Our aspiration is for Boeing to become
even greater than the sum of its parts
(as great as those parts already are).
This requires that we accelerate learn-
ing and sharing inside the company.
The payout— faster innovation and
problem solving—should impact both
the top and bottom lines. It starts with
improved employee engagement and
broadening the flow of ideas. As a
result, there should be clear evidence
of continuously improving quality and
service to our customers, as well as
enhanced growth and improved pro-
ductivity across our enterprise.
We drive learning and sharing in many
ways, from our Leadership Center (the
flagship of our comprehensive leader-
ship-development approach) to our
four growth-and-productivity initiatives.
Here are some examples of how our
strategy of leveraging the depth and
breadth of Boeing is taking root:
■ At the Leadership Center, Boeing
leaders present real Boeing business
challenges and ask classes for help
solving them. In fact, my leadership
team has received—and is acting
on— good ideas from several 2007
classes on how we might expand our
services businesses, strengthen our
program management, more deeply
embed our four growth-and-productivity
initiatives into our operations, and
more quickly share best practices.
■ By partnering with BCA and IDS to
consolidate nonproduction procure-
ment and leverage companywide
purchasing power through our Internal
Services Productivity initiative, our
Shared Services Group captured
$765 million of contract-negotiated
price reductions in 2007.
■ By embracing input from other
parts of the company— most notably
Lean+ practices from Commercial
Airplanes, our satellite business has