Cultural issues also arose when Danback's group implemented XL Capital's global e-mail system. This entailed establishing a universal identity management system, which meant replacing seven naming standards that were based on local cultural conventions. For instance, in places such as South America, a person might use five names -- his first and middle names, plus a parent's middle and last names.

The answer was to create a user identification number -- which turned out to be unpopular with certain segments of users. "It was considered impersonal in Latin America and certain parts of Europe, where people like to have a personal identity when they log onto their systems," Danback says. IT tweaked the system so that once a connection is established, an employee is greeted with a more personal screen name. With this change, which has also enabled simplified sign-on and identity management, the system garnered an 86% approval rating in an intranet poll that Danback's group conducted.

So far, in addition to the e-mail system, a single-carrier global network, and global partnership agreements with Microsoft Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co. , Danback's group has also established a portfolio of 50 global technology standards, as well as a technology architecture reference guide that's used by all of XL Capital's IT groups.

'Not in this country!'

Global negotiations are also a big part of the job for Jay Crotts, CIO in the lubricants and business-to-business segments of Royal Dutch Shell PLC, which has operations in North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia and Africa. Like Danback, Crotts has been helping his company create a global portfolio of IT applications as part of a three-year effort to standardize Shell's business processes around the world. The goal is to pare down some 500 applications to a standard set of 50.