Dr. Martin Hofmann has been CIO of the Volkswagen Group since 2011 – but is in many ways working in a completely different role, tempo and culture today than he did at the start of the decade. 

His department, which sprawls across all brands and counts 14,000 employees, has seen radical change in just the past two years. Responsibility is more distributed across brands and locations, but with a stronger coordination at a group level to drive standards, share investments and make sure that new technology and systems – whether artificial intelligence, cloud computing or industrial internet of things (IIoT) connectivity – are implemented.

Never has there been a more dramatic transformation of the company’s IT backbone and enterprise system architecture, especially for its impact on manufacturing and supply chain systems. These are all areas in which Volkswagen has typically customized its systems, but which the company now sees more benefit in standard, off-the-shelf solutions – as long as they adhere to the global standards shared across the group.