Biggest Challenges Faced By A Vice President Global Workplace And Infrastructure At Applied Materials
Mike's biggest challenge as Vice President, Global Workplace and Infrastructure at Applied Materials is aligning long-term infrastructure investment needs— "these have 10 and 20 year...life's to them"—with the shorter-term vision of technology businesses. This requires taking "risks together" and making "best guesses" on significant investments with potentially expensive consequences if decisions are incorrect.
Long-Term Vision, Strategic Investment, Risk Assessment, Collaboration, Decision-Making
Advizer Information
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Job Title
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Undergrad
Grad Programs
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Mike DeMuro
Vice President, Global Workplace and Infrastructure
Applied Materials
University of Southern California
MBA, Arizona State University (ASU) - W. P. Carey
Economics, Finance
Real Estate, Technology
Strategic Management and Executive
Video Highlights
1. Long-term vision is key: Making infrastructure investments requires aligning with business needs that may extend 10-20 years into the future, demanding strong foresight and risk assessment.
2. Bridging the gap between short-term business needs and long-term infrastructure planning: A significant challenge lies in aligning business priorities focused on immediate goals with the long-term vision needed for infrastructure decisions.
3. Collaboration and risk-taking are crucial: Successful infrastructure planning requires collaboration with business units to make informed decisions despite uncertainties and potential risks associated with long-term investments.
Transcript
What is your biggest challenge in your current role?
When you're in an infrastructure and facility function, the decisions we make are very long-term. You're buying a building or constructing a new facility. These have 10 and 20-year lives to them.
The decision to make those investments requires the businesses you support to agree that those investments are indeed supporting their businesses. However, in the technology industry, it's very difficult for the business to really see that far out.
So there's a mismatch between what they can see and what you need for a decision. It's a challenge to figure out exactly what investments we should make. We have to take some risks together and make our best guesses together.
These are big decisions, and if you get them wrong, they can be very expensive. The challenge is our need for clarity for the long term versus the business's inability to actually see very far out.
Working together to figure out the right things to do is pretty challenging, but it's something that we're comfortable dealing with.