ANDERS GUSTAFSSON Chief Executive Officer Zebra Technologies Corp.

Biography

Panelist Perspective

Biography

Anders Gustafsson became chief executive officer and a director of Zebra on September 4, 2007. Prior to joining Zebra Technologies, Mr. Gustafsson served as CEO of Spirent Communications plc, a publicly traded telecommunications company. At Spirent, Mr. Gustafsson redirected that company’s growth strategy, divested non-core operations, integrated historic acquisitions and streamlined the organization to realize significant cost savings. Prior to Spirent, he was senior executive vice president, global business operations, of Tellabs, Inc. While at Tellabs, Mr. Gustafsson also served as president, Tellabs International, as well as president, global sales, and vice president and general manager, Europe, Middle East and Africa. Earlier in his career, he held executive positions with Motorola and Network Equipment Technologies. Mr. Gustafsson has an M.B.A. from the Harvard Graduate School of Business and a Master of Science degree in electrical engineering from Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden. He was a Fulbright Scholar and received numerous fellowships and scholarships for academic excellence.

Panelist Perspective

From large containers moving from country to country, to shipments of strawberries and locating students on a campus, technology can assist in helping organizations see and control in real time the movements of their most critical assets. For many companies, it is difficult to gain the greatest efficiency from their supply chain if they do not have visibility of their people and assets -- this is especially so in complex supply chains.

It is incumbent on organizations to take data and turn it into information they can use to create greater efficiencies within their network. Information can seem ubiquitous in today’s business world, as we find limited value in stand-alone islands of information. Rather, the value comes from the interconnectivity of information and how easily accessible it is.
The global supply chain is complex and always lengthening. Knowing where your assets are at any one time makes all the difference. Zebra Technologies gives companies the ability to identify, track and manage the deployment of their critical assets. Because much of industry is tied to the delivery of physical goods, we enable companies to know where those physical goods are – at any time. For example, by feeding data to ERP systems, Zebra Technologies connects companies to their assets in a tangible and usable way.

The adoption of open standards is one of the ways to ensure success. Open standards will allow us to improve and enhance the flow of information for companies throughout the supply chain, and help drive adoption of compliance standards which will in turn drive productivity. The sooner we all get on board with the same standards, the better off our supply chain knowledge will be. The cost of inaccuracy within the supply chain is too high – from food recalls to patient safety, open standards will help technology companies improve the flow of information and ultimately improve productivity.