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Emerging Models of Corporate Entrepreneurship 115

information officer (CIO) for the entire company—was tasked
with finding ways to significantly transform BP’s various busi-
nesses using emerging information technologies (IT). The late
1990s had seen a massive consolidation of the oil industry. BP
was a leader of that trend, and by 2001, the company consisted
of 130 business units with about 100,000 employees in more
than 100 countries. Although the extensive merger activity had
been driven by low oil prices, BP’s CEO, Lord Browne of Mad-
ingley, anticipated significant learning across business units,
what he called “intellectual economies of scale.” Browne saw
IT “not just as a service function but as an activity which could
change the nature of the business itself.”
Lord Browne turned to his CIO, John Leggate, and Leggate’s
right-hand man, the vice president of IT integration, Phiroz P.
Darukhanavala, known to everyone as “Daru.” Daru was
tasked with designing an organization, which he would then
lead, to drive significant, IT-based business innovation and
value within BP’s operating businesses. He quickly decided that
the business transformation function should not be appended
to mainstream IT groups, as they needed to stay focused on
maintaining the company’s applications, networks, data cen-
ters, backbones, and so on. Indeed, he concluded that any large
internal organization would be too slow and prone to ossifying
around a few big projects. Such a group would also not fit well
with BP’s independent business unit organization and culture.
After considering many models, Daru focused on how ven-
ture capital groups operated. These were small organizations,
although nevertheless well informed. They became well
informed not by maintaining extensive in-house expertise but
rather by developing networks that allowed them to find solu-
tions quickly. In project management, they could orchestrate
small teams and move very nimbly. Over time, Daru concluded
that his new organization—the CTO office, with him as CTO—