Case Study
Kubota — A 4-Year Fractional Engagement That Bridged Two Permanent CIOs
Kubota Tractor Corporation
Role
Fractional Director of Cloud Architecture & Engineering
Period
November 2016 – September 2020
Duration
~4 years
Reporting Line
CIO (Ron Anderson, then Tim Garfield)
Industry
Agricultural & Industrial Equipment Manufacturing
Location
Grapevine, TX (US subsidiary of Kubota Corporation, Japan)
“Ken was the thought leader and primary driving influence behind the introduction of cloud-based computing, and Agile project management, development and implementation methodologies, into a previously very conservative IT environment built upon on premise server/hosting and waterfall approaches.”
The Situation
Kubota Tractor Corporation — the US subsidiary of Kubota Corporation — had just relocated their headquarters from California to Grapevine, Texas. They were running on legacy IBM on-premises infrastructure with a small internal development team (~5 engineers) and a deeply conservative, waterfall-driven IT culture.
The mandate: move out of IBM facilities to Microsoft Azure for cost savings and faster time-to-market. After the migration, modernize the internally-built custom Java software stack to a cloud-native architecture.
CIO Ron Anderson hired me to lead the technology transformation: cloud architecture, application modernization strategy, and the engineering organization itself.
Why a Fractional Executive
Kubota had a permanent CIO. What they didn't have was the technology leadership depth to drive a multi-year cloud migration, modernize SAP, transform engineering practices, and build a 20+ person engineering organization in parallel. They needed an embedded senior leader with the architectural authority to make the right calls and the operational depth to actually execute.
What I Led
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Scoped the program correctly. After the initial assessment, I scoped what was actually a much larger transformation than originally estimated. Based on that analysis, the team made the right strategic call to defer the Java rewrite and focus entirely on getting the Azure migration done right first.
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Built the engineering organization. Grew the development team from 5 engineers to 20+. Stood up an entirely new DevOps team. Built out the cloud engineers team. Established roles, rituals, and quality gates that didn't exist before.
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Architected the cloud migration. Multi-region Azure environment with availability zones, ExpressRoute connectivity, hub-and-spoke network topology. AKS for containerized workloads, Azure Functions for serverless, Azure API Management for service governance.
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Led the SAP ECC → Azure migration with zero downtime. Architected the migration strategy, coordinated cutover, and prepared the architecture for subsequent S/4HANA modernization.
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Drove the Agile/CI/CD transformation. Introduced Agile/Scrum at scale into a previously waterfall environment. Established CI/CD pipelines with Azure DevOps integrating Jenkins, Chef, and JFrog Artifactory. Reduced deployment frequency from monthly to weekly.
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Owned the budget. Capex/opex ownership across application and platform portfolios. Introduced custom forecasting frameworks that improved planning accuracy and reduced variance.
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Bridged two permanent CIOs. When Ron Anderson departed for another opportunity in late 2018, the search for his replacement took months. I held continuity through the gap. When Tim Garfield arrived as the new permanent IT Director, I ran the full handoff — bringing him up to speed on every system, every team, every architectural decision — before transitioning out.
Business Outcomes
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Zero-downtime SAP ECC → Azure migration
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100% performance improvement on modernized applications
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30% infrastructure cost reduction through cloud migration and modernization
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Deployment frequency from monthly to weekly via CI/CD automation
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60% delivery velocity improvement through Agile/Scrum at scale
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Engineering organization scaled from 5 to 20+ with dedicated DevOps and cloud engineering teams
What I Left Behind
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A 20+ person engineering organization with modern Agile and DevOps practices
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A production multi-region Azure environment running mission-critical SAP and custom applications
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A cleanly documented architecture and operating model handed off to permanent leadership (Tim Garfield)
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An IT culture transformed from waterfall/on-prem to Agile/cloud-native
What They Said
“Ken and I worked together on a daily basis at Kubota Tractor Corporation in Grapevine, TX from February 2017 through December 2018. Throughout that time Ken was the thought leader and primary driving influence behind the introduction of cloud-based computing, and Agile project management, development and implementation methodologies, into a previously very conservative IT environment built upon on premise server/hosting and waterfall approaches. Ken is a high-level performer and producer, and a consummate professional. He has deep expertise in current, leading technologies in the IT industry and would be a valuable addition to any IT organization.”
“Ken is one of the best technology professionals I've ever worked with. He not only possesses a depth and breadth of knowledge about technology that few have, but he also is a strong leader of people who demonstrates a willingness and ability to assist others to become better. It was my distinct pleasure to work with Ken and I can confidently say he would be a strong addition to any IT organization.”
“As a project manager for SAP HANA (on Azure) migration, I worked with Ken during the SAP HANA migration project. As an Azure SME, Ken was timely in Azure environment delivery and proactive in issue resolution. He is a great team player and helped in hitting some very tight timelines and in delivering a stable environment. Ken is an experienced cloud architect and a project manager and has also recently lead best practices establishment session for S/4 HANA on Azure project.”
“Ken is an outstanding multi-talented DevOps professional. He has sophisticated understanding of programming as well as Cloud computing experience. With his can-do attitude, responsibility, and responsiveness — he would make a valuable asset to any organization.”