IBM Enhance Managed Services and Business Resiliency Across APAC Countries for DB Schenker

Transportation and logistics service provider improves IT operational efficiency

SingaporeOct. 4, 2012—Global transportation and logistics service provider DB Schenker signed a five-year, multi-million dollar agreement with IBM for managed services and business resiliency for its transport and logistics information technology (IT) systems and operations across 20 Asia Pacific (APAC) countries.

The engagement will help DB Schenker improve its IT operational efficiency, offer enhanced supply chain services to support its customers, and ensure better responsiveness and resilience.

DB Schenker orchestrates inter-connected ecosystems of logistics networks and supply chains, enabling thousands of businesses with their many suppliers, factories, distributors, wholesalers, retailers, service and repair points and customers all over the world,” said Alex Tan, Chief Information Officer, Asia Pacific, for DB Schenker. “Any disruption or downtime will cost stakeholders in the transportation and supply chain millions of dollars, so it is absolutely essential that our suites of regional IT and customer systems are geared towards mitigating operational risks for our customers.”

With this collaboration, DB Schenker's infrastructure team will be able to focus more on growth projects that will deliver greater value to their clients and core business.

In the APAC region, DB Schenker operates in an environment where customers’ supply chain operations are becoming increasingly sophisticated amid a highly diverse and complex regional economic landscape. The ability to calibrate the optimum supply chain and IT strategy set-up is a definitive and compelling advantage. To do this, DB Schenker set out to build a robust systems platform that is able to support an extended enterprise, including its customers and their supplier network, to be agile and resilient in a volatile global marketplace.

“We place great emphasis on reliability, efficiency and security, which are critical elements required to support our customers in APAC,” said Tan. “For example, our customers include leading companies in the electronics, computing and mobile telecommunications sector, who undertake global product launches across 100 countries over a very condensed period of time for their highly anticipated products. They manufacture and sell tens of millions of the newly launched products within months. It is therefore imperative that we build a high degree of systems resilience to ensure that they operate across APAC with a high level of confidence and trust. Hence, by leveraging a technology leader like IBM with a proven track-record and expertise to build and support this platform, we are committed and focused on enhancing operational excellence for our customers and to enable their growth in this dynamic region.”

As part of the deal, IBM will provide managed services for DB Schenker’s servers and network infrastructure at IBM’s Data Centre in Singapore. This will help DB Schenker establish a collaborative, innovative computing environment to support the business, while controlling costs.

With so many critical applications, Business Continuity and Resiliency Services (BCRS) disaster recovery exercises are regularly performed to minimize the effects of unexpected disruptions. During such exercises, IBM Managed Services works with DB Schenker’s application and infrastructure support team to test the recovery of the company’s applications at IBM’s Resiliency Centers. The two companies have put in place a holistic IT disaster recovery strategy that includes having a strong recovery infrastructure supported by an IT disaster recovery plan and procedures that are regularly tested and maintained.

“Today, organizations face the challenge of providing high-quality services while reducing costs,” said Tan Yew Luan, Director, Global Technology Services, IBM Singapore. “IT plays an increasingly important role by moving beyond the day-to-day operational support to enable larger business transformation,” “Using managed services to complement in-house IT staff then becomes a very attractive solution. IBM with its business and technology skills makes a strong partner as the two companies strengthen DB Schenker's transformation, innovation and business value.”

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