- Software AG and its technology partner Sopera reached the first milestone in their global IT integration project with DHL's Global Forwarding, Freight division in a record four months
- DHL's Global Forwarding, Freight division is the first to benefit from greater transparency for its Europewide shipments
- Thanks to this newly gained transparency, it is now possible to optimize business processes, lower costs, and respond more quickly to customer needs
In record time, Software AG, Sopera GmbH, and DHL's Global Forwarding, Freight division reached the first milestone in their longterm collaboration on a strategic global integration project. Launched at the start of the year, the project aims to establish a global IT integration platform for DHL's Global Forwarding, Freight division.
"Integration Backbone" is an IT transformation project with three main targets: to integrate the heterogeneous IT landscape, reduce the complexity of IT applications, and lower IT costs in a sustainable manner. The solution, based on Software AG's webMethods platform, can be seamlessly integrated into any ERP system, which in turn gives the DHL Global Forwarding, Freight division complete freedom in selecting which system to roll out. The use of Sopera's SOA technology brings the flexibility and agility offered by the open source model into the overall concept.
"We are now in a position to transform our overall business processes", states Paul Schwefer, COO of DHL's Global Forwarding, Freight division. "By integrating our heterogeneous IT landscape, we are able to integrate our business processes more closely into the IT system, optimize them in a sustainable manner, and respond more flexibly to the demands of our customers. This will enhance our competitiveness significantly."
In the months to come, Sopera GmbH, Software AG, and DHL's Global Forwarding, Freight division will continue their successful collaboration and work together to launch new applications based on this platform worldwide.
"In today's world, a company's competitiveness is largely determined by the quality of its global processes", says Software AG's CEO Karl-Heinz Streibich, speaking about the successful collaboration. "We are extremely pleased that the transformation project was able to produce its first visible results so quickly, allowing us to make a valuable contribution to the optimization of DHL's IT infrastructure."
According to Harald Weimer, CEO of Sopera GmbH, "The two core concepts underlying the integration and transformation of heterogeneous IT landscapes are open standards and platformindependence. With the successful symbiosis between open source and commercial software based on serviceoriented architecture, we strongly believe that we are headed in the right direction, one that will ensure the longterm success of DHL's Integration Backbone project."