IBM to help DB Schenker with critical supply chains in Asia Pacific

DB SCHENKER has signed a five-year, multi-million dollar agreement with IBM for managed services and business resiliency for its transport and logistics information technology systems and operations across 20 Asia Pacific 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. With this collaboration, DB Schenker's infrastructure team will be freed from daily transactional or commoditised operation, to focus instead on growth projects that are expected to deliver greater value to their clients and core business.

"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, in a statement from 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."

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. IBM will bring its processes, tools and methodologies as well as its global experience of managing thousands of servers worldwide.

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.