Putting Two and Two Together

Attaining that free flow of business information is more than atechnical exercise in linkage; companies that get it right can usethis new ability to completely rethink the way business is done,maximizing competitive value by offering heretofore un-heard-ofcustomer benefits and services.

Look at PHH. The company has been integrating its systems since 1995,when it gambled on an application called PHH Interactive. The systempulls information from dozens of once-separate PHH applications andassembles a unified mother lode of data. As a result, thousands offleet managers at PHH's customer facilities can freely accessinformation as varied as car maintenance histories and trends, driveraccident rates, fuel transactions, repair-cost comparisons acrossvarious automobile makes and models, and billing information. Thisgives the fleet managers an opportunity to optimize their resourcesand control expenses - making them incalculably grateful to PHH andthus less likely to bolt to a competitor. Indeed, since implementingPHH Interactive, the company has been able to cut costs by 30 percentwhile signing on 20 percent more business; it is the number-two fleetmanagement company in the country, behind GE Capital's fleetmanagement division. The company considers PHH Interactive to be sucha competitive advantage that it often sends IT staffers out on salescalls to demonstrate the application.

Then there's DellDell Computer. Considered one of the poster children forgood integration, the company has tied together not only its ownsystems but those of its suppliers. Called Valuechain.dell.com, theintegrated system has kept Dell's inventory down to an incredible fourdays' worth of supplies (compared with its competitors' 30 to 50days). Dell's ability to use customized websites to feed its biggestcustomers such vital data as order-tracking and billing informationwould be impossible without full integration of its disparate systems.In part because Dell has driven inefficiencies out of its supply chainand can interact directly with customers, it has become the number-onePC maker in the world. Alles zu Dell auf CIO.de