Composite Application Technology Helps Companies Ship Better, Save Money
IT Managers Have Had It Up To Here
Scene: Executive conference room. CEO and management team huddled around a table evaluating a Transportation Management System proposal presented by VP of Operations: “… so in conclusion, by investing $2.5m in an enterprise TMS system, we will reduce our overall transportation spend by $6m over the next 5 years. Savings will go straight to the bottom line and we’ll meet the threats by global competitors more effectively”. Golf claps by the management team. Except for the CFO and VP of IT who exchange nervous looks like Patriots fans during the 4th quarter of a Colts game.
CFO: “Aren’t we still waiting for the return on investment from the ERP project, now 6 months delayed? Have you factored in the risks associated with changes to our procurement model? What happens if we go through with the acquisition we have planned for next year? How will the TMS system adapt?”
VP of IT: “You guys keep adding systems like I have secret integration sauce stashed in my data center. After last year’s staff reduction, I have fewer people and they are burning out and barely able to manage the hodge-podge of 35 mission critical systems we’ve accumulated over the years. Now you want to add another!? Get real.”
The VP of IT didn’t actually say anything, but he thought it. Instead, he knew the project could be tragically scuttled during the technical due diligence phase. System incompatibility, security issues or something like that. He’d think of something if the CFO couldn’t. Otherwise: hello monster.com.
Composite TMS Applications Reduce Total Cost of Ownership and Risks
The above scenario plays out in corporate environments on a Groundhog Daily basis. Plopping evermore complex layers of technology on top of old technology and expecting it to all sorta-kinda work is unsustainable as an IT strategy (or as an IT management career path). Everybody knows it, but the same everybodies are being chased by global competition every day. A new approach is required.
Composite Application technology meets the challenge head on. Leading industry consultancy Gartner Group defines a composite application as “a software assembly that implements a set of independent but related functions – each meant to be perceived by users as indivisible – and where the component parts are heterogeneous in their information architecture”. As we would say in Boston: “Those boys from Gahtnah are wicked smaht”.
Another way to think about: Do I really need to buy and install a mapping, email, search engine, or sales automation, or should I just ping mapquest, Google, and Salesforce.com? What if users could access all of those sources of information but within a business context? Imagine: Sally in sales brings up a customer in salesforce.com, up pops the street view of the headquarters, the latest financial news articles, a summary of billings from the legacy accounting system, and all associated emails to the contact. What if she could do that without the IT manager having to develop everything from scratch? Now you understand Composite Application technology.
Now imagine you need to more effectively manage transportation costs. Why not grab data from your order management system, let a managed routing web service figure out the best carriers services to use, ping the carrier for compliant labels and bills of lading, let a trade management web service validate export regulatory requirements, let a carrier network service provider update your supply chain partners with in-transit status, and access carrier invoices from an auditing service for settlement. Now you understand Composite TMS Applications.
Reduce Transportation Costs and Improve Supply Chain Collaboration
Composite Application technology and methods are possible because the Internet has forced participants to standardize how information is transmitted and exchanged. No more systems integration duct tape with proprietary formats. Web services make it possible to access and consume information when you need it without getting locked in to any specific information source.
This means that Composite TMS Application platforms are vendor neutral. You can integrate, rather than buy or develop, capabilities offered by other companies (whether SaaS applications or portals) whose expertise you can “rent” or in some cases get for free. When your needs change, plug in a different service. New and more powerful logistics web services are launched every day. Why not tap into the ones that are useful to your business, as you need them, and unplug them when you don’t?
Think: are you locked into a proprietary carrier system? Don’t be (for reasons I now hope are obvious). Instead ask them to feed you web services that you can use within a Composite TMS Application that includes your business rules, order data, and role-specific contexts that suits your objectives, not theirs.
In addition, Composite TMS Applications extend the value of your legacy IT investments. The days of trying to build everything from the ground up or acquire from a single vendor are over. There is too much valuable information to manage, and that should be a blessing and not a curse.
Best of all, because Composite TMS Application platforms are built on a service oriented architecture, they can be delivered to your trading partners and customers via the Internet in role-specific contexts. Got a browser? Connect, collaborate, and communicate, without the costs and risks associated with traditional TMS applications.
Or go visit monster.com.
Jim LeRose February 13th
Concise, articulate and refreshing viewpoints. Your experience and knowledge is invaluable to any company that ships.
Supply Chain February 14th
These obstructions occur when your network isn’t configured for the needs of your business. Supply Chain
About Author
Bob Malley
For over 25 years Bob has helped thousands of businesses reduce costs and streamline logistics with transportation software solutions. As an Agile Network executive board member and CEO of Pierbridge, Inc., Bob is responsible for innovating the next generation of Web Service based shipping technology. Bob was formerly CEO of Kewill and founder of Tracer Research where he developed "Clippership", a long time industry standard for carrier management software.