Studying The Global Market Of The Dhl Information Technology Essay

DHL is the global market leader in international express, hence its business activities are overland transport, air freight and been the first worldwide in ocean freight and contract logistics.

The DHL company applications are concerned with good from sender to receiver worldwide wherever the customer needs the service.

DHL Express is a division of Deutsche Post providing international express mail services where its founders are Dalsey, Hillblom and Lynn in 1969.During this period it was deliver documents between San Francisco and Honolulu.

Current Situation of the DHL Company

DHL express by investing IT Management currently, remains the main international express integrator that operates worldwide in a strong relationship. Faster in decision making and gain more control over its operations to acquire company budget, reduce costs and improve effectiveness and efficient use of resources in all departments. (Teo, 2010)

New Roles of Chief Information Officer (CIO)PO STEFAN

IS Investment Management

Explanation of Investment Management

Management Information System is known as an integrated information system, which is used to provide management with needed information on a regular basis that is used across the organization effectively. It is used as an information utility to support policy making ,meet regulatory and governmental requirements ,support research and development, support consistent and rapid decision making, enable effective and efficient utilization of resources, provide evidence of business transactions ,identify and manage risks, evaluate and document quality, performance and achievements of the company activities.

The company information to be utilized, review of MIS within the organization must be an unending concern of company for the purpose of maintaining a consistent approach to the company development. However, it should be supportive of the company’s longer term planning and objectives that used to ensure basic control and maintain over financial recordkeeping activities to provide company benefit. (Maclver, 2008) .When company think about controlling and maintain over financial money used, it comes the concept of Investment Management for the purpose of managing costs and risks.

Investment management

Investment Management is the tendency of company to manage financial expenses by buying anything value for the purpose of positive future return to company. The aim of DHL to have Investment management is to reduce expenses costs for hope of gaining more.

Benefits of Information System Investment Management to company

The management information system include a wide and difficult company development issue, hence total review of the company’s activities is not possible. Besides on wideness and difficult of development issue, Investment management provides benefits to DHL Company development. Since technology changes daily, Investment management always provide different benefits to company development as explained below. (CERIS, 2010)

Investment management supports researchers on addressing DHL company development problem issues. Since IT is involved to DHL, the strategic plan for the company can be made and always uses as a director for the company activities. Thus, the result simplifies the work of overcoming the problems faced to increase company productivity.

Investment management simplifies company decision making of the company transportation discussions, since it is systematic collection, distribution and use of relevant and reliable information about company activities, resources and results. For example when customer gets DHL transportation service, payment is done then only information for the service that will be transported from sender to receiver in efficient and effective way due to good network from IT professionals.

Since Investment management aim to use money by getting more profit, there must be availability of information required in each department within a company that reduces operating company activities for the purpose of daily company production. As the result money used to product to solve DHL problems faced during transportation of service information, however the product increases company productivity rather that doing professional.

The company investment management manages security for the customer information that supposed to transfer from sender to receiver. Hence there is security assurance and no doubt for the company Information to be loss at the time needed for the company activities. Example when customer transfer money by DHL from one place to another, no need to carry money from sender to receiver only information that secured transferred from sender DHL area to receiver DHL area that easy and safe for transportation.

Simplify daily company operation activities, by knowing the company information storage such as Information system management. Hence minimizes risks for searching company information for production or service, does not consume time and reduce cost company information collection.

Besides on the MIS benefits to the company, also MIS encountered some difficulties in order to perform effectiveness and efficiency of the workflow in all departments of a company as explained below. (Kielstra, 2005)

Difficulties encountered in an Investment Management to DHL Company

Any Company has complex activities in order to achieve the goals of users’ satisfaction and business need either for the product or service. In order to fulfill goal of users’ satisfaction and business need either for the product or service, Investment Management encountered different difficulties for the DHL transportation such as other company development decision making as explained below. (Gupta, 1996)

The Investment Management often unable to find information which otherwise might have played important role in decision making. It is due to the lack of sufficient information, non-availability information sources or lack of integration among the sources of the company information. Example, DHL Accounting department is difficult to count huge of money for transportation issue that can cause wrong information.

Majority of the decision makers felt due to the survey responses were very insufficient for policy formulations as well as for planning purposes. It can be caused by poor of cost of surveys which is very important factor and should be estimated to compare its relative benefits in return. Gathering efficient information in any method needs money so as to accomplish research need, rather than that information gathered should be not as expected by researcher.

Confidentiality constraints of department information can provide difficulties for Investment management in decision making. Often difficult happen for the middle level decision makers in accessing vital information from other departments because of the given confidentiality constraints and shows concerned about the consistency of information than about the reliability or accuracy to the decision. Example company staff asked to provide detail to be used for testing new product bought for the company, but impossible for sensitive department like financial to provide information to other department before confirmed.

DHL Investment Management often faces the difficult in providing the quality of information. The measurement attributes of quality information given are as timeliness, reliability, accuracy, sufficiency, free from bias, and relevance to decision situations. The validity of required information in case of measurement of information quality, is the overall quality of information that represented by the attribute having maximum satisfaction level. Hence, users’ level of satisfaction about the quality of information received is poor due to the Investment Management to fail to achieve quality information measurement’s attributes during the decision making.

Even though Investment Management encountered difficulties in bringing users’ satisfaction and fulfilling the need, by investing IT management to company makes easy to identify costs and benefits provided in the company activities within a specific period as seen below to DHL Company. Likewise Company will be easy to identify and understand its net value profit for the specific period of time. For the more understanding, explained below in the DHL Company after investing IT for providing Abacus Cash system to simplify cashier activities. As known financial department has huge activities concerned about money transaction and make change to customer, thus DHL investment management for helping Financial and Accounting departments for the main four headquarters at North, East, West and South of Malaysia such as Central Market service point (KL),Penang service center, Seremban service center and Kluang service center.

Benefits from Investment Management to DHL Company

Hence Investment management to DHL Company uses money to buy products for its daily activities, benefits are results expected due to the effectiveness and efficiency of workflow in all network connected departments that supplying products and providing services to company. The productivity increases to DHL Company due to the good IT services provided to company as seen good network DHL development in Malaysia.

For example, “Global logistics company DHL will spend? 50 million (RM202 million) in Asia Pacific over the next five years to grow its technical services business, boosted by the success of its Asia’s first fully-integrated technical services competency center in Penang” (Hamid, 2010)

From the example above explained by Hamid, DHL researcher comes with Costs and benefits assumptions that caused by investment management to provide Abacus cash System to DHL company for three year, from 2010 to 2012. The costs and benefits are divided in two parts, as tangible and intangible. Intangible are all effects obtained to company that cannot seen or touch by results on loss or gain to the goal suspected by company. Hence, Intangible costs and benefit obtained by rough estimation of monetary values due to the daily activities experience done within company. Example in the training new technology, Lecturer suspect half of the class to get above average marks but there is possibility third quota to get below average due to different caused affected to students. All effect of loss or gain to the company can be well calculated and seen at the specific period arranged by company, such end of the year to calculate return on investment by the help of taking all information from income statement for the year concerned as seen below.

ABACUS Cash System

Abacus Cash System is the counting money machine that can accept cash and coin. It is so fast than accountant professional in counting money. It is efficient and effeteness in counting money than can detect feck money and accept true money.

Day to day technology increases in IT, Abacus increases its functionality such as to count barcode tickets that used for ticket in and out.

DHL Benefits from the provision of Abacus Cash System

Easy operating in counting money. The operations done by using Abacus Cash System simplified more than doing by hiring the professional staff.

Fast and efficient for counting activities rather than count by professional. The time used by professional staff to count money longer than using Abacus Cash System machine. Instead of using 30 seconds to count 100,000,000 USD, Abacus takes only 7 seconds to count.

Security conscious for the money form the customer and staff. The Abacus machine makes customers and staff to be aware for counting money, because does not take time and also all money counted shown through the machine display.

Environmentally superior, provide large capacity of counting money for the services. Abacus makes the strength of money counted to remain constant even though counted ten times rather than to be counted by professional four times. Money to be counted by profession can take short period to be spoiled rather than Abacus Cash System.

From the all Abacus Cash System profits bring to company, the DHL Company identify them after calculating profit or loss statement and return on investment that increases after every year as seen in the table of concerned calculations.

Figure: SB-1100 Note Sorter/Counter, (Hotflog, 2010)

“Abacus has developed a range of high speed barcode reading machines that will interface to almost any accounting or poker machine analytical programs. This system can be used in conjunction with a note sorting system such as the SB-1100 or CASH WIZARD or as a standalone system and will accurately automate the counting & addition of barcode tickets.”

Calculation on Company Benefits and Formula used for Calculations

Total Profit or loss over the period given of the company activities is calculated by finding the difference between Total benefit and Total cost. While Total cost is the sum of total tangible cost and total intangible cost, However Total benefit is the sum of tangible benefit and intangible benefit. As the result the following are formulae used to fill the profit and loss statement table which is in appendix A.

Total profit/Loss = Total benefit -total cost

Total benefit = Total tangible benefit + Total intangible benefit

Total cost = Total tangible cost + Total intangible cost

Return on Investment for the IT investment to DHL Company in Malaysia.

Return on investment or also known as ROI is how much or cost saving is realized in a given investment that a company should spend. ROI measures how effectively company uses its capital to generate profit; as the result the higher the ROI, the better in Business progress. From advantages of using ROI as helping the company to be aware about its cost saving, increase efficiency and increase quality of services where it calculated in percentage cost. (Stanton, Etzel & Walker, 1991)

DHL Calculate ROI to make company aware about its weakness and making understanding where and how to overcome all weakness; hence to meet the business goal and acquire customer need. By understanding weakness and company strength make easy company to get its opportunity to its competitors by trying to secure itself from the threats. So, ROI is used as business director that owner can predict the future from the current results calculated, rather than doing business without focusing future as seen at appendix B.

The Return on Investment can be obtained by evaluating training investment is net program benefits divided by cost. The ratio is usually expressed as a percent when the fractional values are multiplied by 100 (Phillips, 2010).

IS STAFF Management (Ahmed)

Level Agreement (SLA) —- (Tan)

Conclusion

Since DHL has good support from company Leaders, Staffs, service level agreement and IS Investment Management, the workflow improvement in all departments are essential to company success.

References

Books

Phillips, J. J 2010, Return On Investment: in Training and Performance Improvement Programs, 2nd ed, Butterworth-Heinemann, USA

Stanton, W. J & Etzel, M. J & Walker, B. J 1991, Fundamentals of Marketing, 9th Ed, McGraw-Hill, USA

Website

AbucusLaw 2009, Abacus Installation and Setup Guide, [Online], Available from http://www.hotfrog.com.au/Companies/Abacus-Cash-Systems/Abacus-C-600-Coin-Counter-Sorter-35083, [Accessed on 23rd August 2010]

CERIS 2010, HOW TO DEVELOP A MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM, [Online], Available from http://ceris.metropolis.net/pac/pac07.pdf, [Accessed on 21st August 2010]

DHL International GmbH 2010, Find a DHL Service Point Location, [Online], Available from http://www.dhl.com.my/en/express/shipping/find_dhl_locations.html, , [Accessed on 23rd August 2010]

Gupta, M.P 1996, Management Information System at National Level in India: Analysis of Problems and Issues, [Online], Available from http://www.vikalpa.com/pdf/articles/1996/1996_july_sep_3_15.pdf, [Accessed on 23rd September 2010]

Hamid, H 2010, DHL uses Penang hub as model in expansion, [Online], Available from http://www.btimes.com.my/Current_News/BTIMES/articles/dahalo/Article/, [Accessed on 23rd August 2010]

Hotflog 2010, Abacus Cash System, [Online], Available from http://downloads.abacuslaw.com/downloads/2010docs/InstallGuide.pdf, [Accessed on 23rd August 2010]

Julian McCabe 2010, Fern Software Pty Ltd, [Online], Available from http://www.microfinance-pasifika.org/assets/files/PMW2007%20Presentations/Julian%20McCabe%20-%20Fern%20Software%20Pty%20Ltd.pdf, [Accessed on 23rd August 2010]

Kielstra, P 2005, Compliance and the benefits of investing in information technology, [Online], Available from http://www.economist.com/media/sponsor/oraclecompliance06/2_EIUWhitepaper.pdf, [Accessed on 23rd November 2010]

Maclver,K.,2008, DHL Logistics, [Online],Available from http://www.information-age.com/channels/development-and-integration/features/319176/dhl-logistics.thtml, [Accessed on 10th August 2010]

Moresales 2010, Welcome to MoreSales.com.my, [Online], Available from http://www.moresales.com.my/catalog/entry/gxxkxyam.shtml, [Accessed on 21st September 2010]

PC DEPORT 2010, Hardware:Printer/Scanner, [Online],Available from http://www.pcdepot.com.my/category/51/233/Printer/Scanner.aspx, [Accessed on 21st September 2010]

Teo,J 2010, United we stand in the fight against cargo crime,[Online], Available from http://www.tapa-asia.org/download/Tapa%20Asia%20March%202010.pdf, [Accessed on 23rd August 2010]

The National archives, 2010, Investing in our future, [Online],Available from http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.dius.gov.uk/news_and_speeches/press_releases/dhl, [Accessed on 23rd August 2010]

Appendix (All)

A: COSTS AND BENEFITS FOR ABACUS CASH SYSTEM TO DHL FOR 3 YEARS

B: RETURN ON INVESTMENT OF ABACUS FOR 3 YEARS

ITEM

YEAR

2010

2011

2012

Benefit

$ 1390.57

$ 2116.47

$ 2720.95

Cost

$ 9801.00

$ 10701.50

$ 11602.00

Formula

ROI = (Total Benefit/Total Cost) * 100%

Calculation

1390.57 * 100%

9801.00

2116.47 * 100%

10701.50

2720.95 * 100%

11602.00

Results of ROI

14.19%

19.78%

23.50%

C: Work Breakdown Structure

Item

Sijali AllyRajabu

Po Stefanie Andrianta

Tan Tong Hong

Ahmed Shehab Al-deen

Group Component

Introduction

Background of the Company

Company Current Situation

Conclusion

Document Compilation

Work Breakdown Structure

Acknowledgement

Presentation Slides

References