Published on 03-Oct-2011
"Crowley has a long and successful history with IBM solutions, but it was IBM’s vision for the future that drove our decision to partner with them for our technology needs moving forward." - Gary Jones, Crowley Maritime Corporation
Customer:
Crowley Maritime Corporation
Industry:
Travel & Transportation
Deployment country:
United States
IBM Business Partner:
Ultramatics, Inc.
Overview
Crowley Maritime Corporation (Crowley) provides a diversified suite of marine, transportation and logistics services tailored to the needs of business and government entities operating in a range of industries worldwide.
Business need:
Crowley needed to make more applications available to customers.
Solution:
Crowley engaged IBM and IBM Business Partner Ultramatics, Inc. to develop a multitiered IBM WebSphere® software-based solution that enables its customers to intuitively access applications and perform some administrative tasks, such as shipment bookings, themselves via the Internet.
Benefits:
The company saves USD500,000 annually, while reducing staffing needs and increasing customer satisfaction by streamlining customer support processes and enabling customer self-service.
Case Study
Crowley Maritime Corporation (Crowley) provides a diversified suite of marine, transportation and logistics services tailored to the needs of business and government entities operating in a range of industries worldwide.
Challenge
Deregulation in the late 1990s led to a significant paradigm shift in the transportation industry. A regulated environment limits competition, making asset management or other operational activities—not customer service—the top priority. Those priorities flipped with deregulation. Processes, along with IT systems, now need to provide the agility, accuracy and collaborative capabilities required to succeed in a customer-first, highly competitive marketplace.
The IT infrastructure at Crowley was 30 years old. With green-screen technology and a mix of highly customized mainframe applications at its core, the infrastructure was complex and inflexible. Eliminating that complexity and making applications accessible to both employees and customers quickly, with minimal training, would be critical to long-term customer satisfaction. However, risk and cost considerations made a wholesale infrastructure replacement strategy untenable; the business rules and business logic built into those applications over 30 years are still central to the company’s operations. Crowley needed to incrementally modernize its technology without disrupting business.
Solution
Crowley engaged IBM and IBM Business Partner Ultramatics, Inc. to develop a multitiered IBM WebSphere® software-based solution thatenables its customers to intuitively access applications and perform some administrative tasks, such as shipment bookings, themselves via the Internet.
Enabling such customer self-service not only allows Crowley to reduce staff, but also shifts the role of its customer service organization away from clerical, data entry duties to customer advocacy, support and problem solving. The enhanced application integration and collaborative capabilities provided by the IBM solution improve data quality and streamline processes. Crowley is able to automatically capture and share accurate and timely shipping data with its customers, averting documentation-related delays in customer shipments and speeding payments.
Benefits
• Reduces staffing and increases customer satisfaction by streamlining customer support processes and enabling customer self-service
• Eliminates third-party transportation applications for customers, saving USD500,000 annually
• Decreases new employee and customer training on customer support applications from three weeks to less than one hour
For more information
To learn more about IBM WebSphere software, please contact your IBM representative or IBM Business Partner, or visit:ibm.com/websphere
Products and services used
IBM products and services that were used in this case study.
Software:
WebSphere MQ, WebSphere Process Server, WebSphere Portal
Legal Information
© Copyright IBM Corporation 2011 IBM Corporation Software Route 100 Somers, NY 10589 U.S.A. Produced in the United States of America October 2011 All Rights Reserved IBM, the IBM logo, ibm.com and WebSphere are trademarks of International Business Machines Corp., registered in many jurisdictions worldwide. Other product and service names might be trademarks of IBM or other companies. A current list of IBM trademarks is available on the Web at “Copyright and trademark information” at ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml Other company, product, or service names may be trademarks or service marks of others. The information contained in this documentation is provided for informational purposes only. While efforts were made to verify the completeness and accuracy of the information contained in this documentation, it is provided “as is” without warranty of any kind, express or implied. In addition, this information is based on IBM’s current product plans and strategy, which are subject to change by IBM without notice. IBM shall not be responsible for any damages arising out of the use of, or otherwise related to, this documentation or any other documentation. Nothing contained in this documentation is intended to, nor shall have the effect of, creating any warranties or representations from IBM (or its suppliers or licensors), or altering the terms and conditions of the applicable license agreement governing the use of IBM software. References in this publication to IBM products or services do not imply that IBM intends to make them available in all countries in which IBM operates. All customer examples described are presented as illustrations of how those customers have used IBM products and the results they may have achieved. Actual environmental costs and performance characteristics may vary by customer.