To take advantage of new opportunities in the growing global shipping and logistics industry, Hamburg Süd wanted to unify its data, standardize product offerings, and consolidate customer processes for each region it serves.

The global supply chain is becoming increasingly complex. It’s a challenge for industry players, but also a huge opportunity for those able to capitalize quickly on those challenges. For Hamburg Süd, certain data wasn’t well enough organized, processes were not standardized globally, and there were redundant product offerings in some areas. These issues affected agility and efficiency, and led to missed opportunities when earning new business. For instance, each region had different applications for pricing, preparing offers, and supporting customers, making access and sharing of data difficult. The company wanted to maintain its global reach and high-touch customer service while moving faster, and with greater efficiency.

The goal was clear: streamline and standardize product offerings, ensure access to the latest data across the company’s global offices, automate response to customer requests where possible, and help staff find the best deals and best offerings for each customer’s unique shipping needs.

The company launched a worldwide effort to standardize its product offerings and consolidate redundant processes.

It enlisted TIBCO Bronze partner Lufthansa Industry Solutions. TIBCO integration, messaging, and streaming data solutions were chosen in part for TIBCO’s diverse data management toolset and established reputation. Working together, the teams created a new system that centralized data and integrated business processes for everything from preparing offers to contract management and order processing. The teams also created a system for standardizing product offerings across the company.

“Regardless of how large or small our customers are, and no matter their industry, they all face the same critical challenge: how to structure IT along the value chain in such a way that it reduces costs and simultaneously increases revenues and efficiency,” said Kevin T. Cao, head of enterprise integration at Lufthansa Industry Solutions. “Based on understanding Hamburg Süd’s specific needs from working with them for 15 years, we knew TIBCO technology was the right solution for supporting the digitization and automation of its business processes.”

With TIBCO and Lufthansa Industry Solutions, Hamburg Süd standardized its processes and tools across its global footprint. It now responds even faster to customers’ and shipping partners’ inquiries and leverages its single source of data to automate select operations. Employee onboarding and training have also improved. And with centralized data and faster insight generation, it’s also now possible for the carrier to quickly offer new services based on market changes and customer demand.

Now, requests from customers and teams can be addressed without much further specification and can be assigned to the appropriate person, provider, or office, as needed. Hamburg Süd also reports higher customer satisfaction. And with shared data, it can now engage in more reliable planning. These efforts will also help the company toward its goal of net-zero GHG emissions by 2040.