Logistics companies are generally highly distributed. It’s the nature of the business to be in multiple locations, even if some of those locations are mobile or even not directly part of the company. UTi Worldwide is an example of a company that has found a way to expand to 230 locations and still manage its business.
Part of the issue with logistics is that their responsibility extends across multiple customers and multiple locations. And a highly performing 3PL maintains visibility into not only its locations but also the orders it is managing for its customers. Increasingly, 3PLs are looking more like network operations centers (NOCs) with dashboards that show what is where, and alerts that warn when things are not happening as expected. And the network has become the centerpiece of the system, connecting the branch locations together into a single entity.
UTi has connected its 230 locations spread across 59 countries by using a technology known as a converged infrastructure that not only links the locations, but centralizes the data from each location into a standardized data center.
There are plenty of good things about converged infrastructures that can benefit any supply chain participant looking for increased visibility. For example:
Centralized data. Holding all the data in a single data center means IT professionals are managing things like security, backup, and software updates so that branch locations don’t need local IT support.
Instant data recovery. If a single location is impacted by a power outage or worse, the data is still resident in the central facility and can be accessed from a temporary office instantly.
Lower overall costs. Removing servers and other IT-intensive systems from the branch offices speaks for itself.
As visibility and time-critical functions increase in importance among trading partners, a move toward centralized operations is likely to become the default way to manage distributed operations.