In today’s highly connected global economy, data and digital connections are critically important to achieving business objectives. As the sources of data continue to grow in volume, this data can be leveraged to accelerate decision making and drive customer centricity. So, how can a company reduce the complexity arising from data growth while growing its customer base? The answer lies in integrating data across data types and formats. This integration includes transforming data formats, validating data, and creating value from data, while complying with rapidly changing industry and regulatory standards.

Today, most IT departments solve this problem by building customized integration platforms for each new customer to help ensure frictionless data flow. Unfortunately, this process is not scalable when working with hundreds of customers. It’s also a huge drain on IT time, resources and budget. But the right technology can automate complex data transformation processes and validate data across a range of different formats and standards, scaling these processes across large volumes of enterprise data. Leaders like DHL are already using these solutions to drive value.

The DHL story 

DHL Supply Chain (DHL), a division of DHL International GmbH, offers warehousing and distribution services to more than 2,000 customers spanning industries, countries and sizes. Two-way communication between those customers and DHL is core to the company’s warehouse management business. Facilitating that data flow is not a one-size-fits-all task. Each customer’s data comes in different formats and follows different standards, depending upon such factors as a customer’s internal IT infrastructure, industry and location. 

For many years, DHL built customized integration platforms each time it onboarded a new customer. It was a time-consuming, laborious and expensive process. DHL needed a uniform way to integrate the ERP systems and data sets of its warehouse management customers with DHL’s internal systems.  

DHL deployed IBM Sterling Transformation Extender, that is used to map data from customers’ platforms to a custom internal integration management platform, aligned with the customers’ industry regulations and standards. This has allowed DHL to successfully transform over 2.2 Billion messages from more than 2,000 customers into their standard format every year.

Learn more about how DHL is integrating its customer data with IBM Transformation Extender