| | JUNE 20158CIOReviewModernizing the IT landscape: A Vital Long-Term Challenge for Global CompaniesBy Pablo Ciano, CIO, DHL Express AmericasAn important task at global companies like DHL Express, a key business unit of Deutsche Post DHL, is the modernization of the organization's IT landscape--migrating from legacy silo applications to a service-oriented architecture.It is a vital transformation, but its magnitude and complexities are not fully appreciated for those outside of the IT function.This is a significant undertaking in terms of time and personnel for a large international enterprise since it not only involves information systems but also aligning the underlying processes. Like other large firms, over time we absorbed many different companies with different systems, while our own units in different countries developed their own systems.We have been working on converging all those systems (and processes) to the global standards while also building an entirely new platform in IT--the ESB (Enterprise Service Bus)--through which all these services connect. This new platform will allow us to move to a true SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) with more functionalities, reusability and agility for bringing new capabilities to the business. Moving a company from apps to services is a major effort from the IT perspective, but it brings significant benefits. Tracking, for example, is one of the key services for internal and external clients. Used by at least ten different clients in different departments, tracking was developed for internal operations and for customers, and having one single global tracking service will allow us to have a single globally reusable standard; easier to maintain and modify.In my previous position at DHL Express, as CIO for the U.S., I executed a convergence program opinionin my
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