Week 5 (b) - AlBassmi’s Job is Not Feasible Without IT

INTRODUCTION

AL Bassami International Group is considered one of the biggest companies specialized in vehicle transportation in the Middle East. Al Bassami International Group provides car haulage services through trucks. The company owns and operates trucks fleets. Al Bassami International Group was formerly known as Al Bassami Transportation. The company is based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The Group started its activity in 1968.

The founder is Saeed Al-Bassami (Deputy Head of the Council of Saudi Chambers of Commerce and Industry’s national transport committee. The services like Air Freight, Sea Freight, Door to door, Domestic and International Courier.

AL Bassami International Group has a variety of activities on which it has a good grip. These are:

•             All kinds of vehicle transportation services

•             Transportation of goods and supplies

•             Special transportation services (VIP)

•             Trucks and vehicle maintenance and repair center

Serving the needs of this client over the span of thirty two years, throughout which the company have constantly had an eye to the future by evaluating the most appropriate ways in which to make transporting the vehicle by Al Bassami the best and safest answer. This company operate round the clock and that is the least can do for clients now and in the future.

At present, the group is operating all over the Kingdom and extends throughout the Gulf Cooperation council (GCC) countries, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. More than 1000 shipping contract, including 2000 to 2500 bills of lading daily occurred between the main brainchess. Albassami International Group is considered one of the leading land transporters in the Middle East. The estimated size of the car transportation market, both inside the Kingdom and with neighboring countries, is about 2 billion Saudi riyals and is increasing considerably annually.

PROBLEM STATEMENT

1.            What systems are described here? What valuable information do they provide?

2.            What value did the IT/IS investments add to Al bassami?

3.            How did implementing the shipping information system address the business needs and information requirements of Al bassami?

SWOT ANALYSIS

STRENGTH

•             Direct supervision, as the hands-on presence of the chairman of the group along with those in charge and the rest of the staff is the main reason for success; this instils confidence in that the work is going as planned.

•             Customer satisfaction is the goal that constantly works towards by focusing on the essential needs of our customers; the excellence in after sales service is the foremost way in which we achieve it.

•             Keeping up with the times, by constantly seeking advance through acquiring state-of-the-art equipment and tools which help in the precise and swift accomplishment of administrative tasks through computers, information and training, or technical tasks through the use of the most up-to-date machines, cranes and other high-tech equipment , in the

Middle East and the first of their kind in the Kingdom.

•             Support of integration for the benefit of the business on both levels

WEAKNESS

•             Poor Asset Management. No audits on drivers and no Freight Tracking

•             Operational Reporting Error. Different Truck’s availability lists and discrepant shipping reports from different branches and headquarters

•             Competitors

                - Abdullah Hashem Company Ltd.

                - Al Tala’a International Transportation Co. Limited

OPPORTUNITY

•             Management. Encourage knowledge sharing among branches and headquarters, increase use of data by managers and identify opportunity to use technology.

•             Organization. Redesign Business Processes, built new channels of information flow and train employees in use of the system

•             Technology (New Services), Deploy clustered Dell Servers (windows 2003) and over 270 clients (XP), Deploy a DBMS (using Sybase Adaptive Server) and clients (using SQL anywhere), Deploy SMS (short message service)/POD (point of Delivery) updating.

THREAT

•             Cost to maintenance vehicle.

•             Vehicle damaged

•             Proper budget

•             Investment and operational decisions

•             Not easy to find better audit or drivers

•             Difficult proper performance monitoring – Appraisals –Loyal staff

SUGGESTION AND ACTION

QUESTION 1 :

What systems are described here? What valuable information do they provide?

ANSWER:

There are two system are implementation in the Albassmi group are describe in this case.

1.            Database management system (DBS)

The database management system, used as the backbone of the system, is Sybase Adaptive server, whereas client use SQL anywhere. There are replication between the server at HQ and the client’s branches. Throughout the replication, branches data is sent to server and aggregated to create most update database version, and then send back to the branches. This means every branches have the most recent version of client list, truck’s availability, and new shipping contracts so that any customer is able to deal with any branch at anytime.

2.            Shipping information system

Maintains all the sender information such as the sent car, the track number, the sender and the receiving branches and send the SMS message to the client acknowledging the arrival of the car. The system also records the client data and hold maintenance information. The system also enables standard report to be provided to top management and head sectors about the productivity of each branch. The system allowed a better audit on all drivers’ behaviour.

QUESTION 2 :

What value did the IT/IS investments add to Al Bassami?

ANSWER:

By investment in IT/IS, value added are :

•             Enhance company performance.

•             Achieve better customer services.

•             Helps top management make faster decision and reduce error in decision making by using accurate data provided by the system.

•             Proper performance and monitoring resulted in adequate employees’ appraisals and consequently loyal staff.

•             Knowledge extracted from central database has enable the management  team to make sound investment and operational decision and therefore help the business maintain its success leadership in Kingdom.

QUESTION 3 :

How did implementing the shipping information system address the business needs and information requirements of Al Bassami?

ANSWER:

Maintains all the sender information :

•             Sent car

•             The truck number

•             The sender and receiving branches

•             Send an SMS to the client acknowledging the arrival of the car.

The system also records :

•             The client’s data

•             Holds maintenance information

•             Linking the data of vehicle maintenance centre with the transportation service helps to enhance company performance and achieve better customer service.

Enables standard reports to be provided to top management and head sectors about the productivity of each branch. In addition, the system allowed a better audit on all drivers’ tracking information.

CONCLUSION

Albassami’s job is feasible with the help of IT technology. It would be very difficult for the company to integrate all branches on a common platform without IT Technology.