‘Consolidated IT systems the way to go’

Transport companies should
not under-estimate the
importance of a consolidated IT
system, said Sylvester Samuel,
Arivia.kom customer operations
manager.
Addressing the Transport
Forum in Johannesburg last
week, Samuel said it was
essential that companies
realised the role an integrated
and consolidated IT system
could play in reducing cost
and increasing efficiency and
capacity.
“We have business plans
but no strategy for IT, which is
often the heart of a business. In
today’s era of cost cutting and
saving, a consolidated IT system
is a necessity.”
Samuel said the benefits
ranged from having an improved
decision-making system in
place to being able to reinvest
funds quickly.
“It leads to a saving on your
resources and improved security
within any organisation. It is
much like your home – if you
have one door to your home
there is much less of a risk than
when you have ten doors.”
Samuel, who does much
IT-related work for Transnet,
said not having solid systems in
place in the long run definitely
affected the bottom line. “It
comes down to rands and cents –
how long can your organisation
run
without a consolidated IT
system? In other words if the
system you have in place goes
down now, how long can your
company survive?”
He said while many claimed it
would just be business as usual,
the truth was that most would
not survive.
“Companies often say they
will just go back to a paper
system, but you can never go
back. Transnet Freight Rail,
for example, cannot release a
train from the yard without its
consolidated IT system working.
Practically that means the ship in
the dock is going nowhere until
that train arrives. This means
penalties. It definitely affects the
bottom line.”
According to Samuel,
servers and storage platforms,
data centres, applications and
business processes as well as
databases are all areas where one
can easily consolidate.