success story summary dow chemical - IBM

IBM Global Services

Case study

Dow Chemical

Situation: A Fortune 500 company outsources Web-hosting as part of an expansive e-business strategy. Business objective: Dow Chemical, a $30 billion worldwide science and technology company, sought to reinforce planned roll-outs of additional capabilities and services in multiple countries. Key business challenges: Dow has been widely recognized as an e-business leader within the chemical industry. Dow sees e-business as a vital element in its strategy to expand its global presence, increase service and product portfolios, and strengthen links with customers. Dow also seeks to rein in infrastructural and support costs while freeing its IT staff to concentrate on strategic initiatives with competitive payoffs. Since speed is a part of competitive advantage today, Dow also demands the agility and flexibility to quickly roll out new applications and services to take advantage of global opportunities. Key technical challenges: New capabilities had to be able to scale to accommodate the demands of expected double-digit growth in many areas. It also had to be robust enough to handle the rigors of global e-business. An existing desktop application had to be Web-enabled while another had to be created. Dow required a service level agreement that provided 99.7 percent availability for production, 99 percent availability for staging, and 97 percent availability for testing environments. Each of these infrastructures was in a dedicated, geographically-separated environment. Solutions: Dow turned to IBM Managed e-business Hosting, which is responsible for ensuring the performance of dozens of

Success story summary - Dow Chemical

new servers that efficiently support the growth of Dow's e-business capabilities. The hosting service can support advanced applications for both internal and external to customers worldwide. IBM expertise is also helping to migrate an existing legacy application to the Web while creating a new application with advanced e-business strengths. Results: Dow has the server and technical resources that allow it to meet growing internal and customer requirements worldwide. Dow can expedite application deployments, reduce Web development costs and enhance the quality of services delivered to customers through online resources. e-business capabilities can be expanded without increasing IT and staffing resources. Company report card: "Information delivery is becoming a utility -- like electricity, gas and water," says David E. Kepler, corporate vice president, electronic business, and chief information officer for Dow. "Quality customer care in today's dynamic ebusiness environment requires the predictability of a utility-based computing model. Our agreement with IBM enables us to maximize the availability, performance and quality of our online information and services for customers. Information delivery should be as simple and reliable as flipping a switch and getting light." Significance: Dow has established the foundation for worldwide e-business growth that allows it to respond to changing requirements without expensive infrastructural investments.

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