Tracking numbers

I recently sent a package to my friend who lives in upstate New York. I used Federal Express. The airway bill was fairly straightforward, but the most significant item in it was the tracking number.

Just to try it out, I went to the Fedex website and with a few keystrokes of the tracking number, I knew that the package got to my friend. I also saw that it went from Makati to Parañaque (I guess NAIA) to Memphis to Newburgh, NY, and then finally to my friend’s house. I even know what time it got to each of the stops. I even knew that my friend did not sign the receipt because he had already signed a waiver which was on file.

I also checked out DHL’s website. It not only had the tracking ability but had e-mail, SMS and WAP tracking channels.

This kind of visibility is amazing. Can you imagine if this visibility were put into the hands of a normal supermarket’s supply chain? The amount of out-of-stock situations would be nil and the level of inventory would never be overstocked. With this kind of visibility, managers would know what raw material to order and what to produce and what is in the pipeline.

The marketing mavens of the tech business have come out with high buzz words like supply chain visibility, category management, ECR (efficient consumer/customer response) and logistics. Several application technologies are out there to address these business needs like I2, SAP, barcode readers, EDI (electronic data interchange), etc. The price range of these implementations can range from US$50,000 to millions.

My Two Cents: No matter what your budget is, any system implementation would require and should include a review of not only your own business process but also of your partners’ and how the total system’s cost can be reduced.

Transparency in government

There have been several allegations of wrongdoing lately by various active and former government employees. Among them:

aa. The plunder case of the former president,

bb. Rosebud and Gen. Corpus accusing the now Sen. Ping Lacson, former Philippine National Police chief, of various crimes including holding bank accounts of more than seven figures,

cc. The allegations of Sen. Ping Lacson about the bank accounts of Justice Secretary Nani Perez in HK,

dd. The allegations that the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office was instructed to divert funds to help in the May election campaign.

At the end of the day, I do not know whom to believe. On one hand, I am so disappointed (disgusted is more like it) that these allegations exist because they generate a level of mistrust in our public officials. The theory of "where there is smoke, there is fire" or "smoking gun" may apply. On the other hand, I celebrate the fact that these people have the courage to come out and raise their voices and open the public’s eyes to these alleged anomalies. I will wait for the courts to decide who is right.

I.T. could be the answer to transparency and preventing corruption which mostly involves the purchase of certain goods and services by a government agency in a bid process. Reading all the government RFPs (requests for proposal) printed in the classified pages, I am encouraged to spend the time to bid. However, I have always been told that the winner has already been chosen and that the ad was to attach a perception of transparency to it. I really do not know.

What I do know is that with I.T., a government agency can put all the bid documents on the Web for everyone to see and review. They can have all the bid procedures posted for fair and transparent execution of the bid process, and then post the various bids that came in. This way, people can see who are bidding and find out why they won. Sometimes the lowest bid will not win for qualitative reasons, but if this was explained upfront, this process would be more efficient. (Then again, the government agency that does not want transparency can have other reasons…hmmm.)

My Two Cents: I know we cannot fix what is endemic in our culture whether it be in private purchasing or government. I also know we are not alone; the US is guilty of these anomalies as well. But we need to try to fix it!!

(Dickson Co is CFO for both Dfnn.com and HatchAsia.com. For comments and suggestions, e-mail [email protected])