SF Express: Data Wars - Case Solution

Executive Summary – SF Express: Data Wars

SF Express, one of the logistic titans within China’s inland express delivery industry, was able to occupy such a stable position through its differentiation strategy. Such strategy encompasses the distinctive services and positioning of the company, which provides customers with unique, reliable, and speedy delivery services.

SF Express’s core competency (CC) is at the root of such differentiating capability, which is essentially the coupling of an extensive logistic network and its comprehensive yet advanced information system.

Upon the new data-sharing scheme initiated by Cainiao Network Technology (Cainiao), SF Express was aware of the potential harm towards its CA and CC and declined such cooperation. The conflict between the two titans had attracted China’s postal regulator’s intervention, which demanded the two parties establish common ground during the upcoming negotiation.

As this report is dedicated to the company’s CIO, we understand that this role evolves beyond the technical scope. Hence, the issues and recommendations provided all encompass the integration of both technical and business aspects (Gouveia & Varajão, 2019).

Outperforming Business-IT alignment: IS is an integral component

The excellence of SF Express is that the company acknowledges the importance of business-IT alignment and perceives IT as a backbone to efficiently achieve business strategies derived from its CC (Chan,2002).

As the express delivery industry gradually becomes data-intensive, positioning IT at the core of the business allows the company to use such capabilities in enhancing its CC as well as its CA (Porter & Millar,1985).

SF Express clearly understands the advantages brought by the mature alignment between business and IT as the latter is not perceived as a cost center but rather is heavily invested (Luftman,2000).

Such mature alignment is also shown by the mutually supporting relationship between business and IT. The company has adopted a self-operation business model to have complete control over its logistic nodes, allowing effective data capturing to enhance its information system.

The result is that SF Express has created an advanced yet comprehensive information system that allows critical data, including customer orders, supplier information, and logistic routes, to be effectively and efficiently disseminated, integrated, and stored across business units and geographical regions (Kling,1999).

This creates a high degree of fit and interdependence, as integration between business-IT strategies and infrastructure (Chan,2002).

Ultimately, the company’s business goal of achieving the fastest speed, highest security, and highest customer satisfaction is achieved by such alignment.

SF Express Current Challenges

Data Security

SF Express faces the challenge of data security that arose from its extensive and ubiquitous information system. Such information systems can, in fact, be a…