Dow Chemical's Networking and Telecommunications

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Dow Chemical's Networking and Telecommunications

Dow Chemical (www.dow.com) is a multinational Fortune 100 organization that has offices in over 170 countries. The company is involved in a wide range of markets that provide a diversified revenue stream of over $30 billion annually. Their business plan includes a $2 billion return of operating expenses through the application of breakthrough technology in their information systems. The center of this initiative is called DowNET and it is the first global wide information system to converge data, e-mail, faxes, video, and voice into a single network. (e-business@DOW, 2001). The stated objectives for DowNET are the following (Dow Webcast, 2001, May 21):

• Harness technology to overcome geographical and connectivity boundaries to provide...in a single global network, offering...voice, video,, and data technology.

• Establish Dow as setting the bar for other Fortune 100 companies.

• Reduce operating expenses by $2 billion in five years.

The objectives of this plan were produced in alliance with Electronic Data Systems (www.eds.com) and Cisco Systems (www.cisco.com) The initial work began in Auburn Hills, MI in 2000.

The major savings were planned through the convergence of the voice traffic over the IP data network. The first step in that plan was to build a global network that supports the Quality of Service (QoS) necessary for VoIP traffic. Since the primary partner in this project is Cisco System, which supports VoIP through their range of products called Architecture for Voice, Video, and integrated Data (AVVID), the design is largely reliant on this technology (Cisco AVVID, 2002). The network consists of a switched core that delivers multiple megabytes of bandwidth to a ...

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... of operating income in the next five years. (Dow News, 2001 – news release) "DowNET essentially allows us to integrate everything into a single-source, real-time communications solution", said David Kepler, VP of e-business and CIO for Dow. Savings of this magnitude go directly to the bottom line as well as create synergies for major opportunities in the future.

References

Cisco AVVID: Enabling e-business. (n.d.) Retrieved July 23, 2002, from http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/779/largeent/avvid/cisco_avvid.html

Dow Webcast. (n.d.). Retrieved July 23, 2002, from http://www.dow.com/financial/ news_broadcasts/broadcast24.html

e-business@DOW. (n.d.). Retrieved July 23, 2002, from http://www.dow.com/ebusiness/ newsroom/news/2001/20010607a_eb.htm

e-business@DOW. (n.d.). Retrieved July 23, 2002, from http://www.dow.com/ebusiness/ newsroom/news/2001/20020105a_eb.htm

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