The company relies on outsourcing provider Hewlett-Packard Co. to run its daily IT operations. HP manages the datacenter and provides production, application and technical support, as well as operating the customer help desk. Not only is the shipment data unavailable to OOCL, but CargoSmart's IT team also serves as a secondary support when necessary.

"HP is responsible for all control access to the application production environment of CargoSmart--from physical, infrastructure (that includes network, database, application server, web server), data, and applications," said Siu. "Only if HP's application or technical support team requires second level support will CargoSmart provide the data to illustrate the case."

Meanwhile, CargoSmart focuses on the development and integration with other carriers to bring real-time shipment information online for its users.

"You can see the complexity of the operation, and it requires the outsourcing provider to commit to learn [about the business]...and treat our business as part of their business," he said. "There were terms in the contract to link the outsourcing provider's tariff with CargoSmart future business volume."

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