World's top logistics group – around the world with Deutsche Post
The German postal service Deutsche Post has made the jump in just a few years from indebted state-run operation to a respected global player.
Through numerous takeovers abroad, the German postal service Deutsche Post has transformed itself into one of the largest companies in the world – measured by number of employees. Some 500,000 employees are paid by the Post – 275,000 of them outside Germany.
The days are long gone when the state-run Bundespost delivered letters and packages. The Bonn-based company has been turned around by chief executive Klaus Zumwinkel. It has been privatized, listed on the stock exchange and expanded. It now makes healthy profits every year, with half its turnover coming from outside Germany.
Zumwinkel has been at the head of the Post for some 16 years, after learning his trade at the McKinsey international consultancy.
The passionate mountain climber implemented the expansion of Deutsche Post World Net into an international group. In doing so, he relied on the express and courier service as well as the logistics (air and sea freight as well as contract services) of the Post's fully-owned subsidiary DHL. Many international groups are customers or partners of the Post. And DHL transports textiles, pharmaceuticals, electronics and auto parts around the globe – for example also Formula One racing cars.
Since 1999, Zumwinkel has spent 15 billion euros (18 billion dollars) in buying up more than 120 companies throughout the world. No other German company has bought so many companies over the past years. Its management has been international for a while. US citizen Scott Price – who has a Japanese wife – heads the DHL express business from Singapore. Former Exel boss Briton John Allan directs around 110,000 people in the Sparte contract services from Bracknell near London.
The main region in the expansion has been Asia. With DHL, the Post has manoeuvred itself into a leading position in the Asia-Pacific region – helped by a huge airport in Hong Kong. Some 250 million dollars are invested in the Asian-Pacific region each year. And more than 30,000 people are employed by DHL in the region – with people wearing DHL yellow-and-red uniforms from Pakistan to the Fiji Islands.
"Asia is for us the world's fastest-growing market," Zumwinkel said. "We will profit from the high growth rates on the Asian continent."
The Post has its sights set on China and India. DHL is the only express company in the world to offer national and international services in India and China. DHL is also the express market leader in Japan and has entered the Japanese letter market as the first foreign company with its partner Yamato.
DHL makes half its Asian turnover in China alone. DHL has been in a joint venture since 1986 with Sino-Trans, the leading logistics provider in China. A few months ago, DHL started its own Logistics Management University in Shanghai for 7,500 students to train employees and future workers from the region.
DHL has been active on the Indian subcontinent since 1979 and secured a majority stake of the express market leader Blue Dart. And the logistics specialists DHL Danzas Lemuir was founded in 2003. The joint venture organizes land, air and sea transport as well as the entire logistics for more than 5,000 companies in India.
Only in the United States has Deutsche Post had problems establishing itself and apparently underestimated the tough competition. DHL is battling there with established companies and clear market leaders FedEx and UPS. DHL's market share is about 7 per cent. After losses of about 400 million euros in 2005, US boss John Mullen has begun to see light at the end of the tunnel.
Contact: Deutsche Post World Net, Telephone: +49-(228)-182-99 44, Internet: http://www.dpwn.de
