DHL launches new link with top customers
Deutsche Post subsidiary DHL has launched Global Customer Solutions, a direct link to its top 100 customers worldwide who account for €3.2bn ($3.7bn), or 13 of annual revenues.
Peter Kruse of DHL Europe said the hi-tech and pharmaceutical industries had expressed their need for ‘a single interface’ with the logistics giant.
The vast majority of customers will still be served at regional and local level by the existing DHL management infrastructure.
Said Dr Kruse: ‘GCS was very much a customer-led idea for a single interface. It will offer tailor-made logistics solutions for those top 100 customers.’
Some of the issues addressed by GCS will be such things as consolidating different pallet, parcels and mail volumes into one pick-up where possible.
Dr Kruse, a board member of Deutsche Post, is in charge of integrating the DHL parcel, Danzas freight and existing EuroExpress business across Britain and mainland Europe.
It is quite a task. DHL Worldwide Express has 71,000 staff, 17,000 vehicles and 226 gateways, Danzas had 44,000 employees in 150 countries and 430 terminals and warehouses. Added to this is Deutsche Post’s own EuroExpress, with 52,000 staff, 23,000 vehicles and 900 depots.
Such statistics would make most senior executives break out into a sweat, but Dr Kruse exudes a quiet confidence, and says that the integration project, called Star, is going according to plan.
Star, due to continue until 2005, has already contributed e 174m in additional earnings in the first half of this year while the overall objective is to add e 1.4bn to the bottom line.
Job cuts of 3,000 staff have already been announced in the US and the industry awaits further news in Europe.
Operationally, the intent is to consolidate overlapping linehaul, pick-up and delivery networks. The paint workshops have been busy, with 65% of the vehicle fleet now under the yellow and red.
At the customer level a 60-strong product portfolio will be cut down to just a dozen, with one sales force.
DHL is now the number one international air freight company, thanks to the AEI and Danzas takeovers, while it languishes in second place for maritime containers beneath Kuehne ‘ Nagel.
And with just a glint in his eye, Dr Kruse said: ‘Our objective is to be second to none.’
He means it.
