DHL 2003 Annual Report Download - page 45
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EXPRESS
Corporate Divisions
STAR value creation program: significant progress in integration
A core measure of our STAR value creation program has been the consolidation
of our national and international parcel and express business, as well as our global
logistics business, under the DHL brand since the start of the year. In April 2003,
we started rebranding vehicles, packaging materials, and buildings with the new,
uniform design with red text on a yellow background. Almost all vehicles in Germany
were rebranded by the end of the year under review, while around 70% of delivery
vehicles in the rest of Europe already bear the new design.
We also made significant progress in integrating our information technology
(IT) activities in the year under review. The global IT networks of DHL, Danzas, and
Deutsche Post were combined, resulting in lower total costs, higher bandwidth, and
even greater network stability. The more than 20 data centers previously in operation
are being reduced to 3 locations: the existing installations in Malaysia and the USA
will be supplemented by the new European data center currently being built in the
Czech Republic, which will go online in summer 2004.
Further global integration under the DHL brand
We will complete the global rebranding of our activities under the DHL brand in 2004.
In addition, we will further harmonize products and sales channels, as well as opti-
mize our IT activities and operations.
Following the acquisition of Airborne, Inc., we will have completely merged our
production activities in the USA by the end of 2004.
On the basis of the employment pact signed with the German trade union,
ver.di, we expanded parcel delivery by mail carriers in Germany during the year under
review. At the start of fiscal year 2004, we will also outsource deliveries in 600 parcel
districts to third-party providers. These measures will allow us to react more flexibly
to customer demand.
In the course of 2004, we will significantly increase the number of Packstations
to a total of 650.
We will also harmonize our product range. In the year under review, we defined
three product lines for DHL Express – same-day, time-definite, and day-definite.
This allows customers to decide exactly when they want their items to be delivered. We
allocated existing products accordingly, and identified product overlaps. The products
have been marketed using the newly defined product lines since January 1, 2004.
Finally, beginning in summer 2004, the harmonized product range will be gradually
introduced. This will allow us not only to eliminate product overlaps but also to
align production and service levels.
Each of the existing express and logistics networks within the Group features
efficient processes for tracking and tracing. It is now our aim to merge these processes
to create a uniform system that we can offer to our customers in all countries and
throughout the Group by the end of 2004.
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