DHL 2004 Annual Report Download - page 78

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Our procurement organization succeeded in making further significant savings in
2004. All relevant procurement initiatives are recorded, tracked and evaluated through-
out the Group. The corporate divisions have developed and implemented processes and
systems in cooperation with Corporate Controlling to ensure that significant savings are
systematically incorporated in corporate divisional planning.
Some concrete examples of how we bundle our procurement needs throughout the Group
are given below:
We have standardized the packaging used by business customers worldwide to
present a uniform image to our customers. This has enabled us to bundle demand
worldwide. With the help of state-of-the-art Internet-based procurement tools, we
were able to gain new suppliers in Asia, Eastern Europe and the Americas, and
achieve better conditions.
We established our computer requirements throughout the Group and put them out
to tender; in the future, we will be able to procure our hardware at better terms and
from fewer key suppliers.
Following in-depth market analysis, we put our requirements for marketing and
media services relating to external communications out to tender. We reviewed all
creative services and their commercial competitiveness as a part of this process.
This allowed us to harmonize our media strategy at a global level and reduce our
costs.
We have established standardized Group-wide guidelines for the procurement of
uniforms and protective clothing. Following several comprehensive tendering
procedures, we reduced the number of our core suppliers to around 20 in Europe,
Asia and the Americas. By standardizing our clothing and bundling volumes, we
are cutting costs and at the same time meeting our quality requirements.
The procurement function is broken down into four regional organizations – Germany,
Europe and Emerging Markets, the Americas, and Asia/Pacific. We were able to signifi-
cantly increase their efficiency in the year under review through the following organiza-
tional measures:
In the Germany region, we streamlined the procurement organization from ten
down to six operating departments, although the procurement functions from
subsidiaries were integrated, thus adding tasks.
The Americas region was restructured to reflect the higher procurement volumes
following the integration of Airborne Inc.
After we standardized and optimized procurement processes in 2003, a team of inter-
national buyers revised operational order processing in the year under review in order to
establish global standards and efficient workflows in this area as well. This improved
process was implemented on the basis of SAP EBP (Enterprise Buyer Professional).
Continuous improvements to services
Deutsche Post World Net provides services. The Group does not conduct research and
development in the narrower sense in the way in which manufacturing companies in this
area do.
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