DHL 2008 Annual Report Download - page 37

Deutsche Post World Net Annual Report 2008
Strategy and goals
Prepared for diffi cult times
 e economic decline has a ected the entire logistics sector, including many of
our customers. We are nonetheless convinced that our strong brands and global reach
will serve us well in the di cult times ahead.  e Group spent  solving key strate-
gic issues and thus laying the foundation for future growth in our core competencies.
Sale of Postbank agreed
For our subsidiary, Deutsche Postbank , we have found a reliable partner for
the future in Deutsche Bank. We also succeeded in establishing attractive conditions
for the transaction despite the di cult market climate. In so doing, the Group has set
a new course for the future. We will be shi ing focus to our core competencies – mail,
express and logistics – and gradually exiting the  nancial sector. Deutsche Post and
Postbank will nonetheless continue to share retail outlets even beyond .
US express business to be restructured
Another decision of far-reaching consequence involved our express business in
the United States, where we have initiated restructuring activities in order to reduce
the losses there and alleviate risk for our Group. We will also be concentrating on our
core competencies in this market: shipments to and from the . We are con dent
that this is the best way for us to serve customers in the , which continues to be an
impor tant market.  is decision will also give our company room to move forward
and attain pro table performance on a reliable basis.  e restructuring will not a ect
the other  business units in the United States. We will continue to invest in these
businesses in the future.
Initiatives launched to boost growth and profi t
We take our responsibility to our customers’ needs, our employees, our inves-
tors and society very seriously. A vital part of this responsibility is ensuring that our
operations manage ment is geared towards pro table, sustained growth. To reach this
goal, we have launched several Group-wide initiatives:
1 First choice for customers  e better we know our customers’ needs, the better we
are able to respond to them. For this reason, many of our business units have sur-
veyed customers to  nd out how satis ed they are with our services. As part of our
First Choice programme, we systematically evaluate the survey  ndings, which we
use to improve speci c aspects of our service quality. Every hour, we have more
than one million interactions with customers – opportunity enough to give them
a good impression of our services.
 e success of this programme proves us right: All organisational units that have
implemented these initiatives have demonstrably higher levels of customer satis-
faction. In , this resulted in additional Group revenues. Moreover, those busi-
ness units operating under the  brand and Global Business Services succeeded
in reducing their costs.
Group Management Report
Business and Environment
33