| Type | Division |
|---|---|
| Industry | Express Logistics |
| Founded | 1969 |
| Headquarters | Bonn, Germany |
| Key people | Frank Appel (CEO, Chairman) Adrian Dalsey (co-founder) Larry Hillblom (co-founder) Robert Lynn (co-founder) |
| Products | DHL Express Worldwide DHL Express 9:00 DHL Express 12:00 |
| Owner(s) | Deutsche Post DHL |
| Employees | 275,000 |
| Website | www.dhl.com |
DHL Express is a division of the German logistics company Deutsche Post providing international express mail services.[1] DHL is a world market leader in sea and air mail.[2][3]
Originally founded in 1969 to deliver documents between San Francisco and Honolulu, the company expanded its service throughout the world by the late 1970s. The company was primarily interested in offshore and inter-continental deliveries, but the success of FedEx prompted their own intra-US expansion starting in 1983. DHL aggressively expanded to countries that could not be served by any other delivery service, including the Eastern Bloc, Vietnam and China.
In 1998, Deutsche Post began to acquire shares in DHL. It finally reached majority ownership in 2001, and completed the purchase in 2002. Deutsche Post then effectively absorbed DHL into its Express division, while expanding the use of the DHL brand to other Deutsche Post divisions, business units and subsidiaries. Today, DHL Express shares its well-known DHL brand with other Deutsche Post business units, such as DHL Global Forwarding and DHL Supply Chain.
Contents |
Larry Hillblom was studying law at the University of California, Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law, and had little money. He started running courier duty between San Francisco and Los Angeles, picking up packages for the last flight of the day, and returning on the first flight the next morning, up to five times a week.
When he graduated, Hillblom decided to go into the courier business himself. He found a niche that no other company was filling, offering to fly bills of lading from San Francisco to Honolulu. By flying the documents ahead of the freight they could be processed prior to vessel arrival and save valuable time after arrival.
Hillblom put up a portion of his student loans to start the company, bringing in his two friends Adrian Dalsey and Robert Lynn as partners, with their combined initials as the company name. All three shared a Plymouth Duster that they drove around San Francisco to pick up the documents in suitcases, then rushed to the airport to book flights using another relatively new invention, the corporate credit card. As the business took off, they started hiring new couriers to join the company. Their first hires were Max and Blanche Kroll, whose apartment in Hawaii often became a makeshift flophouse for their couriers.
The company started expanding their service through the early 1970s, first to the Philippines, then Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Australia. For lower-volume routes the company would hire couriers on a one-off basis, trading airline tickets for the delivery. This simple expedient would repeatedly save the company many legal hassles in the future, when would-be investigators would take them up on the open offer and make a delivery while taking their family on vacation. The first was when the FBI was tipped off about the groups of briefcase-carrying young men making repeated trips to Hawaii, and when they investigated and found nothing amiss, several agents became regular couriers for the company.
In the 1970s DHL was one of the only truly international delivery companies, and the only one offering overnight service. The only major competitor in the overnight market was Federal Express (FedEx), which didn't open its first international service until 1981, expanding to Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Nevertheless, the domestic market was extremely profitable, and DHL was the third largest courier behind FedEx and the UPS.
DHL turned their attention to the overnight market in the US, following the success of FedEx, and opened a major distribution hub in Cincinnati in 1983. However, DHL was never able to overcome FedEx's head start, capturing only 6% of the domestic market. In comparison, at the same time they were by far the largest international carrier, with 40% of that market. By the late 1980s the domestic operations were losing money, while the foreign operations continued to account for 2/3 of the company's income. A European hub opened in Brussels in 1985. DHL may also have been reluctant to invest in the US market during the 1990s due to numerous lawsuits involving the company in the US courts, instituted by South Pacific Islanders claiming paternity of children by Larry Hillblom, who had died in an air crash over the Pacific Ocean, his body never recovered. These lawsuits persisted throughout the 90's and were only settled when DNA was, under pressure of the courts, obtained from the relatives of Mr. Hillblom.
Deutsche Post began to acquire shares in DHL in 1998, finally reaching majority ownership in 2001. Following the completion of the purchase in 2002, Deutsche Post effectively absorbed DHL into its Express division, while expanding the use of the DHL brand to other Deutsche Post divisions, business units and subsidiaries. Today, DHL Express shares its well-known DHL brand with other Deutsche Post business units, such as DHL Global Forwarding, DHL Freight, DHL Supply Chain, and DHL Global Mail.
All US domestic flights were handled by DHL Airways, Inc. which in 2003 was renamed ASTAR Air Cargo. DHL's first airline still remains with over 550 pilots in service, as of October 2008.[4]
DHL Express's global headquarters are part of the Deutsche Post headquarters in Bonn.
Headquarters for the Americas are located in Plantation, Florida, USA, while its Asia-Pacific and Emerging Markets headquarters are located in Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong. The European hub is in Leipzig.
Most of DHL Express' business is incorporated as DHL International GmbH.
Major competitors include FedEx, UPS, TOLL, TNT and national post carriers such as United States Postal Service and Royal Mail. However, DHL has a minor partnership with the USPS, which allows DHL to deliver small packages to the recipient through the USPS network. It is also the sole provider for transferring USPS mail in and out of Iraq and Afghanistan.
DHL offers worldwide services, including deliveries to countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan and Burma. As it is German-owned, DHL is not affected by U.S. embargoes or sanctions and will ship to Cuba,[18] Iran and North Korea.[19] However there are strict codes for delivering to North Korea, as the country has shaky relations with the West.[20]
As DHL is not a US company, it is not allowed to make domestic flights between U.S. airports. DHL contracts these services to other providers.[15]
Measures have been taken to physically control the amount of polluting by use of the alternative fuel examples. DHL changed vehicles in certain delivery fleets in accordance to their use of newer fuel ideas. The fuel was switched to compressed natural gas which they hope to accomplish with 50% of their vans.[21]
On 16 September 2005 DHL won a High Court injunction establishing an exclusion zone around each of its 288 buildings in the UK as well as the homes of its 18,000 UK employees. The firm has been the subject of a campaign of intimidation because of their business with Huntingdon Life Sciences. The judge banned protesters from coming within 50 yards (46 m) of any DHL premises or the homes of their employees as well as any organized demonstration within 100 yards (91 m) unless the police had been given four hours' notice. The injunction also protects anyone doing business with DHL from intimidation.[22]
Deutsche Post owns four airline subsidiaries operating for DHL Express,[23] operating a total of 80 aircraft, which are collectively referred to as DHL Aviation:
For several years, DHL was the primary sponsor of the Porsche RS Spyder Le Mans Prototypes in the IMSA American Le Mans Series. DHL also sponsors Ryan Hunter-Reay's #28 IndyCar Series car for Andretti Autosport. Manchester United Football Club announced their first training kit sponsor in August 2011, agreeing a four-year deal with DHL reported to be worth £40 million; it is believed to be the first instance of training kit sponsorship in English football.[24][25]
In 2011, DHL partnered with Inc. Magazine to profile the fastest growing businesses in the international business world.[26]
For the 2011-2012 Volvooceanrace DHL is one of four race partners providing logistics for this worldwide event.[27] And [28]
|
||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||