DHL has set out its strategy for the next five years, saying it will invest billions in digitising its operations to keep up with the demands of ecommerce.
The new strategy will see the company spending around €2 billion on digitisation, which it says will pay off in annual benefits of at least EUR 1.5 billion by 2025.
DHL’s plans include modernising its IT systems and integrating new technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT). It will also offer advanced training to staff in using the new technologies.
The company will also make use of automation in warehouses and apply data analytics to offer better routing optimisation, volume prediction and resource planning.
DHL will bundle technological capabilities across the whole group, developing technologies centrally and then rolling them out to individual business units.
These initiatives come alongside overall financial targets of €5.3 billon in group EBIT by 2022. DHL said it would refocus each of its business units on their respective “profitable core”.
The strategy will also see DHL introducing sustainability targets and KPIs.
CEO Frank Appel said: “Deutsche Post DHL Group has never been in better shape. We are convinced that future growth will come from a consistent focus on our profitable core logistics businesses – and digitalisation will become the greatest lever.
“We need not reinvent ourselves. We will digitalise ourselves.”
He added: “Experience shows that we are particularly successful whenever we use our resources and innovative capabilities to drive forward our profitable core logistics business. For this reason, we have gradually disengaged non-core activities over the last few years and have targeted investment into boosting the profitable long-term growth of our core businesses, such as the quality of our networks and the modernisation of our intercontinental fleet for Express.
“We are the only company that is able to offer single elements as well as the entire e-commerce supply chain on a global scale. This is our key differentiator.”
