Dan Abbate is a Contributor on the Price of Business on Business Talk 1110 AM KTEK on Bloomberg’s home in Houston (learn more about Dan at www.robotaton.com).
He recently interviewed Christoph Remund, Chief Executive Officer of DHL Global Forwarding for the U.S. Based in Miami, Florida, he is responsible for the company’s operations throughout the U.S. Prior to becoming the CEO for DHL Global Forwarding in the U.S., Christoph was the Country Manager for DHL Global Forwarding India and formerly for Indonesia, his first executive position with the company in 1992. As Country Manager his participation was instrumental in expanding Global Forwarding’s operations in these Asian countries. Christoph graduated as Shipping Merchant from the Commercial School in Zurich, Switzerland.
Tell me about your firm.
DHL is comprised of four business units: Express, Global Forwarding, Supply Chain and Post-eCommerce-Parcel. DHL is part of Deutsche Post DHL. DHL commits its expertise in international express, air and ocean freight, road and rail transportation, contract logistics and international mail services to its customers. A global network comprised of more than 220 countries and territories and about 285,000 employees worldwide, it offers customers superior service quality and local knowledge to satisfy their supply chain requirements.
DHL Global Forwarding is the heavy weight business unit that offers customers a single, reliable source of services in logistics, supply chain management, customs brokerage, project cargo, Same Day delivery, warehousing and distribution, along with a vast array of value-added services. DHL Global Forwarding’s value-added services include: Integrated Warehousing Services, Customs Brokerage, International Supply Chain and Insurance, among others.
In the U.S., DHL Global Forwarding has more than 65 offices, 56 customs brokerage offices, more than 4,000 employees and more than 10 distribution centers. The company provides services to customers in the automotive, consumer, retail, engineering & manufacturing, life sciences & healthcare, technology, energy, chemical, public sector and aerospace industries.
Tell me about a time your company went above and beyond for someone (a customer, a vendor, an employee, etc)?
DHL Global Forwarding has recently started working with one of the world’s leading manufacturers of carbon-based products. The company had been successful in winning a very significant contract with a large European automobile company and chose DHL Global Forwarding to manage the supply chain from raw material supplier (based in Japan) all the way through to feeding the production line in Germany (with a brief step at a pre-production facility in the state of Washington). This was “business as usual” until the company approached DHL and advised they were challenged to keep up with the production demand and needed an expedited transportation solution from rural Washington to Germany. With tremendous ingenuity and innovation, the DHL team developed an air freight solution that could transport a significant volume of daily air freight in 48 hours to Germany. After a recent visit from the customer, they were extremely satisfied with the solution that DHL had put in place and were amazed at both the speed and reliability.
Why was this time “special”?
This time was special largely because where the company was shipping to and from were remote locations and the customer did not think it was possible to hit a 48 hour transit time. Further, this solution has dramatically helped our customer improve their relationship with their customer.
Did this experience alter your company’s Best Practices?
We are now building on this experience and leveraging this expedited solution to sell into the market to other customers, so while it did not alter the company’s Best Practices, it helped us develop a new service offering.
Is this common in your industry? If not, why do you think it is not?
Going above and beyond to assist our customers is part of DHL’s DNA. In addition, developing new products and services is not currently commonplace in the logistics industry and we strongly believe this is a differentiator for DHL.
Contact information:
www.dhl.com
www.dhl-usa.com
DHL Global Forwarding Customer Service: 1-800-426-5962
Thanks so much, Christoph, for taking the time to talk with us today. We love seeing companies use their experiences to develop new service offerings and love hearing about great success stories!
Do you have an interesting success story that you’d like to share? Tell me about it! Email me at dan (at) robotaton (dot) com.
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