DHL Express[2] is a division of the German logistics company Deutsche Post DHL providing

international express mail services.Deutsche Post is the world's largest logistics company operating
around the world.[3] DHL is a world market leader in sea and air mail.
Larry Hillblom was studying law at 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, 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 of their last names as the company
name (DHL). 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.
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 hired couriers
on a one-off basis, trading airline tickets for the delivery.
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.
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.

Suppliers: Labour
Intermediaries:
Custumers:
DHL understands that innovation must always be customer focused. The company innovates best by:

Listening to customer needs

Proactively sharing best practice and solution information across various sectors and industries

Collaborating with DHL solution experts

With Customer Innovation Workshops, DHL seeks to bring its relationship with each participating customer to the
next level. These workshops provide the opportunity to share best practice, explore industry and cross-industry use
cases, and glimpse the future of logistics. In the Idea Generation Workshops, the customer and DHL are jointly
engaged in developing ideas for new products, services, or processes. No creative idea is too big or small. Whats
important is customer satisfaction with the outcome the creation of new value.

Competitors: 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 theUSPS,
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 andAfghanistan.

Publics: DHL customer magazines keep you informed of the latest developments and innovations across DHL and
around the world.
Introducing Delivered, The Global Logistics Magazine, available in print and online. Delivered offers the most up-todate logistics news, analysis and opinion alongside the latest DHL solutions and services. Designed to keep DHL
customers aware of all the latest developments in their sector, its essential reading for busy decision-makers.

Demographic factors:
We have over 280,000 employees around the world working in diverse roles in our various business divisions globally.
Each of them has a story to tell about their experiences at DHL.