SUPPLY CHAIN Division

In the Supply Chain business, we provide logistics solutions along the entire supply chain for customers in a wide variety of sectors. From planning, sourcing, production, storage and distribution to returns and recycling, customers rely on us to ensure a smooth logistics flow.

We offer warehousing, distribution, managed transport and value-added services as well as business process outsourcing, supply chain management and consulting solutions. By ensuring that our customers' products and information reach their markets quickly and efficiently, we secure them competitive advantages. With local insight and global scale, we serve customers in more than 60 countries and support them in optimising their complex processes.

Our Supply Chain business provides expert solutions in mainly six focus sectors: Consumer, Retail, Technology, Life Sciences & Healthcare, Automotive and Energy. We manage the supply chains all the way from the source of supply to the end customer. Two of our largest sectors are Consumer and Retail. Flexibility, reliability and cost efficiency are the key value drivers for our services in these sectors, which range from internationalinbound logistics and warehouse and transport services to packaging and other value-added services.

In November 2012, we opened a new logistics centre in Mönchengladbach, Germany, for the Primark fashion chain. Primark is an example of the customers, with whom we have maintained a good business relationship for many years and for whom we offer integrated, customised logistics solutions across national borders. We have already had a DHL logistics centre for this customer in the UK since 2008 and in Spain since 2010. The services of the new logistics centre in Mönchengladbach cover all warehouse activities plus transport to Primark shops in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Austria.

• Customers in the Technology sector require fast, flexible and efficient supply chains. In addition, demand for integrated product and service logistics is increasing. Our portfolio ranges from inbound-to-manufacturing services and warehouse and transport services through to integrated packaging solutions, returns management and technical services.
  
• We are also increasingly providing integrated solutions in the Life Sciences & Healthcare industry, where supply chains and logistics processes are still developing in many parts of the world. Our offering takes account of steadily rising cost pressure whilst meeting the high quality standards of our customers.
  
• The Automotive industry is one of our truly global sectors. Production is shifting increasingly to emerging markets such as China, India and Brazil, in which we already have a strong presence. For our inbound-to-manufacturing, aftermarket logistics and lead logistics provider solutions, the key factor is our ability to offer a high degree of global flexibility and reliability whilst further lowering costs.
  
• The fast-growing Energy sector is another market in which the DHL divisions provide integrated logistics solutions that cover procurement to disposal. With our maintenance, repair and operation services we offer streamlined supply chain and service solutions that can often substantially reduce costs whilst significantly increasing maintenance productivity.

Williams Lea provides services in two areas: marketing solutions and business process outsourcing. Document management, marketing and customer correspondence are amongst the solutions supplied, which we offer to customers in the financial services, retail, consumer goods, pharmaceutical, publishing and public sectors as well as in the legal sector.