Procurement

Marginal rise in expenditure

In 2010, the Group centrally purchased goods and services having a total value of approximately €8.5 billion (previous year: €7.7 billion). As in past years, this figure does not include transport services because the divisions generally procure these services themselves. However, Procurement is gradually becoming more involved in this process.

Given the fact that the after-effects of the global recession were still being felt in the reporting year, Procurement continued its efforts to reduce Group expenses. As in previous years, we have bundled products and services and purchased all-inclusive packages from high-performance suppliers both regionally and internationally.

As part of our global programme to increase our telecommunications efficiency, we sealed deals with high-capacity partners in three more regions. Vodafone now handles the data services of the DHL divisions in 67 countries in the emerging markets and also takes over our mobile and data services in the Asia Pacific region. We also concluded an agreement with British Telecom for data and fixed voice services in this region. In Latin America, the Mexican provider Telmex will serve the DHL divisions in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Columbia and Mexico. Our total savings should top €190 million over the next five years as a result of this worldwide programme.

In Europe and the United States, we signed master agreements with Hewlett Packard which involve the purchase of complete print services rather than printers alone, a move that makes the requirement more transparent and optimises what we need. The new arrangement will not only reduce costs, it will also reduce the Group’s energy consumption and carbon footprint.

For the first time, we completed a global master agreement for the procurement of transport and loading equipment (e.g., forklift trucks) that involves a new operating concept. The agreement created a model for hiring equipment that allows us to operate more flexibly and optimise the costs of our machinery fleet. The SUPPLY CHAIN division will be the first to use the agreement in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region.

Procurement again focused much of its efforts on evaluating key suppliers and developing the Group’s relationships with them. In the reporting year, we also began co-operating with a bank to test a new financing and payment model in Germany and other European countries. The Group will benefit as the model helps the divisions, for example, to improve their working capital. Suppliers will benefit from the programme’s advantageous financing options.