Opportunities

Opportunities arising from market trends and our market position

Some of the Group’s primary opportunities lie in continuing to develop our markets as well as in our strategic positioning. We want to be the provider of choice for customers, which is why we are aligning our services even more closely to their needs. We are also improving our cost structures and processes.

A number of key factors have a strong impact on our business and open up numerous opportunities.

The most important of these are our prospects for further growth. Advancing globalisation means that the logistics industry will continue to grow much faster than national economies. We therefore anticipate attractive growth rates in all of the logistics sectors in which we operate. This is especially true of Asia, where trade flows will continue to increase both within the continent and to other regions. We will benefit from this more than most given that our DHL divisions are better positioned in Asia than our competitors. This also applies to regions such as South America and the Middle East, which continue to see robust growth. We are well positioned in the emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and Mexico (BRIC + M) and want to take advantage of arising opportunities.

Further growth prospects will result from closer co-operation between the DHL divisions. We offer integrated logistics and transport solutions from a single source to an ever-increasing extent, which gives us a major competitive advantage. DHL Solutions & Innovations (DSI) pools expertise within DHL and uses it to develop new solutions across the Group. Sector Management is our method of developing solutions for customers in selected industries as well as services tailored to the requirements of rapidly growing regions and customer segments. Against this backdrop we have created the new Chief Commercial Officer position that combines all cross-DHL initiatives, including our central key account management and innovations.

Online communication and e-business are creating demand for transporting documents and goods. This in turn creates growth opportunities for us in our mail and parcel businesses.

Finally, environmental awareness on the part of customers brings opportunities for above-average growth. Customers want to reduce their carbon emissions permanently, which is why they are increasingly requesting energy-efficient transport and climate-neutral products. We lead our sector in this area, offering carbon-neutral mail, parcel and express products plus air and ocean freight transport.