A Warm Delivery of Gratitude with DHL Express
Forty years and counting, an international express and logistics firm still never fails to deliver convenience to its customers. It has innovated and met the high demands of the continuously growing market. And part of its growing business is a well-managed sustainability.
Four decades ago, sending packages from one place to another was impossibly slow. One day delivery and a definite time of arrival do not exist yet. At that time, in the city of San Francisco, California, three gentlemen pioneered express delivery and established a small firm which we now know as DHL. Adrian Dalsey, Larry Hillblom, and Robert Lynn started to move around San Francisco to Honolulu to ship documents personally by airplane in a limited 2387 miles (3841 kilometers or 2074 nautical miles) distance in 1969.
While more miles were adding to their express network, they were likewise slowly gaining the trust of more companies. Two years after opening the business, DHL started servicing the Far East and the Pacific Rim.
The non-stop expansion of DHL reached Middle East, Latin America, and Africa by 1976 up to 1978. The significant growth at that time signed the huge number of officea around the globe today. DHL Express alone has more than 220 while DHL Logistics has 150 in its Global Forwarding, 59 in Exel Supply Chain, and more than 30 in Freight in current market worldwide.
With the growth of its branches worldwide, the company needed a strong and capable workforce to complement its wide range area of delivery service. Currently, DHL has more than 124,000 employees for its Express division and more than 162,500 for its Logistics service. When DHL opened its first office in London, United Kingdom in 1974, there were only 314 staffs.
The Express service was easily embraced in different continents and has set off the successful operations in each region. DHL opened its first German office in Frankfurt in 1977. It became the first air Express forwarder to operate in Eastern European countries by the year 1983. In 1986, DHL was the first firm active in Express service in China. It was the first company which re-opened its business in Kuwait after the Gulf War.
Ten years ago, Deutsche Post World Net was just a shareholder. But in New Year’s Day of 2002, it became a major shareholder. And by the end of the said year, it already held 100% share and it became the parent company of DHL.
The change of DHL corporate color from white and red to yellow and red happened after more than three decades of existence and the quality service remained the same, if not, improved to continuously satisfy its customers.
And being known as one of the leading Express and Logistics companies to date, DHL also keeps its hands full when it comes to reaching out to the community, especially during the tsunami disaster in Southeast Asia some recent years ago.