DHL Global Supply Chain Management

This study analyzes the logistics operations of DHL Logistics Company and its global supply chain management activities. It explores challenges faced by the company and recommends strategies for improvement. The study also reflects on discussions about contemporary issues and strategies for improving global supply chain management.

Running head: DHL GLOBAL SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT
DHL GLOBAL SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT
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Executive Summary
The main aim of the study is to critically analyze the logistics operations of DHL Logistics
Company including studying its supply chain operations globally, its logistics management
activities. The paper is divided into two parts. DHL logistics is a part of the deutsche post
DHL and has its headquarters in Germany. Its basic services are technology solutions,
automotive solutions, retail and consumer, health care and various other services. In the retail
and consumer segment the company is engaged in providing logistics services and
warehousing and also transportation facilities to its customers. The company’s operations of
supply chain saw a reduction in its revenue in the year 2016. The first part of the study deals
with the issues ion the global supply chain management of DHL logistics. Supply chain
management is the process of managing all the activities of flow of goods including all the
raw material, work in progress and finished goods from a point of supply to a point of
demand and includes proper logistics activities. Logistics activities include the timely
transportation of the goods to the customers at an economic cost and also includes the
facilities for proper warehousing and inventory management. There are a few challenges that
every global supply chain management companies face such as issues related to the quality of
the goods, cost efficiency issues, carrying out greener operations, global accessibility and
activities for making a sustainable supply chain management of the company. The strategies
that are recommended for the purpose for overcoming these challenges are that of using
quality management techniques in the supply chain management such as Six Sigma and total
quality management, lean processes can be achieved through the process of using block chain
IOT in the SCM operations. In order to achieve better collaboration activities using cross
functional techniques. By having these collaborative operations, the company can ensure that
they are improving their manufacturing techniques and improve the global accessibility
through improved SCM activities. The company can achieve greener operations through the

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use of value streaming mapping and there can be improvement in the activities through
continuous improvements and reviews. The second part of the study focuses on the
reflections on the discussions about the contemporary issues and strategies for improving the
global supply Chain management by being a part of the Asian pacific conference advisory
team. Five themes were selected for the conference. These themes will be beneficial for the
global logistics supply chain management and it is crucial for all the researchers and the
practitioner. The main participants of this conference were university academics, business
leaders and post graduate college students. This paper therefore focuses on the importance of
the understanding the process of Global logistics supply chain management for all the logistic
companies and also other companies.

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................4
Supply chain structure and purchasing and strategic procurement............................................4
Logistics management................................................................................................................4
Global supply chain challenges..................................................................................................5
Strategic operations for improving the efficiency and gaining excellence................................6
Quality management in Supply Chain through Six Sigma and TQM....................................6
Cross functional supply chain management activities...........................................................6
Reflection on being a part of the Asian pacific advisory team..............................................7
Intelligence gathering for supply chain management............................................................8
Effect of e-commerce: forwarding supply chain....................................................................8
Supply chain 2020: customer engagement and effortless logistics........................................9
Quality to customers in SCM conference..............................................................................9
Save the environment conference........................................................................................10
Conclusion................................................................................................................................10
References................................................................................................................................12

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Introduction
Supply chain management is the process of managing all the activities involved
supplying the goods from the place where the goods are manufactured to the place where
these goods are demanded (Mangan, Lalwani & Lalwani, 2016). Goods include the raw
materials, work in progress and finished goods. These activities also include proper logistic
activities for the transportation of the goods from the suppliers to the buyer on time and with
minimum cost and it also includes the activities of proper warehousing facilities. The global
supply chain management is carrying out the SCM activities globally (Christopher, 2016).
DHL logistics provides solution to all logistics issues and also carries out the entire supply
chain activities. The aim of the study is to provide proper understanding of the GLSCM
through analyzing the problems that is being faced by DHL logistics and identifying
strategies for overcoming the same (Dhl.com, 2019).
Supply chain structure and purchasing and strategic procurement
The supply chain comprises of eight main components including planning,
information, source, inventory, production, location, transportation and return (Dominguez,
Cannella & Framinan, 2015). Logistics being the most important part of the supply chain
management because it ensure proper storage of the material and efficiently transporting the
goods to the customer’s according to their requirement at minimum time and cost (Carter,
Rogers & Choi, 2015). DHL logistics provides the facility of international logistics,
transportation and warehousing, packaging of the goods and other services. Strategic
sourcing and procurement involves improving the process of procuring material through
various processes. DHL group Deutsche helps in strategic procurement.

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Logistics management
Logistics management is the process of identifying the customers’ needs through
proper planning and forecasting and helps in meeting their requirements by delivering goods
to them on timely basis and it involves control of the activities for ensuring effective
movement of the goods (Schönsleben, 2016). DHL helps in management of its transportation
and distribution logistics (Christopher, 2017).
Global supply chain challenges
Cost efficiency
Companies these days face problems related to maintaining the cost of operations low
such that the overall cost of goods is low to the customers (Fernie & Sparks, 2018). DHL
logistics faces the problem of high cost of warehousing its goods in different countries and as
a result the price of the goods increases (Monczka et al., 2015).
Quality issues
Quality control is an important concern for all the supply chain companies because it
directly affects the company’s reputation (Waddock & Bodwell, 2017). Southern California
saw a gap in the services provided by DHL logistics because of their uncertainties in delivery.
Due to this some parts of the fresh products would arrive and others would not (Ivanov,
Tsipoulanidis & Schönberger, 2017).
Global accessibility
Through proper supply chain management activities the companies can ensure global
accessibility of the goods to customers across different customers (Rodrigue & Notteboom,

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2017). There are still many Asian countries in which the services of DHL logistics is not
available and therefore in order to become a global leader it needs to increase its operations.
Greener operations
Greener operations means carrying out the activities of supply chain management in
such a way to reduce its impact on the environment (Sarkis, 2017). DHL logistics can
improve its operations such as packaging in order to reduce its impact on the environment
(Grant, Trautrims & Wong, 2017).
Strategic operations for improving the efficiency and gaining excellence
Quality management in Supply Chain through Six Sigma and TQM
Six sigma is the process of reducing the number of defects in any process by using
statistical data and others ways (Garza-Reyes, 2015). By implementing six sigma in its
supply chain, DHL logistics can improve its quality of services by finding out the defects in
its logistics process and warehouse. TQM is a technique of improving the quality of work of
a company by becoming customer oriented and engaging all the employees of the
organization in the same (Stevens & Johnson, 2016). TQM can be used in DHL logistics to
improve its quality of services.
Lean processes through the use of block chain IOT
Block chain is used for recording transactions between the parties such that there
cannot be nay conflicts because of the ledger database (Kshetri, 2018). Supply chain can
make use of block chain in order to improve transparency and reliability. The customers will
be able to trust the company (Hackius & Petersen, 2017). DHL logistics can make use of the
same technique to improve transparency and to avoid conflict of interest.

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Cross functional supply chain management activities
Cross functional teams are created by people belonging to different organizational
function such that they can achieve some common goals and at the same time take benefits of
expertise of each of the member of the cross functional teams (Stonkutė & Vveinhardt, 2016).
This concept can be applied to SCM activities. It can be applied in product development,
quality assurance, process improvement, commodities, supplier assessment and others. This
technique can be used by the DHL logistics for the purpose of improving their coordination
between various elements of the supply chain management.
Collaboration and Engineering to take advantage of improved manufacturing
techniques and global access
Through proper collaboration between the employees of a company and with proper
collaboration with external stakeholders the company can gain the trust of these people and
they can help in increasing accessibility of the firm’s products and services (Scholten &
Schilder, 2015). Engineering here means development of new products or services or making
improvement to the processes of the company such that manufacturing methods can be
improved and cost can be reduced through new techniques of manufacturing. DHL can regain
its lost revenues with the help of this technique of collaboration and engineering.
Having greener operations through value streaming mapping
Value chain mapping is a technique used by the companies to creating a future plan
on the basis of the present situation such that minimum wastage is done in the process of
delivering the goods to the customers (Malviya & Kant, 2015). By using this technique, DHL
logistics can help to have greener operations and ensure minimum wastage of resources in the
process of carrying out its logistics activities.

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Continuous improvement for improving the efficiency of operations
The company is presently improving its performance using many techniques such as
they are involving management in order to continuously improve their performance (Wang et
al., 2016).
Reflection on being a part of the Asian pacific advisory team
I am a part of Asian pacific advisory team for and we will be conducting a
conference. Proper notification has to be given to each member requesting their attendance in
the conference. The main purpose of the conference or the topic on which discussion is
placed are based on five different themes. These themes should aim at providing suggestions
for benefit of the Global logistics supply chain management. The participants of the
conference are university academics, post graduate students and business leaders of
multinational corporations. The five main conferences themes are- to reduce the impact on
the environment through greener operations of GLSCM, making use of IOT and Block chain
to improve the efficiency of operations, improving the supply chain management activities,
satisfaction to customers through best quality logistic services and engaging customers for
better communication with them.
Intelligence gathering for supply chain management
This theme of improving the supply chain management with the help of digital
strategies such as making use of internet of things, artificial intelligence, block chain and
other activities (Whitmore, Agarwal & Da, 2015). We can make use of artificial intelligence
in supply chain management order management of customers, inventory tracking and other
activities of proper planning (Zijm & Klumpp, 2016). Block chain in Supply chain
management will help to improve the trust between the various cross functional members in a
supply chain management by removing any duplicity and ensuring that the transactions

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between the organization and other parties is done free from any errors. Therefore it helps in
inter-organization reconciliation, itra-organization coordination and other activities. Internet
of things can be used in the supply chain management for the purpose of improving the
operations of supply chain management, gathering real time data through connecting various
devices in the supply chain management. The benefits of these topics will be discussed in the
conference.
Effect of e-commerce: forwarding supply chain
The conference will focus on the topic of effect of e-commerce on supply chain
management. The major effects are it allows freight forwarders, trucking businesses and
shipping business in looking after their handling of documents without time inventories and
financial resources (Yu et al., 2016). E-commerce has many benefits for the supply chain
management because it helps in reducing the cost of operations, improving the efficiency of
operations of supply chain management and improve customer services. The supply chain
operations of the DHL logistics will be discussed in the conference and how to use e-
commerce in the logistics of DHL to improve its overall, functioning and operations. E-
commerce is continuously increasing across all the countries and if it is used in logistics then
it will provide benefits of more than just shipping benefits (Mazzarol, 2015). It provides
decisions regarding selection of a location for warehousing. It also aims at providing
information for fulfillment of the orders of e-commerce either through stores, or through
warehouses or through locations or a combination of all is to be used. These topics will be
discussed in the conference to improve the supply chain and logistics of the company (Ross,
2016).

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Supply chain 2020: customer engagement and effortless logistics
The industry leaders can be called to discuss on this topic because they have greater
exposure to the ways in which customers can be enhancing and they can also share some
ideas and experiences regarding the same (Laudon & Laudon, 2016). For improving
customer’s services it is important to continually convey them any information regarding
their product delivery. For this modern digital tracking techniques should be used. This will
help to improve the communication to the customers. They can get details about the status of
their products. It will help to increase the transparency of operations of business. The students
attending the conference can ask questions from the business leaders by directly interacting
with them.
Quality to customers in SCM conference
This theme of the conference will discuss about ways of improving quality of
customers services in the supply chain management. It will discuss about customers supply
chain. A customers supply chain as its name suggests is the one which keeps customers at the
center of supply chain by making the customers’ expectations the priority of the company.
For instance if a customer values quality over cost then the supply chain should ensure that
the best quality of material is being used in the supply chain management activity such that
best quality goods can be provided to them. The company needs to carry out various quality
control techniques within the organization to ensure that the quality of the goods is
maintained and the quality of the goods also needs to be checked when receiving the same
from the suppliers such that if best quality goods is received from the beginning then the
customers will surely get best quality goods (Hsu, Tan & Mohamad Zailani, 2016). In order
to improve the quality of service the customers the company should ensure that they are

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having a reverse logistics system such that if the customers want to return the goods to any
reason they will be able to do the same without any difficulties.
Save the environment conference
This theme of the conference will focus on reducing the impacts of the company on
the environment. For this, greener operations need to be carried out by the organization. The
university academics can discuss the importance of greener operations in the supply chain
management. It can be achieved through value steaming mapping technique.
These themes have been decided for the conference by me because of the advantages
that it has and that has been discussed. Without these techniques businesses cannot have a
sustainable supply chain management.
Conclusion
From the above discussion it can be concluded that supply chain management
determines the success and profitability of business. However, there are a number of
problems’ that are being faced by the companies such as DHL Logistics Company related to
their supply chain operations and logistic operations. Some of them are cost ineffectiveness,
poor quality of customer service and others in order to overcome this many techniques can be
used such as block chain in supply chain.

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