Case Study: Deutsche Post...

With a workforce of more than 480,000 people, a presence in just over 220 countries and territories around the globe, and a revenue of €56.6 billion in 2014, Deutsche Post DHL Group (DPDHL) is the leading and largest postal and logistics services provider in the world. Together its brands represent a unique portfolio of communications (DP) and logistics (DHL) services.

Case Study:Deutsche Post DHL

Deutsche Post is Germany’s first and foremost postal service, delivering mail to the tune of 64,000,000 letters every working day with 29,000 parcel acceptance points, and is Europe’s largest postal services provider. It also has the expertise and global network to support its international operations in dialogue marketing, press distribution services and corporate communications solutions. DHL provides worldwide parcel and e-commerce services including international express deliveries,global freight forwarding by air, sea, road and rail, warehousingsolutions, mail deliveries worldwide and an inestimable numberof customised logistics services.

This delivery and logistics giant keeps itself in the forefront position through innovation and vision, as well as a core conviction that it is ‘connectedness’ which holds the key to a truly global yet unified organisation. This confidence in connectedness applies just as much to its business partners and suppliers, chosen wisely to help support strategic goals. This is just one of the reasons why DPDHL Group chose BravoSolution as its strategic partner to develop a fully integrated, yet local, regional and global modern eProcurement ecosystem, connecting all five key areas of its sourcing business from demand- to-contract:

Savings Management, Spend Analysis, Supplier Relationship Management, Sourcing and Contract Lifecycle Management.

Challenge: To build one integrated SaaS platform to support all eProcurement activity across a global enterprise, replacing fragmented toolsets and ironing out redundant activityIn the world of procurement IT in general, the larger majority of companies have some degree of process automation in place. But on the strategic sourcing side specifically, automation has been adopted only in part. In terms of their eProcurement solutions, many companies have grown organically, with independent IT procurement tools, which, while fulfilling the need for automation of a particular silo, do not fill the need fora joined-up approach. With this as a basis for comparison, DPDHL Group was already well positioned, having adopted a complete set of automated systems for every part of its procurement process. To align with the strategic vision of ‘connectedness’ and to bring the benefits of transparency and common process to both internal and external stakeholders, DPDHL Group decided that a fully integrated suite would be the necessary next step so that all departments globally could communicate on the same platform in the same language.

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The information contained in this document has been supplied to you by BravoSolution who are CIPS’s Knowledge Partner for eProcurement/eSourcing. CIPS takes no responsibility for any loss or damage in anyway arising from your interpretation or use of this information. To find out more about Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply visit www.cips.org or call +44 (0)1780 756777 or email [email protected]. CIPS, Easton House, Church Street, Easton on the Hill, Stamford, Lincolnshire, PE9 3NZ

Dr. Stefan Zeisel, Head of Regional Procurement and in charge of DPDHL Group’s largest region, became project sponsor for this transition. “Historically,” he said, “we did have tools in place to help us automate each part of our procurement process, but they were fragmented. The new sourcing platform brings us the opportunity to connect data much better and generate new value-adding information for our internal business partners.”

BravoSolution – a toolset aligned to the shape and size of our businessAbout 18 months ago DPDHL Group went through a process of testing different suppliers that could provide a comprehensive platform for all of its strategic sourcing. It was a rigorous competition. “We finally settled on BravoSolution,” said Stefan, “because they had lined up a toolset for us that matched perfectly the size and shape of our fragmented ones, but pulled them all together; we felt they fully understood our needs. We were also looking for flexibility in the system, and BravoSolution is highly configurable. Although we are a vast and genuinely global organisation, we do see ourselves as one company. Even though we are made up of different regions with different operations, we all want to deliver the same output – BravoSolution showed us that they really understood thisand that this was possible. There are many tools that can, inall honesty, communicate across international boundaries, butfinding a partner with real experience of dealing with a companyas global as ours, was a real bonus. With a project of this size, itwas important to us that staff anywhere around the world, couldpick up the phone and speak to someone in their own region,with local knowledge, and have questions answered promptly.This kind of accessibility builds a trusting relationship.”

DPDHL signed the contract a year ago and has so far rolled out four of the five components of the full suite solution.

Key to successful implementation is collaboration Stefan found himself in the unique position of being both project sponsor and customer, which, he acknowledged, worked well, because he saw the needs from both sides.

The key to the successful implementation of something as major as this is, according to Stefan, collaboration and taking he time to acquire mutual understanding.

“BravoSolution worked with us as a partner from very early on and with the right spirit of teamwork and accountability. In any project, by nature, you cannot foresee everything, and that is why you need a company that brings a ‘spirit of partnership,’ and that is what BravoSolution has. It is open-minded and builds a very fair relationship. When things change or problems occur, they adopt a pragmatic and practical approach, and their senior management are just as committed.”

Rather than implementing country-by-country or region-by-region, it was decided to implement globally all at once, so everyone would be ready at the same time. To make that work they implemented a workstream-by-workstream implementation approach, by “slicing the metaphorical elephant” as Stefan calls it.




“We built smaller teams, for each component, then one ‘integration interface,’ which was an umbrella team. We also had working teams on change management set up to keep everyone up to date and involved. The smaller teams were made up of procurement people from within my own team who worked with BravoSolution on the workstreams for 30 percent to 40 percent of their time. “

Discussions were held with representatives from the regions and BravoSolution very early on. This was to establish all the different needs and to understand how processes would need to work in different countries.

“Having BravoSolution involved in discussions, even from before we signed the contract, meant people would understand the tool and what it could do for us right from the start. It was important to get everyone’s agreement to go on this journey willingly and together.”

BravoSolution and DPDHL Group set up workshops and generated business requirement statements so that everyone understood the needs and had transparency. “The project management was carried out mostly by BravoSolution, but we had lots of opportunity to collaborate through workstreams and steering committee meetings.”

“BravoSolution took charge of all of the training. We brought in experts from our side to bridge the gap between trainers and the local language as well as DPDHL specifics (e.g. related to old tools), so that questions could be answered fully and everyone felt comfortable. It was a two-pronged approach which worked well – it was real collaboration.”

The Sourcing component took priority – the current contract was due to expire so the team was under pressure to have that in place. They also had the added challenge of varying levels of procurement maturity in different counties. “The Sourcing component of the full suite solution was easily accepted and taken on board in the bigger countries. In smaller countries training had to play a strong role to bring all team members to a higher level.”

Strategic benefits are already obviousIt is early days for DPDHL Group to realise or see bottom-line benefits, but they are already starting to feel an impact and feedback has been positive. “I know it’s working,” said Stefan, “because people tell me they like using it, and if they didn’t like using it, it wouldn’t be working!”

And from a company perspective, the system is helping to fulfil some of the overriding strategic goals of the company’s ‘Strategy 2020: Focus Connect Grow.’




“We focused on our staff’s needs. For example, it is much easier now to document processes, as repetitive data fields were made redundant saving us time and effort. This also helped to motivate the team that helped to push for the change; in fact the easiest project to do was change management, because top management and team members are fully behind the project."

"Installing BravoSolution meant we could connect the components in one system, worldwide, so everyone had transparency, accessibility and a common working platform and process. By focusing and connecting we took away the redundancy, and this gave us more space and therefore growth potential increased."

"We have sourcers now who negotiate better with the market; we believe in giving them ‘deal time’ to build better relationships, but we couldn’t be consistent, there just wasn’t enough time, now they can use their time with suppliers much more effectively.”

A strong partnership for a connected futureDPDHL Group will build on its achievements and seize new opportunities for profitable growth and excellence of service. Once completely integrated the massive supplier database will be a cornerstone of the department’s vision for connecting with the market. “Easy access to all our supplier-related data within the BravoSolution system will bring huge advantages: the ability to search across any dimension, from compliance track record to macroeconomic data, will give us the power of real data that will influence our decision making. It supports our vision of efficiency, innovation and connectedness.”

Rolling out a common system in every region will make collaboration a reality, further supporting the internal exchange of knowledge, language and expertise that builds a more effective purchasing operation. The decision to implement

all five components has placed DPDHL Group squarely at the forefront of the industry. “I am part of a broad network of other Fortune 500 companies in Germany,” said Stefan, “and I can say that when we started out on this journey we were already quite ahead in terms of strategic IT development. Recent research shows that every second company is using one of these tools, so 50 percent of companies are using at least one tool. Using more than one is quite usual, but using all five is very rare, there is usually at least one module missing, and it’s usually SRM or savings measurement. This implementation has placed us ahead of the pack, building local, regional and global modern processes, benchmarking costs across other companies. Few companies can do it all.”

“With BravoSolution we have been on a journey of change. And we know there is even more functionality in the system that we need to explore.”




Case Study: Deutsche Post...

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