DHL Goes Open

Abstract

DHL, known after its founders Dalsey, Hillblom, and Lynn was born in 1969 to serve a specific need of the maritime industry: to reduce the time for customs clearance of sea borne cargo. DHL introduced an air-express service, to send the shipping documents by air to the customs facility in the destination country, well ahead of the ship”s arrival. This move expedited the clearance procedures. The innovative offering of dependable, and fast door-to-door service from DHL proved to be an overwhelming success, and gave birth to the international air-express industry. Today, DHL is the largest international cross border air-express company in the world, serving over 70,000 destinations covering 186 countries. This phenomenal growth of DHL is largely due to a strategic IT decision taken in the 80s to adopt "Open Systems", to support its operations worldwide.