DHL Supply Chain has announced an investment of €500m in India over the next five years to significantly grow its warehousing capacity, workforce, and sustainability initiatives in the country. With this investment, DHL will own and operate wholly owned large multi-client sites in India, adding 12m sq ft of warehousing space to the Group’s existing portfolio. The sites will be situated in key metro cities such as Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata, Mumbai, National Capital Region (NCR) and Pune. These cities are among the top contributors to India’s overall Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Furthermore, multi-client sites are being built in the fast-growing state capitals and tier 2 cities such as Ambala, Baddi, Cochin, Coimbatore, Guwahati, Sanand, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Indore, Lucknow, Bhubaneshwar, Hosur, and Visakhapatnam.
DHL Supply Chain India will also open two new Business Support Centres (BSC) in Bangalore and Pune within the next 12-18 months to support customer demand. Currently, the company runs three Business Support Centres (BSC) at Mumbai, Gurgaon and Chennai. These BSCs provide 24×7 value-added services including domestic and international Transport Control Towers, Business Analytics to support decision-making, Freight Bill Audit Payment (FBAP), Order to Cash (O2C), LLP Control Towers and similar support services to its customers in India and across the globe.
The increased warehousing capacity is targeted to effectively cater to growing sectors such as e-commerce, retail, consumer, life sciences, technology, engineering, and manufacturing as well as automotive. These warehouses will be enabled with accelerated digital technology solutions including Assisted Picking Robots, Indoor Robotic Transport, Intelligent Process Automation, Wearable Devices, Voice Picking, Inventory Management Robots and Algorithmic Optimizations.
CEO of DHL Supply Chain Oscar de Bok commented: “Despite the current economic and geopolitical uncertainties in the world, we see enormous growth potential in the Asia Pacific region, with India making a significant contribution. As a dynamic, stable, and fast-growing economy, the Indian nation plays a key role for the global economy. Its investment-friendly and entrepreneurial environment makes India a preferred place for Deutsche Post DHL Group to even accelerate its investments. With a rich pool full of highly qualified young talents and innovative digital entrepreneurs India is a favourite hub for our global contract logistics business in DHL Supply Chain and one of our priority markets.”
DHL Supply Chain’s SmarTransport division will also leverage its warehouse investments to further accelerate transport growth by providing scalable solutions to large customers with end-to-end service offerings. Through its asset-heavy and asset-light model, DHL Supply Chain currently offers the full suite of transport solutions include Full Truck Load (FTL), Part Truck Load (PTL), “milk runs”, secondary transport, intra-city, and inter-city air movements.
In support of the DPDHL’s roadmap to have climate-neutral logistics by 2030, DHL Supply Chain India will be converting its entire intra-city fleet into Green fuel / EV versions by 2025. By the end of 2022, DHL hopes that 100% of the two-wheeler fleet will be converted to EVs. Furthermore, all new sites will implement green features, including solar panels for electricity, rainwater harvesting, LED lights, smart meters, etc.
CEO of DHL Supply Chain Asia Pacific Terry Ryan commented: “Asia Pacific currently accounts for about 15% of DHL Supply Chain’s global revenue but is among the fastest growing regions, with India being a key contributor to this growth. The Indian logistics market, worth over $200bn now, is expected to grow at about 10% per year in the next five years to reach around $330bn. We take a long-term view in India with businesses here having reasons to be optimistic.”
Source: DHL
