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frica is full of opportunity and in recent years has become increasingly attractive for multi-national companies and SMEs alike. It’s almost as if a ‘come and get me’ plea has been issued. Like most things in life though, it isn’t always that simple. Africa’s weak transport infrastructure is one of several challenges of operating on the continent.
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However managing this and the continent’s other difficulties are not impossible. That’s certainly the view of Charles Brewer the managing director for subSaharan Africa at logistics company DHL Express. DHL is the continent’s leading logistics provider. It has been in Africa for 34 years with operations in 52 countries. It offers expertise in express, air and ocean freight, overland transport,
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DHL Express SSA focus logistics
South Africa Magazine chats to Charles Brewer the managing director of DHL Express SSA about Africa’s opportunities and challenges.
By Ian Armitage
contract logistics solutions, as well as international mail services combined with worldwide coverage and in-depth understanding of local markets. It essentially helps us all do business better. That’s a fact. “If you want to operate in Africa there is a degree of uncertainty, there is a degree of risk, and you need to know how to manage that. It is not unmanageable,” Brewer says. “If you look
at the amount of trade that actually stays in Africa it is less than 30 percent. If you look at the amount of trade that stays in Asia-Pacific or in the Americas or Europe it’s much more like 70 percent. So doing business intra-Africa is actually more difficult in some cases than doing business out of Africa from China, India or from any other market outside of Africa. That’s driven by a number of things. The infrastructure in the customs
If you want to operate in Africa there is a degree of uncertainty, there is a degree of risk, and you need to know how to manage that
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DHL Express SSA focus LOGISTICS
environment can be very challenging and very testing in certain countries across Africa. That’s because sub-Saharan Africa has 52 different countries, and each of those countries operates very differently. Compounding this is 52 different customs authorities; all of which work very uniquely. If you are a multi-national company or even an SME operating in a challenging environment, be that customs, political or infrastructural, it is very, very difficult to get your products in or indeed get your products out.” Africa is of increasing importance for DHL, which is the only major courier to wholly own facilities in every African nation. It has recognised that it can play a significant role in accelerating Africa’s
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development. After all, says Brewer, exploration, production and building of infrastructure, for instance, cannot evolve and grow without a reliable and vibrant logistics provider. “DHL is completely committed to supporting all its markets and clients and helping them compete in a competitive world. Africa is a growth market for all of us,” he says. So what is DHL doing? “The logistics industry is highly technologically driven and we’ve invested in the obvious things like state-ofthe-art hand scanners that at a swipe of a button transmits time critical data throughout the world; from South Africa to Spain, Switzerland, Sweden or any of the 220 countries we operate in,” Brewer says.
Smart Spaces As technology partner to DHL SSA, Smart Spaces took into account the diversity of their core business, combined with the fast service synonymous to DHL, and developed a custom solution for their flagship offices in Cape Town. From entering the reception, right through to the staff pause area, you are greeted with ambient music and large visual displays, featuring content DHL decides for that day, all seamlessly integrated into the décor and independently controlled. The main hub is the state of the art boardroom. The two large screens and drop down projector screen allow them to synchronise, view and interact with various sources of information simultaneously. This allows full flexibility for a magnitude of operational scenarios. HD Video Conferencing connects the SSA hub with partners all over the globe. The controls are user friendly with pre-set scenarios or for advanced alternatives, custom control options allow power users to operate the system all from the intuitive and stylish mobile touch screen.
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At Smart Spaces we live by the definition that technology, loosely defined, is the branch of knowledge that deals with the creation and use of technical means and their interrelation with life, society, and the environment. Smart Spaces offer a variety of technological systems, not only interacting with your daily life but enriching it. All solutions are implemented in such a way to compliment your daily activities, boost productivity, save you money and even keep you safe. We service both corporate and residential markets, making your office or home more user and environmentally friendly. We implement lighting solutions, heating, ventilation and air conditioning control, distributed audio and video systems, CCTV and alarms as well as video conferencing and dedicated cinema rooms. All these are completely integrated in easy to use interfaces on a wide range of touch screens; iPad’s and even your TV or smart phone.
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Perhaps most significantly of all however, in November last year, DHL opened its new sub-Saharan African quality control centre (QCC) in South Africa. The centre, which is located at DHL’s Express in Johannesburg office, is one of a series of investments planned by DHL Express in Africa. “It links sub Saharan Africa to the world via our global quality control centres in Bonn, Singapore (servicing Asia Pacific), Leipzig (servicing Europe) and Cincinnati (servicing the Americas). “It is a great investment and will allow us to deliver a lot more certainty in what can be very challenging environment.” At the heart of every QCC he says is a monitoring facility with eyes on the world. “These centres enable us to manage shipments proactively on a real time basis from start to finish, taking decisive action when necessary to ensure their fast and secure delivery. “Due to the pace of growth in key emerging markets such as Africa, the need for a quality control centre here – to monitor both the day-today movement of all goods as well as to manage crises as and when they happen – was evident.
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“Simplistically, staff at hubs in Johannesburg, Lagos and Nairobi, wherever, rely on information from this centre. Quality control centres are also able to track shipments from collection to delivery, including export, flight and customs clearance; it just mitigates potential problems that will impact the speed of delivery of a shipment whether that is adverse weather conditions, natural disasters, political unrest or infrastructure breakdown. It doesn’t matter what the factor is. “If you think of mission critical industries like oil, energy or pharmaceuticals, whatever it is, this is a huge boost. “By default in this industry things do and can happen and how you manage that is what makes the difference. We’re better able to manage that now. “It is yet another example of our commitment to Africa.” This isn’t the end of things; the coming year will see further investment in both facilities and vehicles according to Brewer. “Africa is a hugely developing market and one thing it does call for is a huge amount of dynamism. Where you plan to invest
DHL Express SSA focus logistics
over the next 12 months can change fairly dramatically. Typically our investments today and tomorrow revolve around three areas. Planes and infrastructure is one such area. We’re soon adding a new aircraft in Nigeria, a significant investment. We have a lot of vehicles across Africa and we’re constantly adding new vehicles. At the moment we’re looking at how we can convert our vehicles to green technology in Africa. We do that in many other parts of the world but it is just harder to do in Africa.” He says that most recently DHL opened a new facility in Tanzania and “constantly upgrades facilities across Africa.” It has also invested in its people. “Talent development is absolutely critical. It is a developing environment and we invest in our employees to make sure that they’re the very best they can be.” Brewer cautioned that while Africa represents a huge opportunity, it isn’t currently recording the high growth and returns businesses have enjoyed in Asia in recent years. That said it is seeing consistent and solid growth.
“The problems in Africa now aren’t too dissimilar to those in China some years ago; not so long ago China was an absolute minefield in terms of logistics,” he says. “Africa right now may be a slightly slower progression than what we saw in China about 10-15 years ago. But what we see is that in the next 10-15 years you will witness an increase in disposable income in Africa and that will speed things up. If you take one billion people in Africa and you accept that around 40 percent are aware of what DHL can do, and as a result of this their businesses start shipping internationally, then you can see the obvious opportunity. How do you take the product and make it available to the 60 percent of the population who perhaps hasn’t seen DHL and they don’t know that what they do domestically they can actually do internationally? That’s the exciting opportunity!” How has DHL managed to put itself in the driving seat in Africa? Brewer says it is a classic case of first to market. “It is, but we’re not complacent about this and it would be a huge mistake to be so. To the point we started here 34 years ago in Africa, we’re the only company to have dedicated aircraft and for the most part we’re the only company to have dedicated airside facility. We’re the only company to have the infrastructure whether it’s planes, vehicles or people on the ground that understand the market. That gives us a huge advantage over anybody else. There are other carriers here but they don’t have the same footprint and perhaps knowledge that DHL has. We’re very proud of that and very proud to be the market leader. We’re very proud to make sure that we’re facilitating growing African trade but it’s also about what we are doing tomorrow and it is important to invest in those key areas.” To learn more visit www.dhl.co.za.
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