1. 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, warehousing
solutions, mail deliveries worldwide and an inestimable number
of customized 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 organization. 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 Tejari 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 activity
In 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 for
a 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.
www.tejari.com

2. 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.”
Tejari – a toolset aligned to the shape and size
of our business
About 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 Tejari,” 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 Tejari is highly configurable.
Although we are a vast and genuinely global organization, 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 – Tejari showed us that they really understood
this and that this was possible. There are many tools that can, in
all honesty, communicate across international boundaries, but
finding a partner with real experience of dealing with a company
as global as ours, was a real bonus. With a project of this size, it
was important to us that staff anywhere around the world, could
pick 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.
“Tejari 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 Tejari 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
Case Study:
Deutsche Post DHL
www.tejari.com

3. up to date and involved. The smaller teams were made up of
procurement people from within my own team who worked with
Tejari on the workstreams for 30 percent to 40 percent of their
time. “
Discussions were held with representatives from the regions and
Tejari very early on. This was to establish all the different needs
and to understand how processes would need to work in different
countries.
“Having Tejari 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.”
Tejari 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 Tejari, but
we had lots of opportunity to collaborate through workstreams
and steering committee meetings.”
“Tejari 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 obvious
It is early days for DPDHL Group to realize 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
Case Study:
Deutsche Post DHL
www.tejari.com

4. 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 Tejari 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 future
DPDHL 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 Tejari 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 Tejari 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 DHL
www.tejari.com