Home ›› 15 Sep 2022 ›› Asia Biz
DHL Supply Chain (DHL), the global market leader for contract logistics solutions, today announced an investment of EUR 500 million 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 twelve million square feet of warehousing space to the Group's existing portfolio.
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.
"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 favourit hub for our global contract logistics business in DHL Supply Chain and one of our priority markets," said Oscar de Bok, CEO, DHL Supply Chain.
Investing in infrastructure for current and future customers
DHL Supply Chain India will add twelve million square feet of capacity in wholly-owned DHL multi-client sites 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 Centers (BSC) in Bangalore and Pune within the next 12-18 months to support customer demand. Currently, the company runs three Business Support Centers (BSC) at Mumbai, Gurgaon and Chennai. These BSCs provide 24x7 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.
Creating employment opportunities
To support its strategic expansion plans in the country, the company plans to augment its workforce by doubling the size to 25,000 employees by 2025. Investment in Skill Development and Resourcing Centers is being undertaken to induct and train employees with certification programs to prepare them for work processes changes brought about by rapid transformations and digitalization in the industry. The first Resourcing Center has been opened in Bangalore with more to follow in Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai and Kolkata.
Transportation DHL Supply Chain's SmarTransport division will also leverage its warehouse investments to further accelerate transport growth by providing strategic, scalable solutions to large customers enabling economies of scale 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.
