DHL is recognized as a leading logistics company with worldwide operations. The company is older than FedEx, and has had an international presence that was built on an expertise in moving goods through customs quickly. In 2002, the company became a wholly owned subsidiary of Germany's postal service, Deutsche Post AG. Today, DHL's yellow and red color scheme continues to be recognized worldwide on vans, trucks and airplanes. This research considers the ways in which this logistics and expediting company is, at its core, a transportation company.
DHL was founded in San Francisco in 1969 by three shipping executives: Adrian Dalsey, Larry Hillblom and Robert Lynn; the first initials of their last names arranged in alphabetical order provided the easy-to-remember name of their new company. Dalsey, Hillblom and Lynn recognized that while shipping large quantities of most products could only be done economically by ship, this was a slow way to move goods. Once the goods arrived at their destination port, there were additional delays while the paperwork was processed. So the three developed a plan by which the paperwork was flown to the so that it arrived ahead of the ship and could be processed prior to the ship's arrival. When the goods arrived, the paper was already processed and the goods could move through customs far faster. This had the potential to provide a competitive edge to DHL's customers at a time when FedEx did not exist and when UPS was still a largely domestic operation ("DHL Worldwide," 2005).
During the next few years, DHL expanded its operations to include transporting documents other than shipping papers, and Bank of America-also headquartered in San Francisco at that time-became a key early customer. The company's first routes served California and Hawaii, but it quickly expanded eastward to provide the corporate delivery service that customers such as Bank of Ameri
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