DHL Express CEO R S Subramanian On Keeping Ops Uninterrupted During Times Of Crisis

India’s logistics sector is at a pivotal juncture, shaped by sweeping infrastructure upgrades, regulatory shifts and shifting consumer expectations. In a candid conversation, R S Subramanian, senior vice president of DHL Express South Asia, unpacks the complex interplay of resilience, speed, and policy in keeping goods moving across the country.

India’s diverse geography—marked by monsoons, heatwaves, and urban congestion—poses relentless challenges. Yet, the speed of deliveries has improved dramatically, thanks to a combination of private-sector innovation and government-led infrastructure projects like Bharatmala and Sagarmala.

Subramanian details how DHL Express has built a crisis-proof operation, from disaster recovery systems to an agile network of partners ensuring uninterrupted service, even in extreme conditions.

"We have a backup available and that backup works almost always and is made to work because you have a network which is talking to it and there is enough technology," RS Subramanian, senior vice president of DHL Express South Asia told The Core.

But efficiency comes at a cost. India’s logistics expenses remain stubbornly high—estimated at 14% of GDP—compared to global benchmarks of 6-8%. While GST has streamlined movement, regulatory bottlenecks persist, often slowing trade.

The shift to digital customs clearance and paperless trade is promising, but physical capacity constraints at ports and airports remain a concern.

As India races to modernise its logistics backbone, the next five years will be critical. The challenge is not just expansion, but building smarter, future-ready systems that match the scale of the country’s growth.

"The expansion in capacity is absolutely important and I think more importantly there is a lot of focus on passengers but there should be a focus on trade infrastructure which is the cargo movement," Subramanian said.

India is no longer just a consumer market; it’s evolving into a manufacturing and export hub. DHL, with its extensive network and expertise, is at the centre of this transformation, helping businesses navigate the complexities of global trade.

"If I look over the last 10 years, this has been a continuous phenomenon which is that manufacturing from elsewhere usually the western world moving into India. And now there is some amount of manufacturing which is moving from the Asian side into India," Subramanian said.

While challenges remain, the trajectory is clear—India is playing a bigger role in global supply chains, and DHL is right in the thick of it.

Edited Excerpts

Hi and welcome to The Core Reports Weekend Edition. My guest for today is RS Subramanian, the Senior Vice President in South Asia at DHL Express, is also a member of DHL Express's Asia-Pacific Management Board. We're going to talk about logistics and DHL Express.

Mr. Subramanian, thank you so much for joining me. So, this is a very interesting time, though all times might be interesting for a company like yours. There are a lot of shifts that are happening thanks to all the successive tariff threats that have been announced by the U.S. government and that clearly is dominating mindspace global attention and so on.

So, you're a critical component of any company anywhere in the world or many companies anywhere in the world who are trying to deliver products at a certain time and obviously trying to wrestle with this. So, what is going on right now in the DHL war rooms or boardrooms as you try and cope with this?

I think for the kind of network we run and the scale and size of presence across the globe, I think on any given day there are many wars happening. So, every day is an exciting time and our job I think is to run a network which brings peace to the boardrooms which are in tense moments.

But having said that, some of the dynamic calls,and wars possibly happen in customers' boardrooms and we are there to support the changes which they want. Current situations are far more dramatic but something like this is happening almost every month.

Tariff changes, cross-border regulatory changes, and new developments are expected to come. Many times it comes with the lead time and therefore there is time for it to prepare.

Currently, there is lead time but the only thing is there is uncertainty about what might happen and therefore that puts a twist into the whole tale.

I was discussing with some of my colleagues in the network elsewhere and a lot of our customers especially in Asia are also discussing various scenarios in terms of what might happen to tariffs and the tariff changes a little bit tariff completely creates a barrier or if there are certain kinds of sanctions, what product categories will get affected, how will the supply chains change and what kind of actions which they need to initiate to ensure that there is business continuity.

As a logistic service provider in each of the scenarios there are few things which we can do to and possibly in some cases we are able to be part of the solution development process and I think we participate actively but it's enough uncertainty for anybody to be able to put their finger and then say coming next few weeks these are the actions I'm going to initiate.

I think it's still wait-and-watch time. Large number of people in India when you speak to them they are waiting and watching. More importantly, I was quite impressed by there seems to be an innate confidence that we will manage.

It is a combination of what our business will do, business guys will do and some amount of confidence on how the government is also manoeuvring its way may be based on how they've managed the last few years and the last few years were not easy. There were enough challenges but I think we found the right tool.

And we're already reducing tariffs and we're making the right choices.

We're saying that we're flexible and we'll find our way and the general expectation is that we'll find. So in that sense, the nervousness is slightly less here. There are some parts of the world where there is more war roomish preparation is needed.

So I'll come back to the boardroom and the current situation. But tell us about DHL Express as a company in India today. What is the scope of operations? Where are you present? How are you present? What are the kind of sectors that you work with predominantly?

If I have to give you a picture on DHL. DHL has four entities in the country. So I represent DHL Express which is an international time definite shipment which is the export and import of express cargo.

The second group company is Blue Dart which is the counterpart in domestic and possibly the only successful cargo aviation company. Blue Dart Aviation which runs planes for domestic cargo movements. The third entity we have is DHL Global Forwarding which is traditional freight forwarding, air freight and ocean freight and customs brokerage.

And the fourth entity we have is DHL Supply Chain who run a successful network of almost 20 million square feet of warehouse and anything to do with warehousing and logistics around the warehouse. I think all four entities are quite successful in their segments. Maybe in the top one or two or three players and or market leaders.

So that's DHL. We employ I don't know 40 to 45,000 people in the country. Significantly large footage. Nearly fantastic coverage. Maybe next only to India Post in the country in terms of reach.

DHL Express we are in about 40 cities. The rest of the cities we cover are through Blue Dart. We connect Delhi and Bangalore through our freighters. 29 flights a week which connects India to you know the hubs in East Asia in the eastern Asian side which is Hong Kong and Bangkok and Singapore and to the western side hubs which is via Leipzig in Germany to US and Europe.

So we run a fantastic network possibly the largest player in the country and a very strong presence both in import and export materials. Significant investment in digitalisation. I think best in class infrastructure if you want to see what is possible to do in India and how a global express network runs you need to walk into one of the DHL facilities and you will know you could have been in any other city and any other country.

So we run a standardised process which works like a clock. The other item we are very proud of about DHL is that we are as we speak DHL Express is number one in the list of great places to work globally. For a courier company with 120,000 employees globally in 200 countries that's a distinction very difficult to get.

In India, we were number one and we've been in the top five for the last six or seven years. So we are a very employee focused great governance company so which we are very proud of.

So you talked about the connectivity with Asia and I assume you mean South Asia, Southeast Asia which you also oversee sitting in India. So tell us about what's changed there in the last decade or so in terms of the way things are flowing and I'm talking about trade and its impact on your business.

See a few things if you look through the last decade, there are two or three significantly notable items. One I think go back 10 years it's sort of rise of Asia. So that's been happening for maybe two decades significant manufacturing capacity and capability getting built not just in China but across the Southeast Asian ring and maybe India came to the party a little late but I think we're catching up really well and the significant amount of manufacturing ramping up in India. So that's one big phenomenon.

The second thing which is happening is post-Covid. There is even within that there's migration of global supply chains and they are migrating out of China and into some countries and India is also a big beneficiary. Possibly Vietnam will come in first and bits of Thailand, the Philippines, and India may be the biggest beneficiaries and we see that shift happening.

Otherwise, I think if I look over the last 10 years there is significant this has been a significant continuous phenomenon which is that manufacturing from elsewhere usually the western world moving into India. Yeah and now there is some amount of manufacturing which is moving from the Asian side into India.

I don't think it is close shop lock stock and barrel come here. It's more a case of diversification and capacity expansion is happening here rather than all eggs in the same basket which is what businesses have learned during Covid.

In your report that you put out every year and it's a very interesting report because you're also saying that at a macro level you are not seeing trade reduce. You're actually saying it will slow down because of all of this but it is not going to shrink that's one part. The second is of course what's shifting within Asia.

So for example if I were to take that mobile phone which we all understand now. So what you're saying is that two things are happening at the same time. One is parts coming into India from let's say China.

Another is maybe entire phones being manufactured in India, entire phones being manufactured in China and going. So there is a certain intricateness in the way things are moving around which is becoming more and more complex or more and more intricate. So how is your world changing or has changed because of that?

See what has happened is the sophistication of the supply chains which we need to manage for our customers is changing. I think the bottom line is that only. So if when they were trading when they were just importing for selling there is one side of type of support which is needed.

When they're getting into manufacturing, they're getting into components, they're getting into component manufacturing, the raw material sourcing then it brings in a different scale of supply chain involvement. Not just bringing in goods but possibly the kind of warehousing needed, kind of services needed, value-added services in the just in time. Increasingly the more points you manufacture the more complicated the supply chain becomes and just in time starts into play.

And I keep saying this which is that the more you discover better formats it is like inventory levels is the real issue in all manufacturing. If you want to have control over inventory levels you need to have a supply chain which moves faster like with precision which is needed and just in time supply chains do exactly that. And I think companies are now focussing on a few things which is a combination of what's happening now to what happened during COVID and what movement started a bit earlier in terms of diversification.

And earlier it was finding more efficient and cost-effective closer to market manufacturing. Now it is a case of building resilience into their supply chains, building not having eggs in the same basket and also discovering better stability and flexibility for future uncertainties which is what is being planned. And therefore I think India is a net beneficiary on all of these things. So, therefore, it's an exciting time for a player like DHL because every day we're doing different kinds of solutions for our customers

And what's an industry or sector that best represents this complexity and intricateness from your perspective and where you've seen these changes in the last few years?

All manufacturing. Electronics.

And that would be the biggest?

Electronics, tech, automobile, engineering, manufacturing. All of them show this significantly. You know as we speak there is a large semiconductor manufacturer who's setting up operation in India and their entire supply chain has to be created here.

The success of that might lead to more and more lines coming up and so therefore it's in a sense it's proof of concept. But I think it's a big move and some of these things don't…

Something that you are working with?

Yeah, we're working with and some of it is not going to happen overnight. All of these are one-year, two year, three-year lead time items and therefore some of these tariff changes and what you're talking about is a sudden intervention. But these moves have to happen in a planned manner and therefore I think the decisive moves have started happening and tariffs.

Some of these tariffs in these industries is only incidental. It might only hasten the pace of change but the change has already happened. And it's very visible in these industries.

I think India will become a... Like you said first we are consuming the end product. Then you get an assembly happening and after that component manufacture will happen.

The entire ecosystem will get creative and that's a natural progression. We see it in mobile phones. We'll see it in…

We saw it in automobile if you ask me 20 years back, 25 years back when manufacturing happened and 10 years down the line you had whole host of auto-ancillaries manufacturing and today almost the automobile manufacturers and auto-ancillaries and their suppliers are also feeding global supply chains because their quality, their technology, their scale, everything has gone up.

Some of it because of domestic scale but all of it because of significant improvement in quality and partnership in technology and creation of manufacturing base. I think it's a fantastic virtuous cycle.

And which are the again the top examples that represent this? So you're saying one is let's say inbound and maybe all of this including mobile phones was mostly inbound at one time.

Auto components was also maybe largely inbound because they were feeding global multinationals but who are manufacturing in India for India.

But we've also seen now including in auto for example Hyundai, Maruti they are all big exporters. So how is...and from your perspective where has been this because that changes your let's say your sort of standard operating procedure as well?

No, I think we as see we are the logistic service provider right? We go where the customer is going and we create capacity for what plans our customers are having and we can play into all their requirements. When they are setting up a factory right from scratch we are able to move equipment for them, and be part of their project management.

When they are setting up warehousing we are part of their planning and establishment of warehouses. In-plant logistics we do for some of the customers and then from there on finished goods and aftermarket spares. The whole host of items we are involved in almost every part of the supply chain and we're able to plan for our customers and DHL plays into each one of these pieces.

So I'm going to come back to that in a bit but let me ask you the larger question which we touched upon which is that as DHL you believe that growth will continue despite everything.

See for example if you see the India trade atlas report which came out about 10 days back growth has only increased growth will increase from where it is yeah so it fell in the last five years you know 2.7 to 2 and it's expected to go to 3.

So the outlook current uncertainty makes you feel that things might slow down but the reality is things will catch up and things will improve is what the growth says and there's millions of data point crunching is giving this forecast invariably the forecast is usually right and so therefore we will see a step up in growth.

The report also points out something very interesting which says that in the middle of all the tariffs if somebody is worried that the growth will go away and sort of recession will happen globally that's not going to happen and the growth might marginally slow down but there will still be growth yeah which I think is a very positive statement.

But what's the underlying assumption here if you were to just look at it through an Indian lens that so at the most underlying assumption is that people will continue to consume goods which are not found in their country.

There are some interesting evidence which also says where the room for international trade it says it talks about in some parts about how much of the consumption in a country or a geography is manufactured within the geography and how much of it is coming from outside.

That proportion has not changed significantly and it is changing in favour of coming from outside and that ratio is still 70-30 or 80-20 I think in the report and it shows that there is significant headroom for more items to come from outside and therefore and there is second evidence which is there which is that international trade if you measure the distance the goods are travelling on an average and that kilometre doesn't come down it might be driven by oil it might be driven by commodities.

It's a big rolled-up number but it points in one direction which is saying that if globalisation or global trade is shrinking then the consumption should happen close by but that's not happening all the cats and dogs added together the number still stays and it's still growing which is you're still consuming goods from far off as much as you are consuming earlier.

And the figure that you have is 5000 kilometres which means that a lot of trade is still obviously moving from Asia to..

Sometimes within India, you may get the 3000-kilometre stuff within the U.S. you may get a 5000-kilometre distance but discounting for all that still shows that a large number of countries have to depend on international trade to keep their not just businesses but their society running and therefore that's the foundation for international trade and that's not going away.

And if you were to again think of an industry or one industry or two industries let me go back to mobile phones you know for example India has been trying to reduce its imports of mobile phones but we've not succeeded and it's actually only gone up and mostly from China and leading to other like there's a balance of trade problem as well.

I don't know if it's a problem but there is an imbalance in what typifies or what signifies this in your from your let's say portfolio of products or companies that you work with I mean this shift this the fact that distances are long the fact that they're travelling for longer times and that's not changing.

See that's not saying which basically means that the international trade is here to stay and therefore as a company we need to ensure that our network is tuned into these flows but while this is true the terrain is not the same.

There is a lot of efforts at countries trying to protect their borders in terms of cross-border trade trade barriers are going up there are concerns on security there are consumer concerns about safety and therefore the non-tariff barriers are also going up and as a global service provider we have to be mindful of it and help our customers be aware of these changes and have systems which will help them manoeuvre it seamlessly and therefore they can do their business with peace.

So this is possibly something which keeps us awake because the more we are on top of it we'll be efficient the less efficient we get because of these barriers and our systems are to be recreated it adds cost to us and it makes us less efficient. Therefore we are on top of it all the time keeping customers informed and two running our systems efficiently so that we are an efficient service provider.

If I were to look at the composition so obviously e-commerce itself is a big chunk which has evolved and grown very rapidly in recent years so that's changing or changed even India as a country wants to export more directly through e-commerce when I talk to people like maybe a Flipkart or a wall you know Walmart they all want to export more from India which i guess goes through you so that's changed that's the changing part what is not changing. What are the kinds of products and goods that continue to remain as they were in terms of the way they're flowing from countries to countries?

For example, let's say if China is importing iron ore India exports a large amount of iron ore that perhaps has remained consistent for two decades or more it's not going to change in a hurry because China needs iron ore and we don't have that much consumption here and so that's really my question so in I mean I don't know it is a very simple example in that sense but what is not changing as you look around the globe in terms of what people are importing or exporting.

I think there is something which the basket of commodities which are I call it local competency yeah our resources are available abundantly yeah whole basket of agri commodities in india is not going to go in to come from outside and I am sure the government will want to keep it that way we have because that's what keeps india ticking whole host of minerals will come out of India.

So the real fight is on manufacturing and manufacturing and trading yeah so the trading pressures happen to local manufacturers if your cost position is poorer so therefore the effort is to ensure that how do we become viable in as many categories as possible which can be manufactured in the country and where there is significant demand in the country.

I think the fight is in the manufacturing space there is some fringe fight in the other natural resources but I think that's manageable yeah because the core in India is strong in terms of local resources and that will remain that's not going to go away anywhere so therefore there is a there is a non-changing constant and the pressure and fight is in manufacturing and finding the right value

Got it and let me now go back to the boardroom and you said that there were many occasions which were similar but may and actually may not have had as much advance warning as you have now which is maybe one month but let's say I'm guessing the Red Sea.

See what is the Red Sea crisis for example 10-15 years back we had this ash cloud in Europe suddenly one fine day no flights were flying for the last week only there was a situation in LHR, so the fire and suddenly no flights flying it could have been a disruption if it was a bigger issue and this can happen anytime. We need a network which has to be alert all the time and I think I always say that DHL is a company which is preparing for contingencies all the time.

For even on a normal day if you're giving a shipment to me and it's supposed to there is a plan A for it to go there is always a plan B and there is a plan C and there is a plan D possibly which is if it doesn't go today what will happen tomorrow so, therefore, the network has multiple backup options lined up we face a challenge when everything gets wiped out yeah that's a once in a lifetime but we had a few occasions when they happened and when all those times we possibly were the fastest to come back because we are watching

but are these public events or are these things that we may never may never have known about

Public events all public events war like this or financial crisis or the 9-11, every one of them is disruptive but it is your systems your alertness your flexibility you built in like I said multiple contingency options and I think with to do with cultural want to be up and running all the time and we're back in more time.

So let me come spend a little time on India now and within India so when you talk about being up and running India has some unique situations and I'm talking about natural situations which is for example you have extreme heat and then you have rains continuously and consistently disrupts movement of people goods and we've seen it for example in the south of India we've seen east of India west of India depending on which time of year so at the same time I mean as I can see as a customer i can see that I'm still getting delivery of goods in 24 hours at least in main cities and that's changed because even maybe seven eight years ago sometimes it was taking longer and yeah so if I'm paying for it then it's definitely comes to me and I can see smallest towns in India also being connected much faster so how is how are companies like yours managing the demands of the customer and at the same time all the challenges that you face on including environment that I can think of.

There is a there are two three sides to it one is the infrastructure which you create for yourself. I can think of a situation for example 20 years back when the floods happened in Mumbai. So we used to have a single customer service call centre in Mumbai and in 2005 we had a fire in our building okay we had a fire in our building and our call centre went down and this was a single call centre and we had to be

There was the same year we had the floods

then the floods came yeah first the fire and then the floods yeah so we were completely disrupted we were out for almost 24 hours okay so then we flew about 40 people from Mumbai to Chennai and set up a temporary call centre and moved our people to different DHL other DHL divisional offices and we were up and running in 24 hours but that taught us something then we said okay let's find a disaster recovery site so we formed another site in Chennai we had a few people in Chennai over time we made it 50 50. So we had two floods after that in Mumbai and we handled everything out of Chennai and after we had two floods in Chennai we handled everything out of Mumbai.

So one is to be ready with a disaster response possibility and therefore build flexibility everywhere second also is we have a network of our own and partners a series of partners and India is something which you cannot cover on your own you need to have a series of partners and that builds the kind of flexibility which you need.

Therefore that answers the question which you're asking on any given day, we have a backup available and that backup works almost always and it is made to work because you have a network which is talking to it and there is enough technology and there is the full amount of control and…

And the speed obviously has improved because the roads have improved and you're able to deliver much faster

The progress in the road network is fantastic yeah the Bharatmala or your Golden Quadrilateral and beyond what used to take three to four days is now less than 48 hours and the promise is Delhi Bombay in 12 hours, that will be a game changer.

But we are saying that happened in so let's say bombay pune is significantly but it's bound it's also set to become a two-hour distance Bombay Ahmedabad is already very very good so, therefore, the road network significantly has improved things GST if you ask me is a game changer in terms of removing disruptions and the delays in the whole process.

In and out of the city is still a challenge yeah that's something to be discovered but I think the kind of infrastructure which is being created in Mumbai for maybe five years down the line we'll see a difference.

That's to be watched for but I think the infrastructure is a big change little bit of regulatory changes which have happened have made a huge difference to the quality of movement here but I think we still have a long way to go in terms of improving ease of doing business yeah why do I want that because I think we've always wanted to we've always felt that our logistics cost for our businesses is very high yeah for the economy you know 14% oft-quoted number I don't know how it is calculated but it's very widely quoted and most efficient economies have 5-6-7% china.. even if you want to be below 10 it's a long climb

But the minister of transport has said that he wants to take it to 9% in India

Absolutely I think it's a great answer

Anyway, my question would be how would we do that I mean yeah..

I think there is something which government will do there's something which private businesses should do I think from the government side.

There are some soft things and a hard thing they need to do the soft things are slowly coming into place which is a publication publishing National Logistics Policy is a great step forward when Gati Shakti has an idea to create the right infrastructure and put the right plans on the road map which is fine creation of infrastructure road.

We spoke about airport infrastructure some of them privatised some of them not privatised but still the expansion in capacity is absolutely important and I think more importantly there is a lot of focus on passengers but there should be a focus on trade infrastructure which is the cargo movement.

This will significantly jump with Sagarmala being an interesting example the inland waterways are interesting but more importantly the multi-modal push, Delhi Mumbai corridor kind of a thing all of them are creating capacities because India is a place where you from Mumbai you put a flyover day one it's having traffic jam because it's coming so late and the capacity is getting created.

So now we are catching up maybe five or six years down the line we can think that we'll try sizing for the kind of capacity and expansion which we are looking at but I think we are always running to catch up but there is a need to build infrastructure um there is an off side of policy there is second is infrastructure third I think there is a desperate need to simplify a lot of regulations yeah make it easy to

Give us some examples

For example we are all the big picture income tax act is very good yeah it's very digital faceless first class etc but then, for example, companies still have to do TDS still the act wants us to give physical proof of TDS yeah whereas you can digitally reconcile it now this is a bit like you are in a position where digitalisation has happened but the physical procedures are not going away I think we should slowly migrate into um thinking digital and not just automating a manual process you understand so computerising a manual

This slows down

Significantly it does not necessarily slow down but it is a wasteful act for me I build about 60 000 customers in a month okay and some of them cut 1% TDS some of them cut two percent tds some of them don't cut TDC.

It's a maze for me to know who cut and who did not cut and then after that to collect the evidence that they did direct and they did direct rightly and reconcile it and then make a quarterly return and then match it with what actually should have been paid.

And every year we write off a few crores yeah this is after a few hundred thousand man-hours have been spent on a needle in high stack exercise this is easily avoidable which is one very small simple example and there are hundreds like this yeah I think a clean slate will make life without knowing what you're doing you're just dropping the transaction cost right and

Then this is internal and what about customs and whether inbound or outbound what could be what are one or two things that you would like to see?

We've I think moved three to four times in terms of efficiency yeah the electronic clearances are good for expressing the ECS is our system which works extremely well it's created on a PPP between customs and the industry and it works extremely well and it's very very efficient so and we are now in the process of becoming completely paperless yeah there is a little bit gap in the paperless trade but we will become paperless and that's a significant efficiency which is active capacitation is the problem yeah to manage peaks and to manage the surge which is coming and with the volumes which is coming the physical capacity at the airports the processing capacity at clearance ports is usually a challenge and that's something which is being addressed and we'll see improvement there.

So you're you are for example have a big base in Delhi and most of

We are based in Delhi we're based in Bangalore. We have one in Mumbai we have one in but Delhi is the largest for Delhi and Bangalore are our own terminals Mumbai and Chennai are common user terminals so everybody clears and operates so when you say capacity and expand

Capacity would you say expand at these same places or is it maybe look at new airports or new we are

Expanding and we would like to see the common user terminals expand or maybe get places for us to run a terminal of our own to manage our shipments which is what we are discussing hopefully we'll see something similar in Mumbai similar happen in Chennai in due course we'll have to wait and watch the capacity is for us to one handle shipments seamlessly to you know there is security screening x-rays you know processing capacity and customs clearance manpower needed to clear from the authority side all of them have to match the timelines we promise and seamless flow of goods for what we do is we want to clear shipments while it is in transit that's express yeah yes today we do about 60% of our shipments are cleared on arrival as it comes it doesn't wait it goes so we would like to see this number go to 40 - 50 another 20 30% more you know 80 - 90% the more we clear in air so

Which means okay so even before it's landed here it's already cleared

On pickup, I process the papers and it goes into the system and it's assessed and it's cleared. When the shipment lands it is ready to go it just does the security screening and it's out for delivery so

That's the speed which we want to maintain and this is what you're seeing obviously in other parts of the world.

We are at about 60% here it can be 100% in some ports which are duty-free ports. Let's say Singapore or Dubai or might be 70 80 40 50 20 various patterns are there i think we're not worse of the lot but we can be much better we can have a single window clearance because there are multiple authorities to whom the rest of the 40% go through and that we can get smarter there is a plan on paper and it's under formation

You say multiple authorities would you would you mean

No certain category of shipments will need to get no objections certificate from let's say pharma shipment or a fashion accessory or a wildlife certification whatever for phytosanitary so all of them can happen through one portal rather than go to multiple sites and therefore multiple handling many hands

But these are imports as in B2B

Their imports and similar complications are there for exports also so therefore that process can get streamlined I believe that greater visibility simplification will lead to greater compliance and greater efficiency yeah we're much better than we used to be before but there is some more way to go.

So let me come back to that the boardroom and the ballroom which we started off with what would you tell businesses who are let's say in either import-sensitive or export industries how should they be preparing for a world where logistics is becoming a more and more critical part or rather no actually it was always becoming critical but let's say becoming a little more unpredictable than before.

See I think the core for international trade is to establish supply chain resilience yeah so if you say I want a resilient and flexible supply chain then you need to line up a not dependent on single sourcing option multiple paths to fulfilment of your customer's requirements be on the most efficient path but we have a backup path ready so therefore building options into your network is the smartest way of doing it certain categories are better managed manufactured to scale and or the supply chain can be built in such a way that you're able to nearshore or onshore certain activities of value addition and stay at your source for manufacturing certain corporates that balance need to be built then you'll become highly flexible

If you were to look ahead you know India is part of your GT20 which is a top 20 geography so what does that change or how does that change anything for either your customers or your overall business and how are you looking ahead

See what GT20 tell you GT20 tells us that in the past five to ten years we find that there are 20 countries globally that have shown a great tendency to grow far faster than the rest of the 200 countries we are present in and these 20 countries are not going faster because DHL is doing something different but along with that implicitly those economies are showing the kind of parameters which are preparing them for faster growth longer term.

And you use the word velocity of growth scale and velocity

Speed and scale of growth velocity and scale of growth which is to certain economies are growing faster and certain economies are also growing in scale meaning bringing more to the table because the size of the economy is big for example the report the trade atlas says that between India china and us they will bring 30% of all growth which will come in the next five years they're just three countries and India possibly will bring about 6 or 7% of that which is a huge contribution and that's what is increasing India's contribution to global trade and India is set to grow at about 7% compared to 5% it grew earlier it's an acceleration in their speed of growth and that brings India into the top slot in terms of both scale and both speed.

I think yeah so therefore it essentially tells you that these are countries where the growth needs to be supported and therefore what will happen is we will have what streams which will build infrastructure which will build capability and orientation to support our customer base in the longer term.

The strategy 2030 which talked about GT20 also talks about three or four other factors which are big drivers of growth for us yeah life sciences and health care globally is a fast-growing segment and on which we think that there is a big play for DHL Express, for example, the more complicated medical interventions for patients are coming up in future yeah there is a lot of temperature control logistics there are stem cell related medicines and the higher end the medicines go or the treatments go the supply chain behind them is also that much more sophisticated and complicated.

I think they sell with its partnership with almost any major name globally in the life sciences field I think is in a great position to be able to add value and that's something which we want to build capability and you see here and more about this in the coming days that's true for India that's true for many

And this new energy and life sciences is the next

New energy is the second sector where when we say new energy we're talking about not just solar and wind which are big in India we're also talking about the electric vehicle network yeah which means behind that there's a lot of battery logistic.

I think battery logistics is a world of its own yeah manufacturing of batteries supply chain for batteries storage of batteries then batteries coming into the automobiles battery swapping battery replenishment and then what do you do with expired battery used battery how do you dispose of them how do you store them all of them I think is significant amount of sophistication we are doing we are doing this in many parts of the world and there are many parts of the world where this is in its nascency.

And therefore I think this is an area where we want to play into e-commerce we are already significantly present in e-commerce we think is a global trend which will not go away and it will continue in the next five to ten years it's already 20-25% of our global footprint in terms of business share and that will accelerate and we will have to find more formats and better platforms and greater interfaces for our customers to do trade with us and that plays into the next which is called digital sales.

We want to I think in the future the customer wants to do everything end to end online and even service providers like us should be ready for that kind of situation and should be able to play seamlessly so, therefore, there are a few um forward-looking thoughts and some things are already happening here and which is linked to how the economy globally is shifting.

Tell us a little bit about the business from a sustainability point of course sustainability is embedded into everything but e-commerce also disaggregates which means there are you know more pieces flowing as opposed to let's say single consignments how does how do those two worlds.

At the end of the day what the consumer wants you can you'll have to deliver yeah so business is going somewhere and we'll have to follow them we don't create the template but sustainability is a big issue for us we committed that we'll be a carbon neutral entity in 2050 yeah that's a lofty comment but there are intermediate goals and we have a 2030 goal which talks about what dhl will do and what DHL wants to do with their customers

What do I mean by both what DHL will do relates to our scope 1 and scope 2 yeah and what we want the customers to do relates to scope 3 which we jointly create and the carbon footprint which their shipments emit when they have to be delivered to their different customers.

On scopes 1 and 2 we committed the fact that our network will change to electric and we've committed that by 2030 two-thirds of all our fleet on the ground will be electric.

The second commitment which we made is that every single facility we will create from now on will be a carbon-neutral facility and then or something which is environment friendly and which can become carbon neutral depending on the ecosystem.

We have one or two such facilities already in India the last two facilities we created first of all the gateway we made at the Bangalore airport um is nearly carbon neutral it's LEED certified and the airport became a solar-fed airport and therefore all power became renewable energy and therefore that facility is nearly carbon neutral and therefore that kind of a footprint we want to create that's inside the house.

But the other problem is what we fly in the air and more than 70% of the carbon we as a business emit is in the air the planes flying and that cannot be neutralised without significant action and we've taken a commitment on blending sustainable aviation fuel into our planes and we've made a commitment that 30 percent of all fuel by 2030 will be SAP.

That's easier said than done because that much of SAP is not available as yet not being produced and we've taken a land share of what is being produced and as we speak now in 2024 I think DHL had the highest share of SAP blended into their planes yeah that's a nice statement still 3.2% is still the highest and that much is the difficulty but there is an on cost and that on cost has to be in some form or the other managed with the customer so we've made a product called go green plus.

The Go Green Plus does is that you will get full visibility of what carbon footprint your shipments are emitting and you can choose to neutralise x% it can be 10 or 20 or 30 or 40 or 40% for a premium.

As a customer who's committed to say by 2040 I'll become carbon neutral so you have a 15-year runway to become carbon neutral and one of the areas you need to take care is your scope 3 and this product gives you an initiation into neutralising the scope 3 product.

What I'm very happy is that we launched the product in India about six eight months back we have believe it or not 8 000 plus customers who signed up for a Go Green Plus contract and between 10 to 20 to 30% neutralisation they've taken because they committed to their customers or they are being asked by their importers set of saying that you need to show me a roadmap how we will set off your carbon footprint and therefore it's a win-win for us it's a great step forward for the customer but I'm hopeful that we will hit the deadline earlier than before.

In the interview which you had with Yael Chapman she made a mention about how they're working on SAF manufacturing in the country.

I think India is moving forward right there was an interview you only had with the Indian oil chairman who said that when you go into the petrol pumps today you'll get 15% biofuel right is already blended so yeah these are all game-changing right you don't see it at all you don't realise it.

However, these are significant changes so a government can do this government still has not put any restrictions on the businesses here there are countries where there are structures which need to be complied with by we are present in so many countries. Therefore we are mindful of the barriers everywhere but with our sustainability commitment and the actions you've taken, we are in course to achieve that right.

Last couple of questions so one is you know DHL is a big brand and it's been around starting the US now owned by a German Deutsch Post now what is the biggest competitive advantage that you have and what will it take to keep that advantage going as seen through from an India market perspective.

From the Indian market perspective, I think we were the pioneer so I think starting with so I keep telling my telling my people that we are the pioneer and we are market leader on day one but we are not just a market leader, I think DHL has been a market creator.

This segment in India has been created by the DHL category creation job what do I mean by that I think every time we go to a customer so we're all the time looking at the businesses and supply chains and the manufacturing lines we map it out to say that how can this task which my customer is doing can be done smartly and we're developing solutions which can be done smartly which means that the net delivered cost of doing that task will be better.

It can be better quality for that customer faster to the market faster cycle time for their businesses whatever so, therefore, DHL has brought the express thinking into the country and that is our and we think to express and that's our singular biggest asset and our DNA yeah or our strong point usp of DHL.

Second is that we created the DHL network and the express network in the country yeah we're the first possibly to do a full-fledged express service centres on-site airport gateways 24 by 7 customer service possibly we are still the only player who gives 24 by 7 customer service for our customers the digital tools which are in play almost all of it.

DHL possibly is a pioneer yeah today customers can ship get their bills to understand tariffs and regulations in 200 countries all of them at the press of a button through DHL systems are available my DHL plus my bill my GPS and there are shipping tools available and interfaces available for the customer.

The digitalisation is something we're discovering. What I am very proud of is the work we've done with customs yeah I think we are continuously in conversation with customs for simplification of regulations we played our role as a trade facilitator and a thought leader in terms of what is the smartest way of doing something where customs get the control which they want and the customers get the convenience which they want to be able to do ease of doing. I think this is playing that role extremely well. I think we've shown the way I spoke about being us being the number one employer we've shown the way to the market that in an industry like the courier industry you can be a fantastic employer i think we'll make a difference in we make a difference to the lives of almost 3500 of our employees every day. I'm very proud of the fact that we are a market leader but a quality leader and every aspect of expression I think this is discovering in the country

Through your career and you've been in DHL for a long time now

20 years

20 years so what is there or was there like those one or two occasions where you felt that okay this is how you know our business can change lives or make a difference to life i mean anything that you remember which has sort of left an impression on you and maybe you quote it also.

See what is most inspirational is what DHL does we do something called a disaster response team there's something called DHL go help where there is a global DHL team um what they do is when there is a natural calamity let's say there was an earthquake in Nepal yeah um earthquake has happened the damage has happened now the relief has to happen but usually what happens when there is an earthquake of this type is that the airports gets choked in 12 hours suddenly relief some five six seven eight flights come they offload stuff all over the place and no more flights can come nothing else can move and that happened in Nepal.

DHL has a team that works with the local government and invariably we get invited into some of these countries the go help team flies in and what they do is what DHL can best do which is manage the relief logistics.

In the case of Nepal, our team came in and in less than 12 hours we cleared the runways cleared the port we set up a warehouse where all the relief material can come you keep a full log of what has come in and you take a log of what goes where and streamline the process so that more flights can come in and life can restart this is logistics at its best but in crisis circumstances people forget that there is logistic needed so tsunami in sri lanka there's cyclone in Bangladesh earthquake in Pakistan earthquake in Nepal.

The multiple incidents which happen in Indonesia every now and then Haiti everywhere I think there is a DHL team which flies in and sets up logistics yeah so this is there's no business involved here I think but this is your core competency and you're contributing and we say that our corporate purpose is connecting people and improving lives yeah so what better way than this to deliver your purpose to the society I think I'm proud of the work which we do here.

That's a good note to end on thank you so much for coming to our studio and speaking to us today

Govind I told you I'm a daily consumer of The Core Report and I am really happy that I am here chatting with you today. Today morning session already I've seen. All the best to you.

Thank you so much