DHL

Po Chung is Co-founder of DHL International and the Chairman of The Hong Kong Institute of Service Leadership & Management. Mr. Chung was born in Macao. He graduated from St. Stephen’s College, Stanley in 1963. He obtained a degree in fisheries management from California State University at Humboldt in 1968 and 13 years later he attended the Stanford Executive Program at Stanford University in 1981. He obtained a Master of Fine Art from Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University in 2005. Roger Bowie is former Global Services Director, DHL Express.

Chapter 1: Born Global | 1

The Little Company Which was Seen as Illegal in Every Country | 1

Chapter 2: The 70s | 5

Chapter 3: The Start-up Years | 9

Chapter 4: The Start-up Years: Business Innovation | 13

Door to Door, Desk to Desk | 13

Just Like Taking It There Yourself | 14

Still Expensive, However, for a Start-Up ... | 15

... and Increasingly Complex | 16

So, Try and Keep It Simple | 17

So Simple, Almost Too Good to Be True | 18

Proof was Needed, and So Proof was Provided | 19

With the Airlines as Friends (Albeit Fair-Weather) | 20

Chapter 5: Innovation and Its Broader Impact on Business Dynamics | 23

The Infectious Nature of Speed | 23

Size Doesn’t Matter, Content Does | 24

Keeping It Dense | 25

But Keeping It Simple | 25

And Everyone Sells | 25

Service Is Not Servitude | 26

Creating a Time-Based Value Proposition | 27

Challenging Traditional Work Habits | 27

And in the Spirit of Partnership | 28

Chapter 6: Cultural Dynamics: What was Going on Here? | 29

Against All Odds | 29

Ahead of its Time | 29

It was also the People | 29

An Emerging Company Culture | 33

The Nature of the Business Helped | 33

But it Wasn’t Just the Business | 34



Chapter 7: Barely Legal—Early Regulatory Battles | 35

First, What Kind Of Business Is This? | 36

Ah, You Mean You Carry Mail? | 37

And What About This “Smuggling” Theory? | 41

Airline Schizophrenia | 43

Okay, Understand The Challenges With Post Offices, Customs And Airlines,

But Surely You Were Doing Everything Else By The Book? | 45

Chapter 8: 1970s Vignettes and Bloopers | 47

Strange Bedfellows | 47

Caught Napping | 47

Plenty of Space, and Not So Much | 48

Strange Passengers | 48

Delivery Heroics | 48

It’s Tough Being Ahead of Your Time | 49

Chapter 9: Transition | 53

Taken Off, but Not Yet Landed | 53

A Biological Phenomenon | 54

With Intuitive, Instinctive Leadership | 56

Which Attracted and Inspired | 57

Cowboys with Wing | 58

And an Ounce of Luck | 58

Underpinned by Trust | 59

A Common Language | 59

And the Rule of Common Law | 60

But it was Precarious | 60

Chapter 10: The 80s | 63

Economic and Political Turbulence… | 63

Presaging Fundamental Geopolitical Change | 63

Policed by America | 64

With Asia Awakening | 64

Business Models Must Change | 65

A New Age of Consumerism | 65

And Speed to Market | 66

The End of History? | 67

Perhaps a Hybrid Would be the Answer | 68



Chapter 11: The Walden Years—Structure and process | 69

Nascently Global | 69

But Not Sustainable | 71

Structure to Support a Growth Strategy | 72

With A New Confidence | 73

Coming Out | 74

And Cash is the King | 75

Chapter 12: Business Innovation | 77

Getting it There in No Time at All | 77

Tentative Steps to Expand the Offering | 78

If you can get to the internationally remote places, why not just down

the road? | 80

Europe Overnight | 80

And What About a Second Brand? | 82

Early Computerization | 82

What Aided and Abetted Also Threatened | 83

But Also Provided Opportunity | 84

Building a Brand | 85

Ongoing Geographical Expansion | 86

Less than Door-to-door | 87

Early Steps in Logistics | 88

Answer the Phone, Dammit! | 88

Chapter 13: Business Context—What Was Going on Here? | 91

A New Era of Globalization Begins | 91

What was DHL Carrying? | 93

This was an Outbound Phenomena | 93

The Information Age Beckoned, but Expensively | 95

Airports Grew Up | 95

Strategic Disconnect | 97

Chapter 14: Business Context—Competition Explodes | 99

Competition? (What, Really?) | 99

Finally, Strength Through Numbers | 99

But in Context | 100

Those Pesky Airlines Again | 101

The “Empires” Try to Strike Back | 102

But FedEx Strikes First | 102



And Starts to Force the Pace | 103

The Enemy of My Enemy can be my Friend | 103

Chapter 15: Regulatory Battles | 105

Postal Battles Heat Up | 105

Progress with Customs | 110

Tax, Cashflows and Blocked Funds | 112

The Dutch Sandwich | 113

Chapter 16: Cultural Dynamics | 117

Heroism | 117

It Wasn’t Just the Cowboys | 117

Growing Up | 118

Some Contextual Frameworks | 122

And Perhaps a Modern Example of Another, More Natural Law, is in Play

Here | 124

Change Agents | 124

Pirates of the Caribbean (Never Waste a Good Crisis) | 126

Expat Versus Local | 127

Persistence at Heathrow, with Help from the US | 128

Chapter 17: Anecdotes, Accidents, and Altruism | 131

Excellence Discovered | 131

Going the Extra Mile | 131

Going Many Extra Miles | 132

Making Calls was a Shoe-In | 132

The Green Bags must go Through | 132

Shenanigans in Bahrain | 133

The Future Sometimes Takes Longer | 133

DHL Never Sleeps | 133

Never Fear, DHL is Here | 133

Be Bold, Be Fearless, Be an Upstart | 134

The Worm Turns | 135

Unblocking the Funds | 135

Thank Goodness for Unintended Consequences | 136

Unintended Consequences Version Two | 136

Bill Walden’s Office | 137

Crazy Texans | 138

Negotiations in China | 138

Pat Lupo’s Story: The Most Employee-Motivational Thing We Did | 138



Chapter 18: Adolescence to Adulthood | 141

Mission Almost Accomplished | 141

A New Man in Charge | 141

Bring in the Suits | 143

A Deal Made in Heaven, But | 144

Finally, A Head Office | 145

Organizational Innovation | 146

An Ongoing Emphasis on Data Networks | 146

And a New Sense of Mission | 148

WORLDWIDE MISSION STATEMENT | 149

FedEx Loses a Battle | 150

With the Best Good Will in the World, it Didn’t Work Out | 151

The Ultimate Compliment | 151

Chapter 19: Powers | 153

Chapter 20: From Start-up to Upstart to the Most International Company in the

World | 169

Chapter 21: Epilogue: The 2008–16 Reincarnation | 173

Market Growth | 173

A Much and Long Desired Prize Becomes the Bogeyman | 174

Somebody Press the Reset Button, Quickly | 175

Focus, Connect, Grow: Pressing the button | 176

We Have a Strategic Plan: It’s Called Doing Things | 178

Ubiquity | 180

Motivated People: The CIS story | 180

Discipline, Process and the Power of Routine | 182

Great Leadership | 184

Ubiquity again | 184

Results are the only True Sign of Excellence | 185

Going Global, Staying the Course: The Powers Revisited | 185

Focus, discipline and routine | 188

Synthesis | 188

Renewal | 189

Index | 191