Zimpapers Logo

Harare Bureau
GLOBAL courier service group, DHL, is investing billions of dollars into technology with prospects high for Zimbabwean students and budding innovators to tap into the group as it pushes for technology driven growth.

This is in line with trends of bringing convenient services to customers through technological innovations. The group’s growth strategy also dovetails with Zimbabwe’s overall agenda of leveraging economic growth through technology and modernisation of the country’s industry.

DHL head of innovation Middle East and Africa, Irina Albanese, told Zimbabwean students and other stakeholders that the group was looking at maintaining trends to keep it closer to its market with technology playing a key part.

In line with this, innovators from the country’s tertiary education stand a chance to be a part of the DHL group locally and across more than 200 countries in which it operates.

This extends to start ups with the group having invested $30 billion into logistics start-ups since 2012 with 2 976 logistics start-ups active today globally.

“DHL is investing billions into technology and therefore looking at young engineers, data analytics and innovators.

“We want to stay close to our customers, so we are saying what innovations can we bring to them to enhance service delivery.

“Innovation is part of our company DNA, our strategy 2025 outlines digitisation is the next S-curve after globalisation and e-commerce,” she said during a DHL global volunteer day, online training — logistics unmasked, which was hosted by Global Renaissance Investments (GRI) to showcase opportunities for Zimbabwean students in the logistics sector.

DHL released a latest Trends Radar, which reflects on the newest and likeliest coming technological trends that have and will impact the industry in years to come.

According to the report: “The defining business trend of recent years has been the emergence of a new generation of giant technology platforms, which can count their users in the billions. US players such as Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft as well as China’s Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent, have become central to the lives of many citizens.

“Their offerings, based largely on free access, social connectivity and almost limitless volumes of informative and entertaining content, have dramatically changed the way people use and appreciate technology.”

The DHL report further highlights that attitudes towards technology carry over from personal life into business, setting the expectations of executives and IT decision makers in business-to-business activity. The group also acknowledged some technologies can disrupt the logistics sector.

Ms Albanese said although Covid-19 pandemic had been a huge challenge across the globe, the same has presented opportunities for the group enabling it to optimise on the available resources, skills and innovations to provide service to the market and remain relevant as a market leader.

DHL Zimbabwe country manager, Shuvai Mugadza, said while some projects were shelved due to Covid-19, the company managed to solidify its position on the market as it was among the first companies to be allowed to operate during the initial three weeks of the national lockdown. The Covid-19 challenge allowed the company to up its game to remain relevant. The group has also opened its doors to local university students as part of efforts to demystify the logistics industry, highlight opportunities for growth and contribution to economic development.