Question

What are some of the challenges Deutsche Post DHL may face as it sekks to implement the new tool word-wide? How do these challenges change the job of the local marketing managers? Answer should be at least 150 Words.

eutsche Post DHL is the result of the acquisition n 2004 and 2006, with a new wave planned every five years of DHL, a courier company that originated in California or so for updating purposes and expanded into extensive international operations, by Deutsche Post, the heir of the government-run postal op- building a tool to support local managers in allocating their erator in Germany. As a result of this and a series of major marketing resources, proceeded in five stages. Fir acquisitions between 2000 and 2005, the Deutsche Post quential choice model outlined above was overimposed on DHL a complex portfolio of several regional and specialist brands. ing stages the DHL brand was particularly strong and in As the company focused - logistics business, creating a strong and unique global ect of course, is to move as many?ustomers as possible to brand became an important aspect of that transition. As many the last stage: DHL as their "choice of sole vier." This of its customers also operate on a global scale, the develop first analysis also compared DHL to a benchmark compet ment of a strong DHL brand was key. In 2002, DHL began tor with the most market share in the particular market an ambitious brand-building effort that would ultimately under examination. The results were very revealing. In the transtorm the entire organization The analysis of these data, which ultimately led to group found itself as the umbrella organization owning the data to better understand in which of the five purchas more and more on the international which it was not. The overall objective of the entire proj U.K. market, for example, DHL had an advantage over TNT Many marketers consider brand management to be more art than science. Indeed, creativity figures prom in the percentage of customers who both knew the brand and considered it part of the relevant set of alterna nently in brand management courses and articles. Al- tive service providers-a 10 percent advantage. By the timc though it is certainly important, there is also room for customers reached the "ain provider" stage, the tables more fact-based approaches that can shed some lighton ad turned and the 10 percent advantage become a 7 per the kind of questions faced by DHL. Convinced of this, Dr. Klaus Zumwinkel, then chief executive officer of cent disadvantage compared to TNT These results were fed into the second stage of the Deutsche Post DHL, intiated a projeet under the us process to understand how much of that gap could be pices of the department of corporate brand management closed by improving the brand. In this step, specific brand that brought together market research, academic experts ttributes of both DHL and TNT were compared across tages of the customer choice process to understand in - which attributes and stages the differences in branding ef forts could be responsible for the problems observed in the The brand-building effort took place in stages spanning customer conversion process. This analysis identifies which years of work and research. Underlying the entire project is specific attributes may need to be targeted, and what could be the increases in revenue derived from those efforts-on in the purchasing process that represent different stages of the assumption that if the most relevant attributes at each consumer development. For the particular case of DHL, stage were improved beyond those of TNT (or any other those stages were identified as brand awareness, brand con competitor), increased sales would follow. The key in this sideration, brand usage, choice of main provider, and step of the process is that not all brand attributes appear to choice of sole provider. This theoretical model is based on be equally valuable. Stages three and four further refined a hierarchical approach to decision making; for example, a these results by employing mathematical models and opti- customer must first be aware of a brand or product in order mization algorithms to derive optimal weights for each to ludge it. To evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the specific combination of brand attribute and stage. Using a DHL brand across these different stages, large random simple visualization tool based on the relevance for pur- samples of customers in each country were interviewed, an- chase of each attribute and how well DHL fared against its swering questions about DHL as it compares to the other competitors, a matrix mapping all these for both DHL and sul ts se tool to help implement the answers across DHL's world wide operations the notion that customers progress through a series of steps major providers (e.g., FedEx, UPS, TNT, or any major local TNT along these two axes highlighted where DHL should brand). These data were collected worldwide in two waves focus in the future

Answer 1

The new tool developed by Deutsche Post DHL is to support the optimal allocation of local marketing resources across media and activities.

The challenges that Deutsche Post DHL may face as it seeks to implement the new tool word-wide are:

• Cultural factors – The new tool might not be immediately accepted in other countries which uses the traditional methods or even have aversion towards any new concept. The new media and activities are largely dependent on the brand attributes and customer perception of the target country.
• Value of brand attributes- The value of brand attributes is extremely difficult to quantify in different countries.
• Skill –the skill-set required to develop such a new tool required strategic and analytical thinking. In order to implement this new tool across the globe requires marketer’s critical thinking in applying the concept to the different brands and its attributes in different countries.
• Legal factors – involve the limitations on the media and activities on marketers. The use of language, visual aids, etc have regulations that a marketer should follow.