NAME: Saad Sohail

ID NUMBER: 2007-01-74-8135

CONTROL NO:

MAJOR FIELD: MKT

COMPANY WHERE INTERNSHIP WAS SERVED: DHL Global Forwarding Company

DURATION: From 15th June, 2010 to 26th July, 2010

REPORT BASED ON :( Tick) Option 1 _ _________

Option 2 __________

DUE DATE OF THE REPORT: 10th August, 2010

(2 weeks after the successful completion of internship)

REPORT SUBMITTED ON:

18th August 2010

Internship Report 2010

TABLE OF CONTENTS

FUNCTIONS OF THE MARKETING AND SALES DEPARTMENT.........................3 CORPORATE GOALS OF DHL......................................................................6 LINKING FUNCTIONS WITH THE CORPORATE GOALS....................................7 THE WORK I DID IN THE DEPARTMENT.......................................................8 ROTATION IN THREE MAJOR OTHER DEPARTMENTS /PRODUCTS OF DHL GLOBAL FORWARDING.......8 WORKED ON SALES DEPARTMENTS METASHIP SOFTWARE...................................................10 HANDLED CUSTOMER QUERY......................................................................................... 10 VISITED DHL WAREHOUSES.......................................................................................... 11 PREPARING CONSOLIDATED OUTSTANDING INVOICES REPORT................................................12 HANDLING A LCL SHIPMENT PROJECT..............................................................................12 CASE HISTORY........................................................................................13 A.STATING THE ISSUE:................................................................................................. 13 B.SCOPE OF THE INQUIRY: ...........................................................................................14 C.DATA PRESENTATION / ANALYSIS:...............................................................................15 D.CONCLUSION:.......................................................................................................... 21

Department: Marketing and Sales (M&S)

Supervisors Name: Mr. Wamiq Nazar

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Designation: Director Commercial

Duration: 15th June 2010 to 26th July 2010

FUNCTIONS OF THE MARKETING AND SALES DEPARTMENT

Some of the main functions of the Marketing and Sales department are: Customer Touch Business Negotiation Business Contract Booking Handling Customer Services Accounts receivable management Business Relationship Management

Customer Touch: This is one of the major functions of marketing and sales department from where their operations mainly start. Marketing and sales team is responsible to keep in touch with the active and non active customers both. Sales person looks for the prospects (importers and exporters) through different channels. Then they go for the selection process that is which prospects to target. After the selection is finalized they contact them by

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several means in order to identify their needs and requirements. And finally under this function they offer their services and rates at the customers end.

Business Negotiation: This function of the department starts after the services and rates have been offered to the customers and they provide feedback to marketing and sales department. Each and every member of marketing and sales team inevitably requires this tool of negotiation at any cost. As with this tool they conclude deals and contracts with the customers. And DHL doesnt believe in loosing even a single potential customer at any cost.

Business Contract: After a successful negotiation phase marketing and sales team concludes contracts that are the legal bindings between DHL and their customers. These contracts includes all the mutual agreements that takes place like rates, service agreements, credit limits and so on and so forth. It varies from customer to customer, some require shipment to shipment dealings and some require extended period contracts. Contracts are mainly the requirement of multinationals that are service conscious and not rate conscious. Contracts can be on monthly, quarterly or yearly basis.

Booking Handling: Once the business deal has been finalized, there is a consensus on the rates and services level. Customer places booking to our sales and support team, which is communicated to the operations to book the cargo with the carrier (it can be an airline or a shipping line as per the requirement). Once the operation gives us the feedback and the booking is finalized, the confirmation is sent to the customer from the sales support people. And the customer is also timely updated if any variation in the schedule takes place.

Customer Services: This function again holds immense importance and is also regarded as sales support. It ensures that all the customer requirements should be met with precision and to make sure that IOP (Internal operating Procedures) and SOP (Standard operating procedures) are both religiously followed. IOP is within the organization so is between the sales support team

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and the operations department in DHL. Whereas SOP is between departments sales support team and the Customer. These operating procedures are followed in order to provide their customers with the best, as customers are considered as one of the biggest assets holding the pillars of DHL.

Accounts Receivables: In this function sales department needs to make sure that all the payments received from the customers are received within agreed credit days allowed to the customer. This is all done to have a closely monitored Accounts receivable management. For this purpose a weekly meeting is held between finance and sales department to update the outstanding invoices status to the finance department. Business relationship management: Sales and marketing teams ultimate goal is to retain the customer that is already on board. But they always try to explore more and more opportunities. They can explore it horizontally or vertically with the existing customers. Horizontal: If existing customer is dealing in ocean freight from china to Karachi, so horizontal expansion would be that they do more ocean freight deals from other countries to Karachi as well. Vertical: Here if customer is doing ocean freight dealing so after expansion they deal in air freight business as well.

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Corporate Goals of DHL

The success story of DHL organization can easily be portrayed from their goal of making their customers, employees and investors more successful. DHL ultimately aims at becoming the first choice for its customers, employees, and investors. That means, whenever a customer thinks of getting services of a forwarding company , or an employee thinks of getting into a successful organization or an investor thinks of a profitable organization to invest in DHL should be the first thing in their mind. The focus of First Choice is putting customers first. DHL has developed processes to help them better understand the needs of their customers and they have implemented measures to increase and improve the level of customer focus within the company. Here are some of the most significant benefits for the companys customers: High-quality processes and services geared toward customers' real needs Simplified and streamlined services and improved customer interfacing, making communication and cooperation with the customer easier A holistic and systematic approach to solving and rectifying servicerelated problems/shortcomings Tangible and quantifiable service improvements with added value for the customer and the customer's business An enhanced customer experience that builds trust and strengthens customer loyalty

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The goal of First Choice is to become the "first choice" for the companys customers worldwide. DHL wants to make its customers' lives easier, and in order to do this, Deutsche Post DHL must provide top-notch service in all segments of its business.

Linking Functions With The Corporate Goals.

All the major functions discussed above from customer touch i.e. the starting point of reaching a customer, till the function of business relationship management where sales team explores new opportunities with the customer on board. All of these work in becoming the provider of choice that is when a customer thinks of a forwarding company, DHL should be the name in their mind. This is made possible due to the sales departments continuous efforts of customizing innovative solutions that meet their customers needs and move their business. Marketing and sales department believes in seeing through the eyes of their customers and look for ways to simplify their lives. Therefore, all these efforts pave the way for a major objective of provider of choice to be achieved.

Then for the employer of choice, DHL believe employees are the internal customers and they should be well motivated to perform at their maximum potential when dealing with the external customers (which is the main job of marketing and sales team.) To adopt this in practice DHL origin office sends a DENSALEZ report weekly to all the regional offices. It summarizes the performance of all sales persons, telling if theyve reached the target given to them according to the KPI (key performance indicators) and then are given incentives accordingly. All these practices make potential employees keen to work in DHLs professional environment and thus making it the employer of choice.

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For the objective of being an investment of choice, they build in trust in the investors about DHL capabilities of managing investors money most efficiently. In sales department, the function of efficient Account receivables management and extensive negotiating skills of their sales team makes the corporate objective of being investment of choice achievable.

The Work I Did In The Department.

Rotation in three major other departments /products of DHL global forwarding.

These departments represent the products of DHL that it offers to its customers. I had to spend 2 days each department in order to get an insight of the products and services it offers. This was due to the fact that being part of marketing and sales department, I couldnt market or sale the products unless I knew them. My department provided me with the questions I had to inquire from each department I was rotated to. The departments I was rotated to were:

1. Air freight (Exports and Imports) headed by Mr. Wahid Khan. The concepts I cleared in the air freight department were: -Complete process flow of air freight operations -Documentation required at every stage of the operations -Difference between gross weight and chargeable weight -Types of aircrafts

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-Airlines in Pakistan -Consolidation / deconsolidation (bulking / break bulking)

2. Ocean freight (Exports / Imports) headed by Mr. Zain Abbas -The concepts I cleared in the ocean freight department were: -Complete process of sea freight export/import shipments -LCL/FCL shipments -Calculating volume of shipments -Types of containers

3. Customs and Duties Zone (Exports/ Imports) headed by Mr. Ovais Amir -The concepts I cleared in the ocean freight department were: -Complete custom clearance process for imports/exports. -GD (goods declaration) filing -Invoicing

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Worked on Sales departments Metaship software.

This is a contract management network for sea freight rates. Here all the countries regional offices do contracts (submit their rates) to the DHL origin office, Singapore. Then offices in all countries refer to these metaship rates to give selling rates to their customers. I got a chance to work on this Metaship, taking out rates for the customer queries assigned to me. Customer asks for rates for all the desired ports available, for e.g. a customer in UAE asks rates for UAE to Karachi port, UAE to port Qasim. And then the customer chooses the best rates and the destination they require.

Handled Customer Query.

After studying the tree major products (departments) of DHL global forwarding, I was assigned a task to entertain customer queries that came online in our marketing and sales department. The queries came in from our origin office or directly received by our sales representatives. I was suppose to go through the queries, look for the all the details/requirements of the customer for their particular shipment. And to make sure that the mandatory details arent missing or we are not able to work on an incomplete query. Then using the details we confirm the rates to be given to the customer from the origin office, where they see if terms and conditions are appropriate and

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the profit margin is adequate to. After this we finally quote the rates to the customer.

Visited DHL warehouses.

Apart from freight forwarding services DHL even provides very professional warehousing services to some of the major companies in Pakistan. Following are the brief details of warehouse experience:

Ericson warehouse Mr Wali Uddin (warehouse manager) Here two main projects are handled C.M Pak Zong and Warid telecom. Ericson is DHLs customer and these two are Ericsons customers so their materials are kept as well. Here efficient inventory system, customized services and 100% accuracy are the requirements of the customer.

Unilever Warehouse Mr. Sikandar Ali (Warehouse Management) There is proper WMS i.e. warehouse management system where whatever coming in from all the factories of Unilever is very systematically assembled in the warehouse.

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There is transport department where arranging transport to all the distributors on daily basis is handled. There is a WM300 system used for locating where goods are kept.

Preparing consolidated outstanding invoices report.

Its the accumulation of whole months invoices of a particular customer. This is done to make sure that no invoices are missed and due payments are received on time. This is done for the ease of the customer aswell.

Handling a LCL shipment project.

DHL planned to launch a LCL (less than container load) box services to Germany. Here they planned to target all those customers who dint have full container load shipment but required less than container load i.e. box services. Here the initial task was to do the product design and determine the target market. For product design it was required to come up with rates that are to be offered to the customers, and then the cargo consolidation details were to be finalized. Cargo Consolidation refers to different shippers bringing in their goods; after goods being checked and measured all are packed in separate boxes but stored within a single container. Now the main challenge was to determine the target market. I was provided with some raw database containing list of potential customers who engaged in LCL shipments on regular basis. I firstly had to identify the potential customers according to their locations i.e. Karachi, Sialkot, Lahore, Islamabad and so on. This was a

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tedious task, where customers were identified using Google website and a special directory software containing details of major exporters/importers in Pakistan. Major constraint was faced for a newly formed company which wasnt available in the directory because of it being a bit obsolete. Now the next step was to contact the customers, where I was suppose to give some general details of the LCL shipment for e.g. date the shipment will be released and what minimum weight a shipper must have. Then after I sensed that the customer is interested in the shipment, I handed over the customer to any sales person available in the office. Then that sales person had the task to give the further information to the customer and try and end up with a deal using their negotiation skills.

CASE HISTORY
A. Stating the issue:
DHL global forwarding company Pakistan had no proper marketing department till MAY 2010. Being a multinational this issue of having no proper marketing operations might sound weird but its a fact. The department as its name suggests is divided in two major fields Marketing and sales. Now DHL dealing in logistics industry is considered to be a B2B i.e. business to business company and not a B2C i.e. business to Consumer Company. Because of this fact following is the division of the operations level of both the fields in the department:

MARKETING AND SALES DEPARTMENT

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MARKETING (20%)

SALES (80%)
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The above division shows the low level of marketing operations that must have been taking place in the company. And this was no doubt due to lack of need otherwise DHL compromises over nothing as it aims to be the first choice of it customers at the end of the day. Being a B2B company and moreover a market leader in the logistics industry, there was hardly any need to reach out other businesses that are actually DHLs customers.

But there came about circumstances where a proper marketing department became inevitable. Currently DHL Company is in its growth stage, where its products are growing, its market share is growing and also its customers are growing on day to day basis. At such a critical stage it becomes the need of the hour to have proper marketing department to do proper branding, PR (public relations) and advertising.

B. Scope of the inquiry:

1. Head of Marketing and Sales department: Mr. Wamiq Nazar Being the head of department and serving in the Marketing & Sales department of DHL for years he was the right person to start with. He gave me the whole insight that how marketing was just a negligible part in the department where as they mainly concentrated to excel in the sales are. The whole process of assessing the need for a proper department and then what steps were taken to come up with one were discussed.

2. Assistant Manager Marketing communications: Mr. Talha Jamal

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He is a MBA (marketing) from our institute of Business Management. He joined DHL as a management trainee and served in several different departments to know about the detailed operations of the company. He was appointed as the Assistant Manager Marketing Communications to look after the operations of the newly formed marketing department. He was a major source of information for how the DHL organization was growing with the help of the marketing department. 3. Published Materials: DHL monthly newsletter This was a major source of detailed information about the activities marketing department was going through. Most of the data in the data analysis part is from this source. It provided with exact quotes that were relevant for this case discussion.

C. Data Presentation / Analysis:

In this part of case discussion Ill be talking about the steps that were made to overcome the prevailing problem of no proper marketing department in the organization. First of all after the need for a proper marketing department was assessed, some professionals were required to run a department. Now for this purpose internal hiring was a better choice, as an internal employee would have known more about the operations of the company than a new comer. Only a single person but a very capable was internally hired to manage the operations of the newly formed department in May 2010. It has been few months only and the marketing department is working way efficiently and taking DHL global forwarding closer to even greater heights of success. Up till now the department has been involved in areas like CSR activities, PR, and advertising DHL global forwarding on large scale. Efforts made in all of these areas are briefly discussed below.

CSR (Corporate social responsibility) Activity

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This was the first major attempt that the marketing department made to make DHL global forwarding more visible in the market. DHL worlds leading logistics company celebrated Worlds Environment Day on June 27 th 2010, with employees of DHL global forwarding Pakistan Ltd. engaging in an extensive clean-up of sea view beach early this morning (at 10:00 am).

Imran Shaikh, Managing Director of DHL Global Forwarding Pakistan Ltd. said, Corporate responsibility is a core element of DHLs corporate strategy, implemented through the program GoGreen (which focuses on environment protection), This means as a company we act responsibly in the way we treat our environment we work with while striving for business success at the same time.

Aligned with the commitment to GoGreen, the employees of DHL Global Forwarding Pakistan helped to clean up the beach of Karachi, even the public came forward asking if they could lend a hand. This is how DHL decided to hold a beach clean up to commemorate World Environment Day this year. It also gave karachites who were keen to contribute a chance to undertake beach cleaning with DHL employees in an organized and fruitful manner. This way DHL was seen as a very environment friendly organization by the people around and helped DHL receive a lot of positive exposure in public.

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PR (Public Relations) Activity

Public Relation is a field concerned with maintaining public image for high profile people, commercial business and organization, non-profit associations and programs. DHL Global Forwarding Pakistan recently made such effort of PR activities, where they used the method of associating itself with high profile personality. For this DHL invited Naseem Hameed, the fastest woman of Asia to a special event which was specially arranged in her honor held on August 6th 2010.

DHL the worlds leading Logistics Company invited Pakistans overwhelmed athlete Naseem Hameed the fastest Woman of Asia to a special event which was specially arranged in her honor August 6 th, 2010 at 4:00 pm. at Head Office, Karachi.

The managing Director, Imran sheikh praised the athlete and said that, Ms. Naseem Hameed symbolizes a great motivational force who has overcome all

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possible hurdles to first become the flag bearer for Pakistan at an international level and then achieve her goal of being the best in her field. After which Ms. Naseem addressed the attendees and and shared her journey, of struggle and persistent hardwork, till the time of her achievement, with the management and employees of the company to further boost their morale and efficiency. Mr. Imran sheikh, MD, then presented her the Best Athlete of 2010 award.

This special event constituted a part of the companys ongoing endeavors to further improve its performance by motivating its employees. The company was proud to hold a track record of being a role model in the industry. This strategy was premised on the belief that employees play a crucial role in the efforts to transform the business, setting the standards of excellence for any industry and this event by DHL commemorated them all for their efforts and hard work for the same.

At the event DHL even made an association with the fast speed of the athlete, Naseem Hameed and that of DHL Global Freight Forwarding services. It was no doubt a remarkable portrayal of the professional services that DHL provide, giving its customers the picture that their freight gets handled in the most efficient way by DHL. It even gave a boost to the motivation of the employees, giving them sense of achievement for being associated with such an organization. Conclusively this PR activity helped in building rapport with the employees, customers, investors and even the general public.

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Advertising DHL Global Forwarding

One of the other major efforts recently made in the marketing department includes the decision to advertise DHL Global Forwarding in the DAWN newspaper, one of the leading newspapers in Pakistan. This was finalized in June and came into effect from last month July 2010. The idea was to put to put up latest offers that DHL Global Forwarding Pakistan has at its end. And the first press marketing was done for the launch of new direct LCL (Less than Container Load) service from Karachi to Hamburg, Germany. Operated by Danmar Lines, DHLs in-house carrier, the new service was to facilitate trade between Pakistan and the Germany and intend to offer customers reliable and cost-effective services with transit time of 21 days from Pakistan.

Together with the LCL program details, views of some of the organizations heads about the new service were there in the press, in order to attract customers and giving them more confidence about the newly launched program. An Extract from the Dawn paper was as follows:

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The launch of this new service will not only further strengthen supply chain of Pakistan-Germany trade lane but it will also augment strong worldwide connectivity offered by DHLs extensive LCL network and also help our customers to reach new markets worldwide, said by Imran Shaikh, Managing Director, DHL Global Forwarding, Pakistan.

As one of the largest Ocean Freight service providers for Full Container Load (FCL) and Less-than-Container Load (LCL) shipments, it is continuously growing by capturing more and more markets for both kinds of shipments it offers. The press release was a success, reaching the target market became easier. This is because Dawn newspaper is a very effective medium for businesses to reach out in market on large scale.

Internal Branding:

This is a very major step taken by marketing department of DHL Global Forwarding Pakistan. Here all the upcountry offices (Lahore, Sialkot, and Islamabad) were visited by the senior executive marketing communications Mr. Talha Jamal for the internal branding.

Internal branding actually refers to linking your corporate brand to your culture and values- thereby creating an internal brand an organization creates a platform from which to communicate to your employees the vision, mission and urgency. Internal branding helps improve credibility and strengths the bond of trust between leader and employees. When people are united in purpose and know where they are headed, positive results occur.

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With the same aim in mind DHL believes that this initiative will guide employees company-wide in managing their personal impact on customer experience. Internal branding will engage all executives and employees effectively in outside-in thinking and behaviors.

D.Conclusion:
DHL Global Forwarding Pakistan, one of the leading freight forwarding company in the world initially didnt face any problems for not having proper marketing operations. This was due to the fact of being B2B in nature i.e. Business to Business. But now when its going through its growth stage, where its customers, products, market share everythings increasing so it needed some real attention towards the planning for its marketing operations as well. Moreover the fact of getting and maintain a competitive edge over its competitors also led the starting of some efficient marketing operations.

In the analysis part of the report all the major efforts made by DHL within 2-3 months short span of time are commendable. This gives a clear picture that DHL used a proper strategy to implement a new department on full operational scale. From the identification of the need of a marketing

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department, to the right time to starting the department, to the appointing of an appropriate executive to run its operations, all were very well planned and put into action.

The activities that it undertook to promote DHL at different levels played an important role in building DHLs brand awareness and at the same time building its brand equity. The CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility), PR (Public relations), Press marketing, Internal branding all shows the efficient working of the newly formed marketing department in a very short span of time. And the difference of DHL Global Forwarding Pakistans performance prior and after the formation of the marketing department is already evident.

Recommendations:

Hiring of more personnel in the marketing department as currently just one manager is handling all the operations of the marketing department. Take customer feedback as they are the best people who can help DHL in making it even better. A survey can be taken to know what people think of DHL and what should be done to improve it. Hire some experts who have sound knowledge and expertise in the field of advertising so that they can guide how and where the company should be advertised.

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Suggestions from the existing employees can be taken as to how the company should move on its advertising campaign. They can be of great help as know better how the company should be marketed.

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