Dwain McDonald

Author: mike

  • Ryanair isn’t the problem. It’s a symptom of something bigger.

    Ryanair isn’t the problem. It’s a symptom of something bigger.

    My recent flight home from Tenerife with Ryanair left me wondering: when did customer experience in the UK fall so far?

    I’m not talking about gourmet meals or luxury lounges. I’m talking about the basics: A smile when you board, a seat that doesn’t feel like a punishment, or a hot drink that doesn’t cost more than it does at a five-star hotel.

    Instead, what I experienced was staff who looked like they’d rather be anywhere else, passengers treated like an inconvenience, and a culture that felt devoid of care or connection.

    Now, I get it. It’s a budget airline. But it wasn’t even a cheap flight. And more importantly, it reminded me of something I care deeply about.

    Customer experience.

    During my time as CEO of DPD UK and now as a Strategic Advisor, I’ve seen firsthand that putting the customer first isn’t just a slogan. It’s the reason we succeeded. We built a culture where service mattered, gave customers real control, and invested in our people because happy teams deliver better service.

    This Ryanair trip felt like the opposite of that. And it’s not just them. Across so many UK industries now, from retail to transport to public services, there’s a worrying trend. We’re cutting costs at the expense of care. Stripping out everything that makes an experience feel human.

    And we’re getting used to it.  We shouldn’t be.

    Customers are not just data points. They’re people. And when you treat people like they don’t matter, eventually, they start looking elsewhere.

    So this post isn’t really about Ryanair. It’s about something bigger. A quiet erosion of standards. A race to the bottom.

    I believe we can do better. I believe we must do better.

    If you’re a business leader, ask yourself: when was the last time you experienced your own product or service like a customer would? Felt the pain points, faced the silence, or sat in the waiting room.

    If the answer is never, then you’ve lost connection with the people who keep your business alive.

    We talk a lot about innovation in the UK. Maybe the biggest innovation we need is a return to care.

    Let’s talk. What’s the best or worst customer experience you’ve had recently?

    Have we let standards slip too far?



  • Behind the Chain podcast

    Behind the Chain podcast

    I recently joined Joey Luttrull on the Behind the Chain podcast to reflect on a few chapters from my career and some of the lessons I’ve picked up along the way.

    We talked about:
    •⁠ ⁠Stepping into the CEO role at DPD UK during the 2008 financial crash
    •⁠ ⁠Why technology and customer experience became the backbone of our strategy
    •⁠ ⁠The importance of clarity, culture, and incentives in building strong teams
    •⁠ ⁠What the UK can learn from the speed and mindset of global players in China and Australia
    •⁠ ⁠And my current work supporting businesses internationally through digital and strategic growth

    We also touched on some of the things that keep me energised today, such as supporting the next generation through community initiatives and sharing lessons with students, schools, and future leaders.

    Joey asked great questions, it was a proper conversation, not just business headlines.

    See the podcast  – Click here

     

  • Getting Brexit-ready: the lessons learned at DPD

    Getting Brexit-ready: the lessons learned at DPD

    For the last 48 years, it was as easy to ship a parcel from Birmingham to Berlin as from Birmingham to Bolton. Not any more. This all changed six weeks ago, following the UK’s withdrawal from the EU Single Market and Customs Union.

    DPD had started to get ready for Brexit in June 2016. Still, nothing could have prepared the team for the reality of the first day trying to send vehicles across The Channel into mainland Europe.

    As both the company and its customers grappled with new rules and new IT platforms to tackle customs clearance, it meant that 20% of parcels had incorrect or incomplete data and had to be held in our network (a figure that dropped to 5%).

    Next, delays and congestion hit at UK ports. Within days, the backlog in the system meant a pause in road services to the EU and Ireland for the first time in living memory. Not a decision taken lightly, given that the company was part of DPD Group’s massive European road network connecting 900 sites across 30 countries.

    Brexit – a bigger mountain to climb than Covid

    In fact, if you’d asked me last June whether anything could be as challenging as adapting to Covid-19, I’d have said “No”.

    I was wrong.

    Getting Brexit-ready was by far the most challenging thing the team had ever done to keep our £300m international business on the road.

    there had been an investment of nearly £14m in the previous two years getting ready. That included recruiting almost 300 additional people – mainly to handle customs clearance – plus a massive spend on warehousing space and IT systems.

    There was also a  knock-on effect across numerous departments, from Sales to Customer Care to Finance and beyond.

    To make sure the company made joined-up decisions, there was a project team of 20 people who met every morning and afternoon to discuss issues, pool ideas and create solutions for DPD’s customers.

    As I have discussed previously, when massive change hits your business, you find out what your people are made of. Team DPD stood at 22,000 strong (9,000 more than this time last year), and during 2020 I lost count of how many times I asked all of them to “dig deep and go again”.

    I felt humbled by the incredible resilience DPD employees showed when faced with the double-whammy of Covid and Brexit. They displayed enormous grit and determination to keep going on a path where there were no shortcuts.

    Do you speak Brexit?

    It’s also been fascinating to see how different customers have reacted to the new trading environment, and there were three distinct groups:

    1. Customers who started making thorough preparations months ago and were ready for the extra bureaucracy now required. And as a result, they have barely missed a beat.
    2. A group of customers who decided to ‘wait and see’ before making significant changes.
    3. A segment which put Brexit in the ‘too hard pile’ and/or decided that the cost of being Brexit-ready outweighed the potential benefits.

     

    Re Option 3, of course, it may have been tempting to hide under a rock in the face of seismic changes and hope that you’ll never need an EORI (Economic Operator Registration and Identification) number, that signing up to the GVMS (Goods Vehicle Movement Service) is not a thing and that the words Movement Reference Number (MRN) will never pass your lips. You might also have been tempted to ignore the NCTS (Newly Computerised Transit System). It’s fair to say that Brexit brought with it a whole blizzard of new acronyms!

    In short, getting Brexit-ready was like learning a whole new language. While everyone will be more fluent a year from now, the odd stutter, miscommunication and faux pas during the early stages were to be expected.

    The DPD approach to Brexit was similar to the approach adopted to tackle Covid: focus on what’s most important and on what can be changed, and accept what’s outside the company’s control.

    And that would be my advice to companies in options 2 and 3 above. If you’re still in the ‘wait and see’ group, now is the time to get back on the horse.

    If you still feel reluctant, remember that, as a wise leader once said, ‘you don’t have to enjoy everything you want to do’. At DPD, the systems were in place, and they have worked well with the NCTS. From 1973 to 2020 trading with our European cousins was a breeze. But, as we discover in times of adversity, only the headwinds make you stronger, so I remained confident that by continuing to work closely with our cherished customers, DPD could achieve this target.

  • DPD’s 25-25-25 vision for a greener economy

    DPD’s 25-25-25 vision for a greener economy

    DPD’s former CEO Dwain McDonald on the opportunity for a green recovery.

    It’s not every day that a company changes a successful and long-standing strategy. And while I was CEO at DPD UK, it’s not something I would have undertaken lightly. But after ten years of sticking to the same formula, that’s exactly what DPD did in January 2020. Since 2010, the 1-2-3 strategy had determined every decision taken in the boardroom and beyond, propelling the company from no.4 to no.1 in the market:

    1. Deliver the best service money can buy,
    2. Use the best technology available,
    3. Recruit, retain and develop the most customer-centric people.

    But nearly a year ago, we developed a crucial new fourth element: ‘Be the UK’s Leader in Sustainable Delivery’, and launched a comprehensive and dedicated website to engage as many other stakeholders as possible.

    The change in strategy followed DPD’s first major steps in a ‘green adventure’ – opening the UK’s first two all-electric depots in London in 2018. Since then the company moved rapidly through the gears on a journey towards decarbonisation.

    This year, a massive 20% of £100m investment into new vehicles was spent on electric vehicles. 561 EVs have been added to the fleet since the start of 2020, resulting in more than 700 at 74 depots nationwide, which means that 10% of all volumes are now delivered totally emission-free. So, this year DPD should save 5,000 tonnes of CO2 versus 2019 – that’s the equivalent of planting 20,000 trees.

    In short, CO2 emitted per parcel became as important to DPD as the right-first-time delivery rates.

    Building back better

    It felt like our new strategic direction was very in tune with the times. Thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, people took time to stop and think about how we can all deliver a more sustainable future. There has been much talk in both national and international politics of ‘building back better’, of a ‘green industrial revolution’ and of ‘creating a climate-resilient, zero-carbon economy’.

    There’s a saying in the Far East that the definition of the word ‘crisis’ is ‘an opportunity riding a dangerous wind’… so perhaps the single biggest opportunity presented by Covid-19 has been the chance to take a step back and reflect on what kind of planet we want to leave behind for our children and their children?

    We’re already seen huge enthusiasm for emission-free parcel delivery. Customers have absolutely loved it – shippers and shoppers alike. Companies switched to using DPD purely because the company was going green.

    And this year I lost count of how many consumers took to social media to shout about their driver turning up in a quiet, clean and green DPD vehicle rather than the diesel vans that all parcel carriers have been using for decades.

    25-25-25 Vision

    DPD moved faster than anyone else in the sector towards decarbonisation. The company is on track to deliver over 10 million parcels emission-free by the end of 2020, up from just one million in 2019. There is a page on the DPD Green website that shows live stats of  emissions performance, including the following KPIs:

    1. Number of EVs on the road today (637);
    2. Parcels delivered YTD emission-free (nearly 7 million);
    3. YTD CO2 savings (over 3,000 tonnes) – the equivalent of planting 12,000 trees*

    (*figures correct as of September 2020)

    This page has also been popular with the 70,000 unique visitors who visited the site since January. If you think these figures are impressive, the 25-25-25 vision is to deliver 100m parcels a year (which will be 25% of all volumes) on all-electric vehicles in 25 UK cities by 2025.

    The government needs to do more, more quickly

    We hit many unexpected bumps in the road on our journey to zero emissions. Bureaucratic red tape and outdated legislation caused moments of genuine frustration. For example, getting permission to run The Paxster – an innovative EV from Norway – on the streets of London, or planning permission to use city-centre sites as electric micro-depots.

    I raised these issues in a meeting with the Prime Minister last December and also asked him to encourage manufacturers to make more EVs at more affordable prices and to invest much more quickly in rolling out nationwide charging infrastructure.

    DPD was also a major sponsor of the highly respected Low Carbon Vehicle Partner Annual Conference on 15 July where the keynote speaker was Grant Shapps, Secretary of State for Transport. As a result, the company started to work with the Department for Transport and other key experts on a project to decarbonise transport. The government wants to ‘eliminate greenhouse gas emissions from every stage of the whole transport system’ and DPD is on a mission to help make that happen as quickly as possible.

    Innovation when the stakes are high

    Pivoting a company in a new direction means taking risks. It means taking a chance on new and emerging technology. It means challenging old structures and ways of doing things. It means making sure your people are on board.

    A new strategic direction to be the UK’s most sustainable carrier saw DPD taking several innovative steps forwards:

    • The first operator to begin trials of the new VN5 Electric Van manufactured in Coventry by LEVC – famous for building London’s black cabs;
    • DPD was also the first operator to begin trials of the Volta – the world’s first purpose-built full-electric 16-tonne delivery vehicle;
    • The company developed its own zero emissions electric-assist cargo bike, the EAV P1, in collaboration with an Oxfordshire company whose background is in Formula 1;
    • £52,300 was invested in EV home chargers for DPD drivers (supported by the Government’s OLEV grant scheme);
    • Through our innovative Eco-Fund, we’ve donated £140,000 this year from the sale of recycled shrink wrap and pallets to environmental good causes – mainly to support primary schools.

     

    I’d like to think that the company made a great start. But when it comes to the environment, the stakes could not be higher and to achieve the 25-25-25 Vision will require ever greater levels of imagination, teamwork and tenacity.

    To find out more visit the company’s dedicated information website DPD Green and the Green DPD Blog for the latest in green and sustainable thought leadership.

  • Let’s plan early for the November rush

    Let’s plan early for the November rush

    Former DPD UK CEO Dwain McDonald explains the upsides of having a ‘Cyber Fortnight’

    I had just finished taking part in a virtual ‘This is Us’ event – the welcome event held every six weeks for the hundreds of new starters joining Team DPD. During my session, I talked a lot about the company’s six core values: Honesty, Accountability, Flexibility, Passion, Hard Work and Respect. 

    These aren’t just nice words on a wall, they define what the company stands for and what the team cares about. They’re the qualities desired when recruiting new people and they describe the attitude you need to have a long career with with the company. In short, the 6 values are DPD’s DNA.

    During the event, a new starter said: “Can you give me an example of how you bring the DNA to life?” In this post, I wanted to answer that question by sharing with you just how much these six values matter to the whole team. Not only in terms of how everyone worked together internally, but also in the way the company communicated with customers during these extraordinary times to prepare for a monster Cyber Weekend and Christmas.

    Flexing up for Peak – why it’s time to plan for the November rush 

    We only had 74 working days until the start of Cyber Weekend on Black Friday (27 November). This annual four-day retail extravaganza marks the start of the holiday season and sees Brits spending an estimated £7billion in a bid to bag a bargain for Christmas. 

    Last year more than 75% of these purchases were made online for delivery to home addresses by DPD and its competitors, and this year, because of the pandemic, I had expected that figure to rise even higher. That’s why DPD predicted carrying 400,000 more parcels on Cyber Tuesday than on the same night last year.

    74 days might have seemed a long way off but the truth is that we had been planning for Cyber Weekend since January and fine-tuning plans with customers since May – this is partly how we held ourselves accountable. 

    Because of a surge in online shopping caused by lockdown, we had 9,000 delivery drivers – 3,000 more than the previous year and we worked hard to recruit another 3,000 before October. the company had also recruited 500 new managers, spent £100m on new vehicles plus another £60m to open 12 new depots and a further £40m on technology.

    Despite this unprecedented investment, our Honesty value meant we had reminded retailers that the UK parcels sector still did not the have infinite next-day capacity in the November-December Peak. 

    That’s why I urged all our customers to plan ahead as far as possible and resist the temptation to leave their logistics until the last minute or to hope that Christmas would save their year.

    We had never experienced Christmas in a pandemic year (well not that I can remember) and so any kind of ‘copy-paste-repeat’ approach from 2019 simply would not have worked in 2020. For a start, we had delivered the kinds of volumes in August that we usually didn’t see until November. 

    And you just couldn’t put all your 2020 eggs in a 4-day (or even a 4-week) basket, cross your fingers and hope for the best in terms of on-time delivery and customer experience.

    Why? Because for DPD, 2020’s Cyber Weekend was already a more finely tuned operation than ever before. 

    Two years ago, in order to ensure we could deliver the best doorstep experience, we had asked customers to make volume forecasts three months in advance – and then stick to them. The vast majority were supportive, appreciated our Honesty, and realised it was the best way to give their own customers a reliable service.

    Next level planning

    This year, because of the pandemic, the company decided to take planning to the next level. 

    So for example, when we discussed forecasts with customers, instead of just saying ‘you can send me 10,000 parcels on Cyber Monday’, we now said: ‘We can deliver to your customers on time as long as you can send me 6,000 parcels before 7pm. Of these, we need to receive 3,000 between 11am and 3pm. Then we can handle the final 4,000 after 7pm.”

    In order to meet retailers halfway, we were flexible and rejigged our operations so that delivery drivers went out in waves, with the first wave hitting the road at 7am.

    Again the more forward-thinking retailers loved our Honesty and saw the whole Cyber project as a partnership based on Respect, where each party aimed for a win-win by sticking to their side of the bargain. We believed this was an accountable approach to the challenge we faced together.

    Of course, forecasts can and do change. And thanks to our Intelligent Operations Centre (real-time ‘mission control’ for Peak…) we were still able to offer Flexibility. 

    For example, if ‘Customer A’ decided they needed less volume than forecast on a given day, the spare sortation capacity could be switched immediately to ‘Customer B’ – who had just requested more of our resource, perhaps because a promotion had gone better than expected.  

    Facebook fans and the final mile

    We know that many of our customers on the doorstep really value the relationship they have with their local DPD Driver. In fact, dozens of them set up Facebook ‘fan pages’ dedicated to the drivers who deliver to their homes. 

    I’d like to think that this is because we recruited and retained people who showed a genuine Passion for the DPD brand. But in these challenging times, DPD drivers also had to be super-flexible: I asked 2,000 of them to switch to a different route and often a different depot from their usual one. This is because 22% of our postcodes were moved from one site to another this year to handle the impact of COVID-19 and better manage the ‘fall to earth’ – i.e. the areas that received the highest volumes during Peak.

    Can we have a ‘Cyber Fortnight’ please?

    One of my more forward-looking friends recently asked me what I wanted for Christmas. I replied that I’d like a Cyber Fortnight instead of a Cyber Weekend. 

    The team is passionate about giving customers a super-consistent performance across the whole of Peak so it would be great if retailers could ‘flatten the curve’ – by going early with their discounts and spreading them over two weeks instead of four days. 

    By working together to set customer expectations and move volume a little earlier and a little later than normal,  then we could keep everyone happy.

    Delivering a Dazzling Peak

    Back to the ‘new starters’ event. The question I was asked by a new member of DPD, plus the whole experience of preparing for Peak since the outbreak of COVID-19 made me think long and hard about discussions with customers and all our other stakeholders. 

    So in summary:

    • We were 74 days from our biggest ever Peak, and knew it would be Hard Work!
    • Flexibility of our team was more crucial than ever before
    • It’s a crucial part of DPD’s DNA to set expectations and then be accountable
    • We had the Passion to go the extra mile and get it right for the customer
    • We must respect each other and treat people how we would like to be treated ourselves
    • Honesty is absolutely paramount: providing we shared information and worked together on the common goal of delighting the consumer then it could be a win-win for everyone

     

     

  • Working from home – way more popular than expected

    Working from home – way more popular than expected

    While I was CEO of DPD UK, one of my biggest concerns when lockdown started was whether back-office employees would adapt successfully to working from home. At DPD there were 1,700 people in a wide range of functions such as Finance, Admin, Operations, Sales, Customer Care and IT. Would their performance or productivity drop? How could managers lead and inspire their people from a distance? Would communication and teamwork suffer? How would people handle domestic distractions?

    As I write this post nearly four months down the line, 1,450 managers and employees have given us their answers to these questions, in one of the most important people surveys we had ever conducted. And I must admit I was surprised by the results. Not only by the fact that over 90% completed the survey (our highest ever response rate), but also because a massive 80% said that they’d be more than happy to continue working from home in the future.

    We carried out the survey so that the team could help us shape office life in ‘the new normal’ and it looks like half of our office-based staff would, given the option, have chosen to continue working two to three days a week from home once lockdown restrictions had been lifted.

     

    The business benefits of working from home

    The survey responses did of course mention some downsides, including ‘lack of interaction’, ‘finding it difficult to switch off’, and mental wellbeing. These responses were factored into our thinking and in early July the leadership team learned far more about mental wellbeing from a leading expert before cascading a programme to more than 200 frontline operational managers.

    Back to the survey: a quarter of managers said there were no negatives at all about working from home, with a huge proportion citing benefits such as:

    • No commute
    • Flexibility
    • Reduced costs (fuel and food)
    • Better for the environment
    • Spending more time with family.

    Meanwhile, the service provided to customers by a dedicated DPD team on the front line was better than it’s ever been, despite the record-breaking volumes we were carrying, so concerns about a dip in performance were unfounded. We also saved nearly £60,000 per week on business travel and meetings and I definitely didn’t want to go back to spending that much every week!

     

    Investing for the future

    So, although day to day operational issues were a big challenge three months ago, we realised that we didn’t all need to be in the same office to tackle and overcome them. Likewise, despite having to run board meetings via conference call, our strategic discussions were probably more focused than they had been before.

    In fact, we have still been making very big decisions from our home offices, such as deciding to spend £100m on extra vehicles, £60m on new premises and £40m on new equipment and technology. This £200m investment from now until November 2020 should ensure the handling of our biggest ever pre-Christmas peak. DPD was expecting to carry 1.9m parcels on Cyber Tuesday, that’s a massive 300,000 more than on the same night last year, so as well as more vans and depots, we needed an extra 4,000 drivers and 500 shift managers by December!

    And looking further ahead, I was also keen to increase our graduate intake, so in 2020 I hoped to recruit 70 of the brightest minds from university – twice as many as in 2019.

     

    No more ‘copy, paste, repeat’

    So, what’s the moral of the tale? Despite DPD’s reputation for disruptive technology and innovation, the culture of the parcels sector was, in many ways, quite traditional. And the whole working from home experiment made me realise that it’s all too easy to fall into a ‘copy-paste-repeat’ style of management. And that means we haven’t always seen a better way of doing things – until we had to.

    By thinking we have to go to the office every day, we’ve carried on doing what we’ve always done since leaving school and what many of our parents did before us – go to work 9 to 5 from Monday to Friday. That was the DPD way for as long as I can remember. This corporate ‘sausage machine’ is what we were used to and of course changing the habits of a lifetime could feel uncomfortable at first. But I think we are coming to the conclusion: ‘If we have found a better, smarter and cheaper way of doing things, why go back to the old way?’

     

    Rewriting the rules of work

    The current pandemic gave us a huge opportunity to challenge old assumptions, to rip up the traditional landscape and to ‘rewrite the rules’ of work. So, I asked my people and talent team to take a fresh look at our terms and conditions and to think much more holistically about the package we have previously offered. To look beyond the traditional benefits – salary, car, pension, etc., and to reflect on what benefits are most important to people in the post-COVID-19 world.

    One of the directors said to me the other day: “I’m performing better now because I’m having a lie-in till 06.45 and am at my desk by 7:30am instead of being stuck in the morning commute. And I’m healthier too because I’m out cycling at 6pm instead of fighting my way home through the evening traffic. What’s not to love about that?”

    But again, not everyone will agree. Because around ten percent of DPD employees, for all sorts of personal and professional reasons, were chomping at the bit to get back to office life. For some, it’s a case of valuing the camaraderie of colleagues even more than they’d realised. So where possible, once we begin a phased return to DPD premises, we will do what we can to prioritise their return to familiar surroundings.

    And perhaps that’s the real moral of the tale. Just as different customers have valued different elements of DPD’s service proposition, different employees will value different aspects of their working lives. For some, the office banter will be well worth the daily commute, while for others the flexibility of working from home will trump even the best office routine.

    Thanks to an award-winning app, DPD offers home shoppers more choice than any other carrier about where and when they receive their parcel. Perhaps it’s time to give our employees as much choice about where and when they do the jobs that we pay them to perform.

     

  • The Retail Bounce-Back: Preparing for a Post-Pandemic World

    The Retail Bounce-Back: Preparing for a Post-Pandemic World

    During my time as CEO at DPD UK,  and as UK plc was gradually emerging from lockdown, I asked our retailer customers how they were preparing for life in a post-pandemic world. How much of the old normal will their customers go back to?

    How much trust was there in the consumer journey – both in-store and online? And of the new buying behaviours triggered by the pandemic, which ones would be temporary, and which were here to stay?

    One of the most striking comments came from the Head of Logistics for a major fashion retailer who said to me: “I can’t imagine a million people will be walking through the doors of the Trafford Centre this November.”

    “People visit stores for an experience, not just a transaction, but how are they going to feel if they can’t use the toilet, can’t try on clothes and have to walk one way around the store? And who knows, they might even have to pass a temperature test before being let into the car park.”

    Another commented: “People will still go to supermarkets for food, but who wants to risk infection for the sake of a non-essential shopping trip, when they can buy online from the safety of their own homes and then get a non-contact delivery?” Meanwhile, figures from a DPD customer whose stores have re-opened in Asia show that footfall is only 40% of what it was before, whereas their online traffic remains super buoyant.

     

    New consumer behaviour

    Obviously DPD wanted the UK high street to survive and thrive again, not least because deliveries to store were a major proportion of pre-COVID B2B volumes.

    The company hoped to see a string of innovations that made the in-store experience as engaging, safe and convenient as possible. But the fact is that during the last three months there has been a step change in the move to online shopping and a huge surge in B2C traffic – several commentators have said that e-commerce leapt forwards four years in just three months.

    Perhaps the most dramatic stat, is that according to research consultancy Retail Economics, 45% of consumers bought something online for the first time that they’d only ever bought in-store before.

    DPD data reflected the same story, because since the start of lockdown the company delivered to 500,000 addresses for the first time ever. Downloads of the DPD App – where individuals can manage their delivery preferences – grew 28% quicker than before lockdown, reaching a total of 7.3 million users.

     

    The new online and mobile shoppers

    There was definitely a segment of new ‘silver surfers’ who because of lockdown, became more tech-savvy, overcoming reservations about e-commerce transactions to buy essentials such as food and health supplements.

    But here’s the thing, they’ve then realised that clothes, craft and leisure items were also available to buy with a simple swipe or a click of the mouse and they will arrive safely the next day on their doorstep. In a similar vein, online shoppers who previously bought only fashion and leisure items were now using websites to buy essentials as well.

    Is the massive weekly food shop a thing of the past? It looks that way at the moment, as consumers made shorter and more frequent supermarket visits, supplemented by deliveries from subscription services such as Mindful Chef and Hello Fresh – all of whom ship with DPD, sending 300,000 parcels per week with the company.

    It looks like people who used to buy six or seven days worth of food from the supermarket have replaced around a third of this with food subscription services. And if they’ve relished the new experience, why would they go back to the old way of doing things?

     

    Preparing for a post-pandemic world – planning for the Christmas peak

    Understandably, throughout the current crisis, retailers were very focused on immediate challenges and on getting through the next day or week. But to maximise their chances of bouncing back post-pandemic, we have encouraged them to plan further ahead.

    I wouldn’t normally mention Christmas to customers in the middle of June, but this year it would be irresponsible not to. Why start preparing for the post-pandemic world early? Quite simply because the UK parcels sector will not have limitless next-day capacity in the November-December peak.

    To help maintain retailers’ margins, parcel carriers have learned to run very lean operations in the UK’s ‘just in time’ supply chain. And although recruiting extra drivers and adding new vehicles is easy enough, carriers can’t magic up extra hubs and depots overnight.

    Normally we would have asked customers to nail down their festive volume forecasts by the end of September. But as I write this on Wednesday 10 June, there are just 122 working days until Black Friday (27 November). That has focused minds on planning further ahead than usual. If forecasts are locked and loaded by the end of July, customers can be sure of having enough space in the DPD network.

     

    Trust – an invisible but crucial commodity

    None of us knows how retail will look a year from now, but one thing is certain: whether people return to the high street or stick with online, trust in the consumer journey will be the most crucial factor.

    Trust is the invisible commodity that we all depend on. It’s only because new silver surfers are learning to trust the online experience – from browsing to ordering to delivery (not to mention returns) – that they’ve now become repeat customers.

    Meanwhile, in-store, a whole load of other factors will affect trust levels. For example, because of contamination fears, people will probably feel much less comfortable about trying on and buying shoes in a confined space than about buying plumbing materials from a big DIY store.

    However things pan out post-pandemic, DPD will have to monitor retail trends and buying behaviour both at home and abroad.

  • Towards a new normal – how COVID-19 made us think differently

    Towards a new normal – how COVID-19 made us think differently

    I spoke to several CEOs during May 2020 and it’s safe to say that none were prepared for the challenges of grappling with a global pandemic. Sure, there were business continuity plans and experts who carried out regular risk assessments but dealing with an overnight economic lockdown is not something they teach you at business school. So by the end of this crisis, the new normal will probably look very different to what went before.

    How the Coronavirus pandemic impacted different industries

    The impact in different sectors was stark, with clear winners and losers. Divorce lawyers were apparently inundated with new enquiries, whereas the long-term prospects for karaoke bars looked somewhat less promising. At DPD B2B volumes halved – virtually from one week to the next. Simultaneously B2C doubled overnight – and because we led the UK market in home deliveries, this produced the kind of volumes that are normally only seen in the six-week pre-Christmas peak.

    Customers shopping online rather than on the high street meant we delivered more food, flowers, nail varnish, eyelashes and loungewear than ever before! In fact, Easter volumes were double those of last year. And incidentally, Coronavirus did nothing to put the brakes on the company’s mission to become the UK’s most sustainable carrier. This year we’ve already delivered 2.2 million parcels on all-electric vehicles and the target for Cyber Tuesday (1 December) is to deliver an incredible 70,000 parcels on EVs.

    The new normal and attracting the best talent

    The parcels sector is known for attracting resourceful people who can think on their feet, but in the last two months the business had to become more agile, flexible and innovative than ever before.

    For example, it took some pretty nimble footwork to recruit 500 new drivers in the last month, with another 500 in the pipeline by the end of June, ensuring that they’re trained to deliver the top-quality doorstep experience that DPD customers pay for. And given that we now expect the 2020 peak to be 40% bigger than last year, I found myself asking my Property team to find ten additional sites by the start of November, making a total of 15 new depots by the end of 2020. Oh, and a further 3,000 new drivers by then as well.

    It’s in this kind of crisis that you find out what your people are really made of. Resilience – how well you adapt in the face of adversity – is what will separate the winners from the losers as we navigate these uncharted waters and adapt to the new normal. So, the approach at DPD was to focus on what’s most important and on what we can change, while accepting what’s outside our control.

    The upside of government restrictions is, that while remaining physically remote from each other we had to find new ways of working together. And guess what, some of them are probably here to stay.

    Necessity is the mother of invention

    This old saying has never felt more true than it does today. And there’s something really exciting about questioning the status quo and finding new ways of doing things. For example, I held daily one to two-hour conference calls with the whole Senior Management Team, so that we could discuss the nitty-gritty of running the business. This extra communication brought us closer together and we became more productive and focused than ever.

    But the biggest benefit is that each director invited some of their people to these virtual meetings. That meant much faster cascading of decisions to the rest of the team at the coalface and much quicker execution of the operational changes we needed to make. And of course it also gave some up and coming senior managers direct exposure to the C-suite.

    The plan for the new normal is to extend this format to our annual Strategic Board meeting, which normally sees 17 of us gathering in a hotel to discuss crucial business decisions for three days. That’s the way our previous two CEOs did it and when I took over in 2008, I carried on doing it the same way, thinking ‘if it ain’t broke, why fix it?’

    But the truth is that three such intense eight-hour days in a row became an endurance test and it’s fair to say that if you were the last presenter on Day three, you probably didn’t get everyone’s full and undivided attention!

    With the physical boardroom off-limits, the Coronavirus pandemic gave us the opportunity to look at this meeting with fresh eyes. This year we will still do three days in a row, but in highly focused and disciplined two-hour chunks, for a total of just four hours a day. Each director will have their say, but they’ll only present for 20 minutes at a time and we will draw names out of a hat to decide who goes next, keeping everyone on their toes and fully focused.

    Time to think

    In some ways the parcels sector can be quite traditional. But another myth proven to be untrue is the one that said people are less productive working from home. It’s simply not true, though I have to admit that I was one of the sceptics when the People and Talent Director said: “1,700 of our 13,000 people won’t be coming to the office tomorrow.”

    But what we discovered is that the quality and quantity of work is just as high and, in some cases, higher than before. It’s an outdated attitude to think that everyone must be at their desk all day every day – and be seen to be there.

    It has always been fully ingrained in DPD’s DNA to be a fast-paced culture, often moving at lightning speed to make things happen for our customers. But loads of people are enjoying the fact that they’re running around a bit less now. Less time stuck in rush hour traffic jams, less pollution, less time away from the family on business…, in short we’ve discovered that less is more and that some of our old habits are past their sell-by-date.

    For example, I suddenly had much more thinking time than before the pandemic – and I’ve realised that my diary doesn’t have to be crammed with appointments from 08:30 to 18:30 every day. That was just another outdated habit from old-world conditioning that tells you that this is the way to behave.

    In short, there’s been a lot of talk about ‘returning to normal’ and at the start of this crisis, I must admit that the question of how to do that at DPD was at the top of my mind. But what I have learned is that this pandemic has given business leaders the opportunity to take a step back, take a much-needed breath and then consciously decide which bits of the ‘old normal’ are, at the end of the day, really worth keeping.

  • Green delivery and why it really matters today

    Green delivery and why it really matters today

    During my time as CEO of DPD UK, I learned that one of the great things about leading a brilliant company is everyone’s commitment to the constant pursuit of innovation. Particularly when it came to innovations that helped us to be more environmentally friendly, socially conscious and sustainable. And we really led the way on all things ‘green’, including green delivery.

    In 2020, DPD UK announced a bold ambition to become the greenest delivery company on this planet. And launched a great new DPD Green website to share everything the company was doing in this area, to get people, schools and businesses involved too.

    Of course, this was just before the whole world was hit with one of the biggest challenges we’ve ever faced – COVID-19. While DPD and businesses around the world have risen to this challenge, it’s still important to maintain momentum on green delivery. A side effect of the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting global lockdowns is that pollution and greenhouse gas emissions levels have dropped dramatically. It could lead to longer-lasting falls in emissions, but inevitably as we return to ‘normality’ and people start to move freely again, levels will rise.

    Which is why the green agenda, and for our business, green delivery, will matter more than ever.

    How DPD UK led the way on green delivery

    While we all worked hard to ensure we looked after everyone at this unprecedented time, the company was also transforming every aspect of its operations.

    This included investing in electric vehicles (EVs), creating new urban delivery models through city centre micro-depots, and investing in creative ways to improve waste and energy management.

    And the reason why I’m sharing this story in my blog, and am so passionate about it, is because I believe that it is everyone’s responsibility to ‘think green’. We should all be contributing to green solutions – every business, corporate entity, person, politician and government.

    One of the biggest challenges facing delivery companies is to reduce both traffic congestion and emissions, particularly in urban areas. And to balance it with the constantly growing demand from customers for online deliveries.

    Here’s what DPD did and the benefits.

    • Building the largest all-electric delivery fleet in the UK

    In 2019, DPD added 139 electric vehicles (EVs) to its fleet. In January 2020, the company ordered 300 new electric e-NV200 vans from Nissan, which will be running by May. In February 2020 100 eTGE 3.5t right-hand drive EVs  were ordered from MAN Truck & Bus UK, which will be on the road by June 2020. By the end of the year, at least 10% of the fleet will be clean, green and emission-free.

     

    Electric vans - DPD UK

     

    • Creating electric micro-depots in cities across the country

    We wanted to make emission-free deliveries in cities. By creating all-electric micro-depots close to customers in urban areas, delivery is faster, quieter and more sustainable. The first all-electric micro-depot in the country was opened by DPD UK in Westminster in 2018 and the second in Shoreditch in 2019. The company is building on this with a network across central London.

     

     

    • Massively reducing plastic content in our packaging

    All plastic packaging is now made from 80% reclaimed material and is 100% recyclable.

    • Raising cash for charities while recycling customers’ unwanted clothing

    Trialling a pioneering clothing recycling system with a customer – ASOS. This was due to launch in April 2020 but now will launch when COVID-19 lockdown restrictions have been lifted.

    • Offering funding to schools, start-ups and educational establishments through the DPD Eco Fund

    Cash is raised via various company initiatives, and this goes into an Eco Fund to help schools, start-ups and more. Anyone can apply for funding, and the company is particularly interested in supporting schools, colleges and educational facilities across the country. This year, the Eco Fund has £140,000 to give to applicants. There is more information about it on the DPD Green site.

    • Avoiding landfill and reducing waste

    No DPD waste goes to landfill. That’s 100% of DPD UK waste being disposed of sustainably and responsibly.

    • Generating electricity through solar power

    Energy management is key, and the company only buys electricity from renewable sources. Two hubs run solely on solar power during the day. The network now uses LED lighting, which has reduced usage by 61%.

    • And… DPD got inventive

    The company joined forces with an Oxfordshire start-up to invent an emission-free city centre delivery vehicle, the EAV P1 cargo bike.

    DPD understands that green issues are important both to retail and delivery customers. Our partner companies are just as invested in reducing emissions and their carbon footprint, and this teamwork leads to fascinating initiatives that are driving the right behaviours across the board.

    We have asked people to share their green ideas with us so we can do some amazing things and get even better. The DPD Green site is the place where you will find plenty of ‘green inspiration’ for your business, or home, too.

  • Responding to the COVID-19 Crisis; Dwain McDonald

    Responding to the COVID-19 Crisis; Dwain McDonald

     COVID-19 crisis and response

    All around the world, countries and businesses are facing enormous challenges due to the COVID-19 crisis. At DPD we have risen to this daily challenge – to ensure services continue, the team is safe and essential deliveries reach residents across the UK.

    COVID-19 was by far the biggest challenge I’ve ever had to face as a business leader, and I know this is the same for many more CEOs. People expect us to make informed decisions, keep all our stakeholders safe and maintain the high standards that they pay for.

    Communication is the biggest tool during this crisis. I have had daily calls with all my teams; planning and evaluating following government guidance.

    We have also kept our customers and people fully up to date with changes with regular email bulletins.

     

    Keeping employees and communities we serve safe

    My job was to focus on what’s most important to our customers, and the wellbeing of my teams. Delivery drivers are now on the front line delivering an important service: keeping goods, essential supplies and medical equipment flowing. That’s their job – and it was my job during my time as CEO to keep them safe.

    We brought in social distancing for all staff including changes to our sortation, loading and unloading processes. We launched a ‘wave delivery programme’, spacing out drivers’ start times to ensure fewer people were on site at any one time. And, despite all the disruption, our services ran normally with a success rate of 99.9% for first time delivery.

    The team spirit was fantastic. Behind the scenes other changes have included moving all office-based teams to home working. IT teams built and supplied around 700 new laptops to support this.

    The entire delivery service became totally contact-free, meaning that people no longer need to sign for parcels on handheld devices or even open their door.

    By adapting current systems, the company was still able to offer customer choice and ensure we complied with social distancing guidelines. People could either use the app to record their preferences, select the Leave Safe option under their in-flight tracking or leave a note on their door with instructions where to leave their parcel.

     

    Staying true to our Values

    Strong leadership means staying steadfast in the face of adversity and that means staying true to what you believe in, rather than panicking and falling into short-term thinking and decision-making. That’s why, despite all the operational changes the company stayed true to its distinctive DNA. The DPD culture is built on six core Values: Respect, Passion, Hard Work, Accountability, Flexibility and Honesty. The company rewards and recognises employees who demonstrate these Values and believe me, in the midst of this unprecedented crisis, the team’s behaviour was truly inspirational, in fact my biggest challenge post-Corona could well be finding a way to truly celebrate what they’ve achieved in these unprecedented times.

     

    Supporting the nation

    As CEO during this difficult time, the buck stopped with me. With my leadership team, I prioritised our people, our customers and the wider community, and implemented swift changes. People expect fast but considered decisions from leaders, and it is by taking these steps that we can reassure staff, customers and members of the public who come into contact with delivery drivers.

    In addition to making sure the core business was running smoothly with minimal disruption, we also thought about other ways we can support the nation during this disruptive time. It’s about innovation and using our resources in a different way.

    The company worked with the NHS and the Government to deliver medical supplies to adult care homes, pharmacies, hospitals, GP surgeries and hospices. So far, this has included 6.7 million protective gloves, 10.3 million safety masks and 5.2 million aprons. We also promised to support free collection and delivery of 3D printed additional PPE equipment around the country.

    Every year, DPD delivers millions of parcels for food retail outlets, and we have extended this to directly partner with Morrisons and support them in “feeding the nation” by getting essential supplies to the public. The retailer produced two different offerings, one box for meat eaters and one for vegetarians. DPD was proud to be the official delivery partner as part of this scheme.

    Moving forward I’ll continue to listen to the team every day and ensure they are as safe as possible. They will remain my number one priority and their efforts will allow us to support customers’ changing needs and the country as best we can.

    Keep safe and look after yourselves.