1. Describe the various services provided by logistics service providers. What is the role of these services in focal firms’ value-chain activities?

2. Supply-chain management has evolved over time, largely due to globalization and technological advances. What does the future hold? Can you anticipate changes to the supply chain that would further alter the express and logistics industry?

3. What factors do focal firms consider when choosing one logistics service provider over another? In what ways do the global logistical and transportation needs of focal firms vary from one industry to another? Give some examples.

4. Given the importance of the U.S. market in the global express industry, should DHL reconsider its decision to withdraw from this segment? Lacking a significant presence in the United States, what should DHL management do to grow the firm and improve earnings?

5. What strategies should facilitator companies such as DHL, UPS, and FedEx implement during an economic recession? What steps can they take to ensure their survival, while remaining prepared for the upsurge of new business once the economy improves? Have they overlooked the fast-growing emerging markets?

In 2009, DHL ended its domestic air express service in the United States. In addition to requiring the abandonment of a massive sorting facility and dozens of brightly colored jumbo aircraft, the pullback put 9,500 U.S. employees out of work. DHL’s troubles in the United States resulted from a declining market for express packages and inability to compete with rivals FedEx and UPS. Although DHL still offers U.S. customers international package services, its status as the world’s largest logistics facilitator remains in doubt. When Adrian Dalsey, Larry Hillbolm, and Robert Lynn founded DHL as a door-to-door delivery service between San Francisco and Honolulu in 1969, no one imagined the business would evolve into an international express delivery group linking 120,000 destinations in more than 200 countries.