By DOTUN IBIWOYE

M r. Randy Buday is the Managing Director DHL International Nigeria Ltd. He spoke with VANGUARD on how the advent of email and the tablet phones are affecting the courier industry in the country, among other issues. Excerpt:

How long have you been operating in Nigeria; what are your contributions to the development of the courier industry in the country?

Over the past 34 years, DHL Express Nigeria has invested significantly into equipment, vehicles, aircraft and facilities as well as into the training and development of our Nigerian staff.

More specifically, in addition to our fleet of vans and motorcycles we have a “state of the art” DHL Gateway and DHL Hub located on the airside of the Murtala Mohammed International Airport (MMIA) in Lagos which is the logistic home to our aircraft operations and distribution model for West Africa.

Within the Nigerian Gateway, we have dedicated customs officers as well as other regulatory aviation authorities to ensure the rapid clearance of our inbound shipments coming into the country.  We have recently added a DHL boat to our fleet to ferry our parcels and document from Victoria Island/Ikoyi to the mainland which connects to our international and domestic aircraft which are based at MMIA.

How do you develop the capacity of your workforce?

At DHL, we introduced a training programme called the Certified International Specialists programme.

The programme is a global initiative which has reached over 100,000 DHL Express employees in 220 countries and territories; it has been a principal factor in the company’s impressive global performance.

As a change management initiative, the award winning programme has been instrumental in instituting a cultural transformation within DHL Express and reinforcing the company’s international market leadership. All DHL Express employees in Nigeria have been trained on CIS as well as many other specialized programs which fall under the umbrella of Certified International Specialists.

What is your status in the industry- is DHL a monopolist?

DHL has been in Nigeria for well over 30 years; I wouldn’t say we have monopoly, we are just doing our best to offer a superior express service to our customers, and nobody in Nigeria can match the quality or speed of our ability to move documents and parcels in and out of Nigeria.

The operating environment is challenging compared to other countries in Sub Sahara Africa which is why we need to continue to invest in Nigeria, we also cannot ignore the large and growing population as well as the growth in business opportunities that this country has to offer.