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Building an in-house Data Science capability at DPD Germany
  • Our client, DPD Germany, is one of the leading players in the largest CEP market in Europe and generates enormous amounts of data on a daily basis 

  • IG&H assisted DPD in establishing its own Data Science team and quickly captured value through cases in smart pricing and last-mile operations 

  • The team is now firmly established to further drive innovation and provides decision support at the highest strategic levels

  • In 3 months, we laid the foundation for a new data science competency

At a glance:

The courier, express and parcel (CEP) market in Germany is the largest, and perhaps one of the most competitive, in Europe. Originally strongly oriented towards B2B, growth in recent years is driven by the growing e-commerce sector demanding faster and more challenging delivery service levels. 

 

Increasing need to innovate and leverage data 

Our client, DPD in Germany, is one of the leading players and delivers 400 million parcels annually for over 30,000 customers. It operates a gigantic fleet of 12,000 vehicles from roughly 80 depots and has over 7,000 pickup points. Based on the enormous amounts of data generated each day, the company has a centralized BI function that provides easy access to business reports for various disciplines within the firm. 

 

With a view on the increasing speed of technological developments, the need to innovate, to look into the future, and to improve the utilization of its data assets, we received the request to assist the client with establishing the structure of a Data Science Team. IG&H already demonstrated the added value and potential of Data Science in previous projects.​  


Building a new Data Science team based on best practices 

Data Science is a team effort. In order for it to work, different competencies, experience levels and areas of expertise are required. It usually involves the creation of new roles such as Data Scientist or Data Engineer, which a company may not always understand correctly from the beginning. Data Science teams also need some critical mass or strong leadership while interacting with other more established teams within a company, such as BI, IT, Marketing, Operations or Sales. Building up and integrating a new team within an existing organization therefore has a significant impact and faces many challenges. 

 

IG&H has its own experience in this regard, based on the implementation of our Data Science practice. Supported by the best practices that we developed during this process, we were able to assist the DPD in establishing its own Data Science team.​ After recruiting and structuring the team, we provided the first high-impact Data Science cases to self-fund the initial investment, coaching the new recruits along the way. These cases include smart pricing to drive up margins and a digital control tower for the last mile operations to gain a firmer grip on the costs. We also helped setting up the tooling, implemented a way of working for collaboration with other teams and established the management of the new team. Ultimately, we chose to position the team directly under the CEO to provide key decision support at the highest strategic level. 


 

“The speed to implement our own Data Science team by far exceeded my expectation and the quality of the team recruited is excellent. IG&H is hands-on, smart and close to the business.”


former CEO of DPD Germany 


 

Laying the foundation to remain competitive and relevant  ​ 

In a period of 3 months, we laid the foundation for a new competency that adds value to the organization right from the word 'go'. This enables DPD Germany to lift its provision of services to a higher level and, even more importantly, to remain competitive and relevant in a rapidly changing market.​  



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