Geoff Walsh has been with DHL for more than 13 years. He started his career in DHL in the UK as a courier and moved on to become the Operations Manager of the largest DHL Service Center in the North of England. In 2000, he moved to the Middle East and became DHL National Operations Manager for the UAE. While in UAE, he was successful by becoming the first company to achieve TAPA certification, ISO 1800 Health and Safety certification, ISO 1400 EMS certification, and introduced a total domestic solution to the banking industry. He opened 26 locations, including state-of-the-facility in Jebel Ali Free zone. In March, this year, he was appointed as the General Manager of DHL Oman and is entertaining big plans to expand the business and get much closer to all the partners/customers. He believes in providing quality service with a personal touch, which makes DHL Oman successful today with a market share of more than 40 per cent.

Geoff Walsh speaks to Vistas on the logistics market in Oman.
He finds the market very buoyant with more businesses moving into Oman and realizes that the oil and gas industry booming drives the market. “With this comes a new challenge for the industry as everyone is looking for a total solution. By this I mean companies and individuals are looking for solutions which improve their business and at the same time remain within their budgeted transportation costs.”

“DHL offers this to all our customers. We cover all aspects of logistics under the umbrella of DPWN. DPWN offers DHL Express, DHL Global Forwarding and DHL Excel Supply Chain, and all three are here in Oman allowing us to offer all customers a solution which best fits their business requirements.  We see the way forward as being more a partner with all customers and making our business fit their needs”, Walsh declares.

So which are the key areas of focus in Oman? Walsh replies, “for DHL our key areas are making our partners/customers successful by offering services they require and becoming their first choice every time, and the only way to do that is by always delivering a quality service. We listen to our partners’/customers’ requirements and work with them to find the ideal solution and only by doing this can we deliver a quality service. DHL is always looking at ways to improve our Transit Time and customers’ clearance processes, and by doing this, we take away the extra hassle that companies can some times face in delivering a service to their customers. We always look to make it easy for everyone to use our service. We will focus more on this year on getting closer to our customers by opening new DHL Express centres in key locations. We are also offering new time and day definite services along with our robust and easy-to-use importing service, and all of these are door-to-door solutions”.

DHL maintains high consideration towards its customer expectations. “We listen to our customers, and by doing this, we have developed our products and services accordingly, such as the Time Definite, Day Definite  and Economy Select, which is our road service. This offers a road service for heavy-weight shipments across not only the gulf region but into Europe. We are also investing in our Customer Service department and with this making our service even more personal.  Again with our sister companies, DHL Global Forwarding and DHL Excel Supply Chain, we can meet and exceed all our customers’ expectations”, he claims.

Regarding the competition in the field, Walsh faces it cool, “there is always competition in any line of business, and the logistics industry is no different. But what we do and have to continue are to remain as our partners’/customers’ first choice by delivering the service as everyone expects from the market leader in our industry”.

He further adds, “We are always striving for continual improvement while never sacrificing quality or security. All our partners/customers demand a quality and secure service every time they work with DHL, and we deliver it. By delivering this, we aim to stay ahead of the competition and continually raise the standards and service within the industry.”

Elaborating on DHL Oman’s supply chain management service, he says, it was driven and developed continually to meet all their partners’/customers’ requirements. DHL is widespread over 220 countries and have over 500,000 staff globally. It has one of the largest airlines with 420 DHL aircraft and more than 18,500 locations worldwide and services 120,000 destinations daily.

“I and my family have fallen in love with Oman as a country and are very much looking forward to our time here”, Walsh smiles.