By Dirk Olufs
Publication Date: 2026-09-15 16:00:00
Editor’s note: Today’s blog features Dirk Olufs, EVP and CTO, DHL Express. Dirk share how DHL Express integrated Google Maps Platform to expand B2C operations globally, improving delivery accuracy while empowering ~ 40,000 couriers with real-time navigation and intelligence.
DHL Express was built on a simple idea: get it there faster than anyone thought possible. In the early days, that meant founders carrying shipments by hand; within a few years, it meant racing bank documents across the Atlantic on Concorde to land in New York before the stock market opened. The technology was always whatever the promise required. When ecommerce arrived, and nearly half our 1.5 million daily shipments started heading to residential addresses — different every day, across 220 countries — the promise didn’t change. But the technology had to.
We needed to modernize a network built for one world to serve another. The challenge wasn’t really technological. It was human. The core strength of…
