Working locally – thinking globally: two decades of IT expertise at DACHSER Americas

It all started in March 2004, when Alexander Fink joined DACHSER’s IT department in the company’s global head office in Kempten, Germany. Born and raised in Kempten and with a career in a multinational company in mind, DACHSER had always been a first choice for him.

When DACHSER made the decision to build up local IT expertise in the United States, the idea of moving overseas for this opportunity aroused his interest right away. He applied, and in the end, everything went faster than expected. After only six weeks of planning and less than one year in the company, he found himself in DACHSER’s branch in New York, back then the Regional Head Office of the Americas region.

During his first two years in the United States, Alexander Fink remained the only employee fully dedicated to IT tasks in the United States, being responsible for the local IT setup all on his own. Right from the beginning on, he followed the goal to gradually move away from solely local IT systems and to adapt to the IT setup of DACHSER in Europe. In 2007, another IT professional joined, and in 2010, the local team already included 3 employees. Another large step followed in 2015, when the responsibility of Fink’s team was extended across the whole Americas region. With global uniformity of DACHSER’s IT infrastructure in mind, the team continued to follow the strategy to align closely with DACHSER’s IT setup in Europe. At this point, with Othello, DACHSER already had a transport management solution for its global air and sea freight business that had been developed fully in-house. In 2016, the migration of DACHSER Americas to this IT solution was another major step.

Today, Fink’s local team in the United States comprises eight professionals with different IT backgrounds. Next to the fact that many team members are bilingual, Fink highlights the stability of his team, ensuring that knowledge is growing constantly and successively transferred onwards to new employees. Next to the team members in the United States, further IT specialists in the Americas region are based at DACHSER’s locations in Mexico City and Campinas, Brazil, adding up to a team of 22 in total.

Local expert knowledge, contributing to DACHSER’s global IT solutions

Despite the high level of integration into DACHSER’s global IT landscape, Alexander Fink emphasizes the fact that his team comprises all relevant IT functions that are necessary to work as an independent IT unit.

“In the United States, our Head Office in Germany is thousands of miles and several time zones away. When the unexpected happens, our head office in Germany is not always able to support right away, even though we have hundreds of IT specialists there. Therefore, one of my first lessons learned in the United States was that we need to be able to solve challenges on our own,” says Fink. “In the end, this requirement has made us what we are today: a local powerhouse of IT professionals that is an inherent part of DACHSER’s global IT solutions.”

As a part of a uniform IT infrastructure that is available everywhere across DACHSER’s global network, Alexander Finks team will continue to operate in a fast-paced and highly multinational environment. Furthermore, with DACHSER’s goal of becoming the world’s most integrated logistics provider, digitalization will play a crucial role in the company’s future development and investments.

Fink adds: “With our DACHSER-own IT systems, we improve transparency, efficiency and response times of all processes along the supply chain. However, it is not sufficient to only develop systems and processes, even when you rethink them constantly. We also have to look at our ways of thinking and working with each other. In the end, it is crucial that our customers and employees alike can benefit effectively from the potentials and opportunities of digitalization. I am confident that with our IT setup in the Americas region, we will play an essential role in DACHSER’s future in a digitalized world.”