Growth and expansion of international network

At the same time, the global network of locations is also growing in order to be able to map the increasing volume of existing and new customers. "We grew by more than 50 percent in Poland, Turkey and the UK, and by 30 percent in the Netherlands, Asia and the U.S., and recorded organic growth of more than 18 percent in the first half of this year," said Frank Schirrmeister, CEO of Arvato Supply Chain Solutions.

The supply chain management and e-commerce service provider benefits from the broad positioning of its businesses, which are better able to compensate risks through diversification into different industry sectors. In addition to the focus on fundamentally high-growth industries with a strong end-customer focus, growth was also boosted by the Corona-related strong increase in online order volumes from customers in the consumer goods industry and retail. In this area, which includes segments such as fashion, lifestyle, beauty, and high-tech, peak volumes were already exceeded in some cases in the first half of the year, which otherwise only occur at the well-known seasonal peaks. In addition, the Healthcare business 2020 was once again one of the growth drivers, with strong demand for solutions for specialty pharma products and European-integrated pharma distribution networks.

"The year 2020 has shown that our global network is extremely resilient. We have expanded by more than 150,000 square meters of logistics space through the opening of new locations and the expansion of existing distribution centers, thus creating the best conditions for further growth," emphasizes Frank Schirrmeister. "This is a strategic priority for us in order to support our customers' growth in their focus markets with scalable infrastructures and a high degree of flexibility, and to provide them with rapid access to new international markets - regardless of any contingencies." To this end, new warehouse space was created last year at the Fashion locations in Dortmund and Dorsten in Germany, for example. Furthermore, additional warehouse modules were built and put into operation at the Gennep site in the Netherlands for the new customer Harman, a leading audio technology company. A completely new distribution center was opened in Louisville, Kentucky, in the USA. In addition, there were new buildings and expansions in Poland, Spain, Turkey, China and Russia. In total, Arvato Supply Chain Solutions now has around two million square meters of logistics space at 60 locations worldwide.

In 2021, further targeted investments will be made not only in network expansion, but also in automation and digitization. Several projects with a combined logistics area of more than 250,000 square meters are currently being implemented. The largest is a 55,500-square-meter distribution center in Turkey, which will start operations in April 2021. Fashion and textile products are shipped from Istanbul for a major Turkish e-commerce company that operates the largest e-commerce platform in Turkey. The largest project in Germany is the new 38,000-square-meter logistics center for Douglas in Hamm. Arvato will ship the first orders from Douglas' online stores from the omnichannel distribution center starting in August 2022. "This is a lighthouse project for us, in which we are investing around 60 million euros - our largest investment in technical infrastructure to date," says Frank Schirrmeister, referring to the great importance that the use of state-of-the-art automation technology has for Arvato. "It is an important step toward the digital transformation of our logistics processes and at the same time also takes into account the increasing digitization strategies of our customers. Looking at all of the current investments in our network, this brings us a good deal closer to our vision of being the internationally operating supply chain management company with the greatest customer orientation and the strongest focus on data and IT."