Industry | Parcel service |
---|---|
Founded | 1999 |
Headquarters | Amsterdam, Netherlands |
Area served | Europe, United States, and Canada |
Key people | Dr. Karl Pfaff, CEO |
Services | Postal/Parcel delivery/Collecting |
Revenue | €5.6 billion (2023/24) [1] |
Owner | International Distribution Services |
Number of employees | about 23,000 [1] |
Website | www |
General Logistics Systems B.V. (GLS) is a parcel services provider operating in Europe and North America.
The company was known as German Parcel when it was founded in 1989 by Rico Back. It was subsequently renamed GLS and is now a subsidiary of International Distribution Services. [2] [3]
In 2017, GLS acquired the California-based parcel delivery company Golden State Overnight (GSO) Delivery Service, as well as Postal Express. [4] [5] GSO was renamed GLS-US in December 2019. [6]
In September 2018 GLS acquired the Canadian parcel delivery company Dicom, expanding operations in North America and Europe. [7] In October 2021 GLS acquired the Canadian logistics company Mid-Nite Sun Transportation Ltd, operating under Rosenau Transport, further expanding into the Canadian market. [8]
In 2010 the parcel service was 'passed' a review by the German Consumers' Organization. The handling and wrong parcel pick-ups were criticized. The review was repeated in 2014 with similar results. In November 2019 the German magazine Stern published statistics with a 'shock indicator/goods damaged' value of 44,4%. [9]
In mid-September 2016, hundreds of parcel delivery workers took strike action in the Italian cities of Bergamo, Brescia, Piacenza, Bologna and Parma against GLS and its subcontractors to protest against poor working conditions. On the night of 14–15 September 2016, a van broke through a picket line formed by workers in front of the plant operated by GLS subcontractor SEAM in Piacenza. The van struck and killed Egyptian worker Abd Elsalam Ahmed Eldanf. It was reported that eyewitnesses heard the plant's Chief of Staff ordering the driver to break through the picket line. [10] The Piacenza Prosecutor's office concluded that no strike or protest was taking place at that moment and therefore ruled the death was a car accident. The driver was subsequently released, prompting 7,000 workers to take to the streets in Piacenza and at other GLS offices in Italy, as well as from other firms. [10] [11]
FedEx Corporation, originally Federal Express Corporation, is an American multinational conglomerate holding company focused on transportation, e-commerce and business services based in Memphis, Tennessee. The name "FedEx" is a syllabic abbreviation of the name of the company's original air division, Federal Express, which was used from 1973 until 2000. FedEx today is best known for its air delivery service, FedEx Express, which was one of the first major shipping companies to offer overnight delivery as a flagship service. Since then, FedEx also started FedEx Ground, FedEx Office, FedEx Supply Chain, FedEx Freight, and various other services across multiple subsidiaries, often meant to respond to its main competitor, UPS. FedEx assists in the transport of some United States Postal Service packages through their Air Cargo Network contract.
Canada Post Corporation, trading as Canada Post, is the Canadian national postal service. It is a Crown corporation that functions as the primary postal operator in Canada.
United Parcel Service, Inc. (UPS) is an American multinational shipping & receiving and supply chain management company founded in 1907. Originally known as the American Messenger Company specializing in telegraphs, UPS has expanded to become a Fortune 500 company and one of the world's largest shipping couriers. UPS today is primarily known for its ground shipping services as well as the UPS Store, a retail chain which assists UPS shipments and provides tools for small businesses. UPS offers air shipping on an overnight or two-day basis and delivers to post office boxes through UPS Mail Innovations and UPS SurePost, two services that pass on packages to the United States Postal Service for last-mile delivery.
The Royal Mail Group Limited, trading as Royal Mail, is a British postal service and courier company. It is owned by International Distribution Services. It operates the brands Royal Mail and Parcelforce Worldwide (parcels). The company used the name Consignia for a brief period in the early 2000s but changed it afterwards.
DHL is a US-founded and German owned logistics company headquartered in Bonn, Germany. It provides courier, package delivery and express mail service, delivering over 1.7 billion parcels per year. A subsidiary of the German logistics firm DHL Group, its express mail service DHL Express is one of the market leaders for parcel services in Europe. DHL Express is Germany's main international courier and parcel service. DHL also operates a separate parcel service targeting the German consumer market in conjunction with Deutsche Post.
Deutsche Post AG, trading as DHL Group, is a German multinational package delivery and supply chain management company headquartered in Bonn, Germany. It is one of the world's largest courier companies. The postal division, Deutsche Post, delivers 61 million letters each day in Germany, making it Europe's largest such company. The parcel division DHL is a wholly owned subsidiary claimed to be present in over 220 countries and territories. DHL Group was the largest logistics company worldwide in 2022.
Posti Group Oyj, trading internationally as Posti Group Corporation, is the main Finnish postal service delivering mail and parcels in Finland. The State of Finland is the sole shareholder of the company. Posti has a universal service obligation that entails weekday deliveries of letters in all of Finland's municipalities. Posti's head office is located in Pohjois-Pasila in Helsinki. Posti's history spans nearly 400 years.
Poste Italiane is the Italian postal service provider. Besides providing postal services, Italian Post Group offers communications, postal savings products, logistics, and financial and insurance services throughout Italy.
Geopost is an international parcel delivery service for sorter compatible parcels based in Issy les Moulineaux, France. Until 2015 DPD stood for Dynamic Parcel Distribution. Its brands are DPD, Chronopost, Seur and BRT. The company is based in France and operates mainly in the express road-based market.
La Poste is a postal service company in France, operating in Metropolitan France, the five French overseas departments and regions and the overseas collectivity of Saint Pierre and Miquelon. Under bilateral agreements, La Poste also has responsibility for mail services in Monaco through La Poste Monaco and in Andorra alongside the Spanish company Correos.
The 1988 United Kingdom postal workers strike was a strike in the United Kingdom in August and September 1988. It was the country's first national postal strike for 17 years, and began after postal workers at Royal Mail walked out in protest over bonuses being paid to recruit new workers in London and the South East. As a result, postal deliveries throughout the United Kingdom were disrupted for several weeks.
PostNL N.V., commonly known as PostNL is a Dutch mail, parcel and e-commerce company with operations in the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Belgium, and the United Kingdom. It provides universal delivery in the Netherlands, and is publicly listed at Euronext Amsterdam. The company was known as TNT NV until TNT Express was separated from it in May 2011, and the remainder of the company was renamed PostNL.
OnTrac Logistics, Inc. was a privately held logistics company that contracted regional shipping services in the Western United States. In 2021 OnTrac Logistics was acquired by east coast delivery firm LaserShip for $1.3 billion, the combined business was later rebranded back to OnTrac.
Whistl is a postal delivery company based in Marlow, Buckinghamshire, England. The company primarily competes with UK Mail, UPS, Parcelforce, DHL, Evri, Royal Mail and Yodel. According to the company, it processes about 25% of the mail in the United Kingdom, amounting to over 3.7 billion items per year in 2015.
LSO, originally known as Lone Star Overnight, is an Austin, Texas-based regional shipping carrier that focuses on Express next day delivery, utilizing both air and ground transportation in Texas, southeastern New Mexico, certain metro markets in Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, Alabama and Tennessee, as well as northern Mexico.
Eurosender is an online platform for booking door-to-door logistics services in Europe. It provides postal, courier and freight forwarding services. The company was founded in 2014 by Slovenian entrepreneurs Tim Potočnik and Jan Štefe.
Rico Back is a German businessman. He is a founding member and former CEO of German Parcel. He was also the CEO of Royal Mail from 2018 to 2020.
A parcel locker is an automated postal box that allows users for a self-service collection of parcels and oversize letters as well as the dispatch of parcels.
The postal, courier, and parcel services in Germany deliver mail and parcels in that country. Multiple companies compete to provide such services. After the automotive industry and trade, the logistics sector is the country's third-largest commercial sector. The post-and-parcel service branch alone employed around 570,000 people in 2019.
International Distribution Services plc is a British company providing postal and courier services. The UK government initially retained a 30% stake in the company, but sold its remaining shares in 2015. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.
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