Grow! Grow! Grow!

Emerging markets have catapulted to the top of many companies’ ‘to do’ lists. First and foremost among them the so-called BRIC+M states, Brazil, Russia, India, China and Mexico. This special focus shows the opportunities and challenges all DHL divisions are facing.

Jim O’Neill, chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, coined the acronym in a 2001 paper entitled ‘Building Better Global Economic BRICs’. And the acronym stuck, not only as a symbol for emerging markets on the threshold of going global, but for a major shift in global economic power away from the G7 economies towards the developing world. It has now also become a prestigious certificate of merit.

On the face of it the BRICs and BRIC-like countries such as Mexico rightly earn this attention. Top 20 ports worldwide? Seven are in China. Rise in the volume of goods exported between 2010 and 2011? In China nearly 16%, India above 12%, Brazil almost 10% – compared to around 5% change in the U.S. Real GDP growth in the crisis year of 2009? What crisis year, ask India and China. Their economies grew over 9%. Even Russia – occasionally stigmatized as the odd man out in this gang of four can show a few impressive numbers. It ranks 13th in world trade of merchandise, beating India, Brazil and Mexico.

How the DHL divisions are tweaking their business and cashing in on the growth potential in these BRIC+M markets; how they are solving the issues raised by challenges as wide-ranging as infrastructure, through government regulations, to competitors, can be read in the following country portraits.