Renowned for its ability to deliver an exceptional product and service Dawn Wing, based in South Africa, is a leader in the domestic and international Express Parcel business
By Rebecca Waters
Rated best national courier company in South Africa for nine years running, Dawn Wing is one of South Africa’s leading express delivery companies, offering over 200 routes locally and deliveries to six continent internationally on a daily basis.
Chief Executive Mike Fanucchi attributes the company’s “soaring and enduring success” to its “investment in cutting edge technology that results in a seamless and transparent process for clients from collection to delivery, the emphasis placed on fail-safe reliability and the systems to back it up, competitive pricing, and particularly intelligent personal service from a strong team of people”.
“We become a strategic partner in our clients’ business, offering customised, think-outside-the box solutions. This means that every job we move is executed on time and on demand, whenever and wherever it has to be delivered.
“We actively listen to our clients and create a tailor-made solution to improve business performance – its not just another courier product,” says Fanucchi.
Not just a local player
Founded in 1990, Dawn Wing is part of The Laser Group (Pty) Ltd, a diversified group that provides a wide range of logistics and transport services to blue-chip local and multinational companies. Since 1990, the company spread its wings – growing from an entrepreneurial business firmly rooted in SA to one of the best domestic express companies and now operates world-wide via its partnership with DPD.
“With the Laser Group behind us, we know that we can push ahead, innovate and provide expansive solutions because we have access to capital, and access to substantive resources that allows us to deliver a substantive solution, when the client needs it. That makes a big difference,” says Fanucchi.
“That gives you global reach.”
DPD Partnership
The company’s partnership with DPD Laser, one of Europe’s largest international courier and logistics companies, has created access to an international solution for Dawn Wing clients.
“Our certified partnership with DPD, for the past several years, has resulted in open lines between here and Dubai and open lines between here and Paris, which gives us gateways to the rest of Europe, the Middle East and the East,” says Fanucchi.
“With the backing of DPD internationally, that gives us the extra resources we need to break into new markets,” he explains.
Local Opportunities
The South African joint venture also allows Dawn Wing to further entrench its footprint domestically, even more so with the current economic climate.
“There are opportunities in Africa and I think with the current economic crisis in the world, we think that the adage ‘charity begins at home’ has merit,” says Fanucchi.
“We are making sure that we have got our home bases well covered in South Africa and we are looking at the major volume routes between here and Europe, as well as SA and the East.”
Proudly South Africa
As a Proudly South African Founder Member, Dawn Wing strives to use South African companies, products and services wherever possible, for job creation and economic growth in the country.
This is strengthened by Dawn Wing’s BEE strategy, which is focused on capacity building, job creation and economic growth. We practice fair labour policies and conform to all equity acts by government. We procure from local suppliers ensuring growth in local economies.
Among the seven main focus areas of Dawn Wing’s BEE Strategy are the company’s learnership programs – most of which have been developed in-house.
“Most of our training is done in-house but obviously we will bring in specialist trainers from time to time,” says Fanucchi. “Our HR manager is also an experienced trainer – offering an additional resource to up the amount of training available for staff. As well as training its own staff, Dawn Wing also trains employees from other companies in the industry.
“They understand that Dawn Wing offers such a service and has developed a high level of expertise in excellent customer service and operational training - so they approach us for their own training needs,” Fanucchi explains.
Consolidation
Obviously, with the current downturn, there are many challenges at the moment – these include the skills shortage and the rapidly changing economy in particular. Nevertheless, we have continued to experience healthy growth but will also focus on consolidation.
“This year, is about consolidating what we’ve got and making sure that we look after our current client base very well,” says Fanucchi. “Obviously, there are clients who are seeking new providers – as the industry is shrinking and some embattled providers are exiting the market. We certainly intend to woo those clients and bring them on board – however any new business drive will not detract from our focus on the high standards of service currently offered to all our clients.
“We need to leverage those new clients into our business to make the whole system more efficient, and I think we have been fairly successful on that so far this year.”
Fanucchi continues: “We are still growing, we are not arrogant, but we are very aware that we are offering something that’s working well and we want the marketplace to sit up and pay attention to us.
“We want to keep improving our service levels and ensuring consistency. Last year we achieved an ISO 9001 accreditation and this year we passed our accreditation again, so our operational systems are working well,” he says.
“We also don’t want to overwhelm our staff. We are a relatively lean organisation - so we don’t want to give too many incentives at one time, rather allowing people to focus on doing the right things and ensuring that new systems, like ISO, are successfully maintained.
“Once that is bedded down and working optimally, we will then step to the next level to remain competitive,” he concludes.
View Digital Corporate Profile of DawnWingDPD in SupplyChain Digital June 2009