Inspiration through innovation is what truly helps to propel business success. I’ll share a story with you…

I led DPD UK until March 2021, and we’ve been on quite a journey over the last ten years. The company is market leading and record-breaking, and by any measure, we have been the nation’s favourite delivery company. But it wasn’t always like this. In 2008, when I became CEO, DPD delivered around 54 million packages a year and most of those volumes were B2B. Last year the company carried 263 million parcels, and more than half of these were delivered to home addresses.

It’s a massive leap that DPD is really proud of. How did the company do it? Inspiration through innovation – by innovating, changing focus, staying one step ahead of competitors, using the best technology available and taking considered risks.

Inspiration through innovation propelled DPD UK to the top

Innovation turned DPD UK into the biggest success story in the UK’s parcel delivery industry. Innovation in top-level strategic decisions is what inspired Team DPD UK at every level. It happened on a regular basis, with employees at all levels singled out for praise by customers, managers and peers.

Everyone in the company is a rock star. And every role is vital, whether in customer service, head office, out on the road or behind the scenes maintaining vehicles and equipment. Each part of the company inspired others to innovate, and together they formed a winning team. We stayed ahead by innovating until everything became a ‘wow’ moment for customers and staff.

But why does innovation lead to inspiration?

Innovation is about people, not money.

The late great Steve Jobs was a true innovator. His passion, drive and ability to cut through the confusion surrounding trail-blazing technology made Apple what it is today. He said: “Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. It’s all about the people you have, how you’re led and how much you get it.” Do you ‘get it’? Is your organisation following an all-inclusive approach? This is at the heart of a truly innovative and successful workplace. Leaders should work to harness the skills, passion and intelligence of every single person in their organisation, so everything they do is a collaborative effort.

Innovation isn’t just about having a top-level idea, though. Take the industry-leading forum, Design Space within the DPD app. All of the people who worked together to launch and create the forum and made it successful were inspired to do so. By cultivating an inclusive ‘we’re all in this together’ culture we inspired innovation and success.  It is full-on, though and at DPD UK, we expected a lot from our people, but we gave a lot back. The crucial factor was that everyone was connected and contributed to the overall success of our mission.

All businesses have the potential to develop an innovative culture.

Innovation was DPD’s life-blood, it’s what the company became famous for and what wowed customers –shippers and shoppers alike.

An innovative company culture invites people to become the best they can be. At DPD, we focused more on our people’s attitude than their qualifications. Many directors reached the boardroom from the ‘shop floor’ and they’ve been promoted because of their talent, their creativity and their DNA – buying into DPD’s distinctive values. As far as I’m concerned, everyone at DPD is a rock star.

While it may have started life 50 years ago, the DPD UK of today is vastly different to the original company. And since the rebrand from Parceline in 2008, the company developed many innovative ways of improving business. The timeline below shows how fast and how far it’s come, and it’s all down to embedding a strong culture of innovation within our teams.

Timeline

Four ways to achieve inspiration through innovation

I’m sharing this story with you to demonstrate what can be achieved by inspiring employees through innovation. Our technological innovations focused on the customer but also on the team, and it payed off massively.

If I could distil this into four ways that other companies can inspire through innovation, it would be: