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The 1990s: A time of cool technology,
CDs and computers, the Space Shuttle,
Gameboy and mobile phones. And a time of
cool design, from lamps to lemon squeezers.
Presented by supermodels who were (still)
paid in German marks
90
THE 1990s – YEARS OF EUROPEAN EXPANSION
Germany was reunified. The Eastern Bloc collapsed. The internet made strides as a new medium. The word
globalisation entered everyday language. A sheep called Dolly was the first cloned creature. Pursued by
the paparazzi, Princess Diana died in a car accident in Paris. Technoculture dominated music, fashion and
human interaction.
And Hermes conquered new markets…

40 years of Hermes
The 1990s
90
“Here we are now,
entertain us.”
Nirvana, Kurt Cobain
Defining lines from Nirvana’s hit
“Smells Like Teen Spirit” from
1991, written by singer, guitarist
and wearer of striped shirts
Kurt Cobain.
THE NEW UNCERTAINTIES
The fall of the Wall led with the
reunification of Germany to the end
of the Cold War – and to the end of
familiar ways of thinking. As a result,
the world became increasingly
complex. Who were the goodies and
the baddies in the second Gulf War
from 1990? What were the new
countries that emerged following the
collapse of the Eastern Bloc in 1991
called again? Why were stock prices
rising when people were being laid
off? Is globalisation a good or a bad
thing? Why did the pacifist Greens,
of all people, send German troops
to Kosovo in 1999? What does the
handover of Hong Kong to China
mean? Is it alright to dump somebody
by text? And indeed: Is that
meant ironically or not?
7 15
FORMULA
1 WORLD
CHAMPI-
ONSHIP
TITLES
WON BY
RACING
DRIVER
MICHAEL
SCHU-
MACHER,
THE FIRST
ONE IN
1994.
MINUTES IS THE TOTAL TIME FOR WHICH
DINOSAURS APPEAR IN JURASSIC PARK. THE
OVERALL LENGTH OF STEVEN SPIELBERG’S
1993 FILM: 123 MINUTES.
520
GREEN DOT
520
This symbol of intertwining arrows was introduced in 1991 as the logo for
recyclable packaging. Despite its name, the waste in question was collected
in yellow sacks or bins.
GRAMS WAS THE WEIGHT OF THE MOTOROLA INTERNATIONAL 3200 MOBILE
PHONE, THE FIRST TO BE SOLD TO THE PUBLIC FROM 1992. IT COST BETWEEN
5,000 AND 8,000 MARKS WITH A CONTRACT, AND ITS MAXIMUM TALK TIME WAS
110 MINUTES.
THREE
POWER CHANGES
Hello, Dolly
The Welsh mountain sheep Dolly, the world’s first cloned mammal, was born
in 1998. Cell biologist Keith Campbell injected cell nuclei from the donor animal
into hundreds of egg cells to produce embryos, of which one survived. Dolly,
named after country singer Dolly Parton, lived to the age of six and a half. The
average life expectancy of a sheep is between ten and twelve years.
HTTP://WWW.ETC.COM
In 1993, the Swiss Research Institute CERN opened the World Wide Web up to
the public. The first graphical browser Mosaic also made the internet accessible
to lay users. This gave rise to a new medium which turned the world upside
down. Whether through e-mail, immediate access to information, the exchange
of files or online shopping, the internet changed everything. And that was just
the beginning...
THE FORCE OF THE SUNFLOWER
Boom, boom, boom, boom: Four
even beats on the bass drum defined
the sound of the nineties. Techno
brought so people onto the streets
unlike any previous youth culture. In
particular, the Berlin Love Parade
became an international spectacle
which merged machine-generated
sound with extreme physicality.
Piercings, tattoos and the shaving of
private parts have since been the
basic adornments of young people
and those who fancy themselves to
be young.
A TERRIBLY
NICE
FAMILY
The father: fat, lazy and stupid.
The mother: a morally upstanding
housewife.
The son: an ill-bred layabout.
The daughter: highly gifted and
with a penchant for jazz, vegetarian
food and Buddhism.
The baby: simply speechless in the
face of these relatives.
Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and
Maggie – with their surname Simpson,
the world’s funniest family – appeared
on German TV screens in 1991.
Created by Matt Groening, the cartoon
series turned into an endless insightful
commentary on world events. The
bestselling author Daniel Kehlmann
(Measuring the World) even described
it as “the most epoch-making cultural
event of the last 20 years”.
A SHOT IN THE DARK HITS THE MARK
The company Apple seemed to have lost it in May 1998 when its once fired and now returned CEO Steve Jobs
presented a podgy, all-in-one computer with a blue translucent casing. It turned out to be a sensation. As quiet as a
library, it seemed friendly rather than cold, and its transparency was in tune with the age of the internet, mobility and
the immaterial. But the iMac was also a success. In both of its first two years, the computer – quickly available in other
colours – sold worldwide at a rate of three per minute.
He was sandwiched between George
Bush and the latter’s son George W.:
Democrat Bill Clinton became US
President in 1993. He reduced the
debt burden of his predecessor and
mediated in the Middle East conflict.
But he also achieved notoriety through
his affair with Monica Lewinsky.
After 16 years the SPD politician
Gerhard Schröder replaced
Helmut Kohl as German Chancellor in
1998. He was the first working-class
head of government and, together
with Joschka Fischer, led the first
red-green coalition in the history of
the Federal Republic.
He spent 27 years in jail as a political
prisoner, was released in 1990,
called openly for reconciliation and,
in 1994, became the first black
President of South Africa: Nelson
Mandela. In 1993, he received the
Nobel Peace Prize for his struggle
against apartheid.
094 095

Yes, just make a plan … say for Dortmund
and the Ruhr Valley. On the basis of our
own cell coding system, it was possible
from 1992 to better coordinate round
planning in the former West Germany
FRGDR
On 22 December 1989, the
Brandenburg Gate was
opened. From the first hour
of 24 December, it was possible to
cross the border without a visa. And
on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s
Day, East Berlin experienced a
massive wave of visitors. “Berlin is
practically not a divided city any
more”, reported an audibly moved
East German TV reporter after half a
million people had crossed between
West and East Berlin on Christmas
Eve alone.
For the Hermes shipment service,
which had already made deliveries in
East Germany shortly after the wall
fell, the year 1990 was understandably
marked by the opening of the
border between the two Germanies
and their reunification on 3 October.
But simply mentioning milestones –
for example the fact that Hermes
was able to make deliveries throughout
East Germany from the time of
the currency union on 1 July 1990 –
hides the efforts that went into
achieving them.
“The main challenge was to rent
premises”, remembers Hartmut Ilek,
who was Chairman of the Board of
Hermes Logistik Gruppe Deutschland
(HLGD) until 2011. “They were not
privately owned but belonged to the
state”. In order to find any goods
handling space at all, we developed a
new model and worked for the first
time with partners. These included,
for example, local haulage firms
which owned facilities and, as one
would put it today, the management
had been taken over.” However, it was
not always possible to use existing
structures immediately. There was
nothing at all to begin with in the
Leipzig area – even the East German
army did not want to rent out its tank
depots. Hermes made do by erecting
a gigantic marquee on a disused
motorway section which served as a
handling facility for packages.
Improvisation was essential
because Hermes was easily the first
West German logistics company to
operate in East Germany. “When it
became clear that East Germans
could shop by mail order, we immediately
stepped in”, says Ilek. “Even
then, when the borders were still
guarded, we loaded cars full of catalogues
and distributed them. I think
by doing this we made it much easier
for the Otto Group to be present on
this market.
The development of our own
infrastructure, the next big step,
was equally difficult. To begin with,
there were practically no reliable
maps. Then things were made
harder by the fact that road signs
were wrongly positioned, particularly
close to the border, in order to
New times in Rostock: where once soldiers of the Soviet Red Army were stationed, Hermes now stores packages
confuse invading imperialist troops.
Hermes therefore made a large
number of reconnaissance trips,
taking photos to document the
state of the roads, public transport,
large residential areas and their
access routes, and even freight
stations and doorbell panels.
Communication was also complicated.
“East Germany operated
the analogue C-Netz – that is if it
worked at all”, remembers Hartmut
Eick, Hermes Business Controller up
to 2011. “Mobile phones were like
field telephones and weighed almost
a kilo. Talk time was no more than
an hour and you had to climb up a
hill because there was no reception
in the valleys.”
However, the main issue was
finding staff. And not just warehouse
workers or delivery agents, but also
middle management. “Internally
there were heated discussions”,
says Hartmut Ilek. “To put it harshly,
there were reservations about
whether people in East Germany
had forgotten how to work after 40
years. But actually the opposite was
true. We were able to find people
for all levels of the hierarchy who
were keen to prove their abilities. Of
course they were surprised when we
told them that they would be
getting their 25 delivery vehicles in
two weeks – they just could not
believe it. But they also learned
quickly and did such a good job that
we can now only take off our hats
to them”.
Paying them was another problem.
The cooperation partners supplied
the premises and the staff,
and Hermes the vehicles, packages,
work clothing – and suitcases full of
money, western money, once the
currency union had taken place.
“Hermes is always known for paying
its staff on time”, says Hermut Eick
laconically.
And then the business came:
Alongside clothing, the main demand
was for video recorders. The fact
that so many branches were initially
overwhelmed by the quantities of
packages was minor in comparison to
the work that had gone before.
096
097

40 years of Hermes
The 1990s
Unclear legal
position
Even though Hermes had seven
depots in Dresden, Fürstenberg, Leipzig,
Mittenwalde, Potsdam, Rostock and
Schwerin by the time of the currency
union, to which were added a disused
hall in Coburg as a temporary solution
from August and a further five depots
from October, East German law was
still applicable. In order to be prepared
for all eventualities, on 1 July 1990
Hermes therefore founded a new
company, Hermes Versand Service
Berlin GmbH, in East Berlin in accordance
with the requirements of the
East German Civil Code.
The key to successful expansion in the East of Germany was finding suitable
storage facilities
With German reunification, the number of customers grew – as did the size of depots
Depot 2000
In parallel to the opening-up of
the former East Germany, in 1990
Hermes carried out initial tests
designed to modernise its own
depots. The “Depot 2000” plan
involved new technologies such as
powered conveyer belts and mobile
shelves and the gradual introduction
of computer processing at depots.
The first PCs were installed at some
branches, and these were initially
used to draft daily reports and print
out delivery round documents. By
1991, all depots were equipped with
computers, and remote data transmission
to the head office was tested
so that it would no longer be
necessary to send documents by
post or fax.
A neW
System
The thing that had been so successful in East Germany – working with
cooperation partners – was also tested from 1990 in the West. As a result of an
extreme shortage of drivers from the end of the 1980s, a phenomenon which
also affected the entire CEP (courier express parcels services) industry, it was
decided at the company’s Stuttgart depot to outsource the delivery of packages
for the first time to sub-contractors. That is to firms which worked on behalf of
Hermes, used Hermes cars and work clothing but legally operated on their own
account. This outsourcing was initially very hesitant but grew over the years
into a second pillar of the Hermes shipment service.
APPLIED SOCIOLOGY
Together with Infas, the Institute for Applied Sociology, Hermes reviewed its
entire delivery round planning, first in the former West Germany and from
1992 in the former East Germany. This gave rise to its own cell coding system,
i.e. an optimised cross-linking of individual locations and the resulting delivery
rounds. The distances became shorter, vehicle utilisation rates better and
deliveries faster.
500,000,000
In Dresden, a customer received the 500
millionth delivery in 1992. It was delivered
as part of Hermes’s 24 hour express service,
which had only recently been introduced in
the eastern part of Germany.
SOME THINGS
DO CHANGE
OVERNIGHT
The test started in the autumn of
1992, the Otto Board was persuaded
in the spring of 1993, and it was
launched in the autumn of the same
year: the 1-day cycle. It meant that all
consignments arriving at a depot by
6am could to be delivered that day.
However, this change required night
deliveries to be made to branches,
which involved more staff and costs
and thus significant investment. On
the plus side, delivery times were cut
in half, including for returns, because
every street could be reached every
day, at least in built-up areas.
Thanks to the commitment of our
staff, this major restructuring of our
operations has been well managed.
As a token of the new times, each
employee also received a special
Hermes wristwatch (photo below).
ON THE ROUNDS
Around 4,000 people in total
currently work for Hermes. In order
to keep the staff informed of what is
going on within the company, the
newsletter “Auf Tour”, made by the
staff for the staff, first appeared in
1993. The magazine is now called
“Hermes News”.
“The main
challenge in
East Germany
was to rent
premises.”
hartmut Ilek
DRIVING ON ELECTRICITY,
PUT YOUR FOOT DOWN!
Early commitment to the environment: In 1993 Hermes tested the practicality of electric transporters
Something that people rarely know these days is that, in the early days of car construction, vehicles with electric
engines were actually better than those with combustion engines. Around 1900, however, they were displaced by
petrol-driven cars because their heavy batteries limited their range too much. With growing environmental awareness,
electric cars are now experiencing a renaissance. In order to contribute to the Otto Group’s environmental initiative,
at the end of 1993 Hermes acquired three electric test vehicles developed in cooperation with Daimler Benz. These
vehicles were initially not cost-effective given the 100 stops a vehicle makes on a typical delivery round. But the search
for alternative means of powering vehicles continued.
In 1995, Hermes introduced five natural gas vehicles as part of a project sponsored by the Ministry of the Environment.
A further five were bought by the middle of 1996 in order to gather experiences on a broad basis.
098 099

40 years of Hermes
The 1990s
IT 2.0
Information technology is developing rapidly – and Hermes is by no means
being left behind. In 1994 the company equipped its first depots with so-called
stationary scanners which scanned the barcode on a consignment’s sticker and
thus made it possible to track each package continuously from the shipper to
the point of delivery. At the same time, the computer-assisted round scheduling
tool Sisy (see page 62), with its automatically generated load lists and receipt
documents, was introduced.
These innovations gave rise to three important advantages. In the event of
a breakdown, customers could be actively informed and a solution quickly
found. Delivery speeds increased once again, accompanied by another drastic
fall in the package loss rate.
Small but a great help: the stationary scanner makes things faster and more efficient
THE APPEARANCE OF
new HERMES CARRIERS
The success of working with partners
led to a logical and logistical consequence:
small packages of up to 10
kg are now delivered in built-up areas
not just by Hermes’s own customer
assistants but also increasingly by
independent carriers operating on a
commercial basis. While it was mainly
housewives who initially were able to
increase their income in this way,
more and more people soon discovered
this flexible opportunity to make
money.
This particular system won over
the managers of various Otto com-
panies, such as bonprix, Witt or
SportScheck, which had previously
not used Hermes, because they
often use small mailing formats such
as bags. The Deutsche Post used to
be very cheap for them, but Hermes’
prices had now become competitive.
The number of consignments sent
by these new customers grew disproportionately.
While Hermes carried
more than 70 million packages in
1995, by 1997 this number had
grown to 110 million, and by 1999
to 141 million including letter and
catalogue consignments.
The structure of Hermes also
changed. On the one hand, support
points were introduced on industrial
estates for the new carriers at which
they picked up their deliveries. On the
other, the new customers meant that
Hermes for the first time set up a
structure separate from the Otto mail
order company with so-called Star
Depots in order to ensure the rapid
transport of goods.
For the sake of completeness: Baur,
the last mail order company of the Otto
Group was finally integrated into the
Hermes package handling system.
Let’s have a Party
NEW SERVICES
From 1995, Hermes expanded its
range of services. Customers were able
to use the after-hours service – delivery
after 5pm – initially on Wednesdays
but later five days a week. In 1996, the
express service (Sofort-Service) was
added. The slogan “ordered in the
morning, delivered that evening” was
only true for certain items, but their
number was steadily increased. In the
same year, the Saturday service was
also introduced if customers wanted
delivery on that day. In 1998, the new
Post Office Act meant that Hermes
was also able to start forwarding catalogues,
printed matter and letters
weighing more than 200 grams.
If you work hard, you have the right to
relax – a boat trip on the Elbe
Hermes and its customers celebrate their
“Silver Wedding”: On 1 June 1997, Hermes had
existed for 25 years. The anniversary was of
course celebrated.
Up and down, again and again:
For delivery agents in southern
Bavaria, getting to the customer
often means a long, strenuous walk
first
Plan for
Europe
In the year of change in the East,
25 West German medium-sized haulage
companies merged in order to be
able to offer their services nationwide.
German Parcel was born. Less
than ten years later, in February 1998,
Hermes and German Parcel concluded
a cooperation agreement aimed at
developing a joint plan for private
deliveries in Europe. The contract also
provided for the setting up of joint
ParcelShops where private customers
and small firms could collect and drop
off their packages.
The project went well, and Hermes
also took over German Parcel’s cashon-delivery
service. However at the
end of the year the company was
taken over by the UK Post Office (and
later integrated into the Royal Mail
Group). This takeover initially led to all
projects being put on hold and eventually
to the alliance being wound up.
In 2002, German Parcel became
known as GLS Germany.
1,000,000,000
In November 1997, Hermes delivered
its one billionth consignment. This
meant that as many parcels had
been carried in the last five years as
in the previous 20.
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101

40 years of Hermes
The 1990s
NEW HEADQUARTERS
Sun blinds cover the
windows at Hermes’s
head office
WHAT A WONDERFUL LIFE!
“Dear Hermes
customer assistance,
please deliver this
package for
Stauber to the
‘Zum Hecht’ pub.
Many thanks.”
ISO 14001
Following intensive cooperation
with the environmental coordination
department of the Otto Group,
the Hermes Logistics Group is now
certified according to the globally
TRAINING WITH A FUTURE
recognised ISO 14001 standard for
its environmental management.
This standard focuses on a process
of continuous improvement as a
means of achieving goals and is
The fruits of growth: Over the 1997/
1998 New Year period, Hermes moved
into a new building in the Hamburg
district of Langenhorn. Its new headquarters
at number 89 Essener Straße is
a more friendly and brighter building.
Among the first guests to visit and
examine the new company building
was Dr Michael Otto, Chairman of the
Board of the Otto Group.
based on the method of 1. Planning,
2. Implementing, 3. Checking and
4. Optimisation. In the next few
years, all branches will be integrated
into the subsequent checks.
Hermes had for years trained office workers and IT specialists for its own needs. From 1998, two job profiles were
added: warehouse logistics specialist and IT officer. From 2000 onwards, Hermes also offered apprenticeships for IT
technicians and advertising managers so that the number of apprentices being trained quadrupled from an average
of five to 20.
Ever more packages, ever less space
in which to handle them. What can be
done about all the paperwork? Staff
at the Nuremberg depot show a talent
for improvisation
Just pack your swimming
trunks – Hermes will carry
your suitcase
ON HOLIDAY FROM THE WORD GO
From 1997 Hermes took over the luggage handling service of the German Railways.
Customers were able to have their cases, skis or whatever else they wanted to
take on holiday collected from their home and delivered to the address of their
choice. In total Hermes carries a total of two million luggage items a year.
1 2 3
1 Move over! Here comes Hermes!
Our transporters can reach every outpost, for example even the small villages
around Dresden
2 Don’t despair! When you’ve processed this lot, there’s more to come…
3 Here, there and everywhere! Text messaging and mobile phones didn’t exist at the
time, so this customer tries to get his package to a new address with a written note
FROM A TO B AND BACK AGAIN
Not only was this the title of the
book in which Andy Warhol set out
his philosophical thoughts on love,
work, time, death, money, fame and
underpants in compressed form. It
is also the basic idea behind the
ParcelShop system which Hermes
developed from 1999.
This involved Hermes taking over
the complete delivery of goods for the
Otto Group, although many returns
were still handled by the German Post
Office, which had been privatised in
1995. The new company increased its
prices for these returns until a pain
threshold was reached for the Otto
Group, whereupon it asked Hermes to
develop alternatives. The result was a
plan to build up a network of drop-off
points where final customers could
hand back their packages.
A helping hand was given by the
700 or so Otto Shops within Germany,
which now took on the additional
task of accepting returns. With a lot
of hard work and many acquisitions,
Hermes managed to integrate a total
of 1,000 ParcelShops into its system
by the end of the year. They ranged
from pharmacies, bakeries, grocery
stores, stationers and tobacconists
to dry cleaners. However, the trump
card that this constantly growing
network would represent for Hermes
would not become clear until the
next millennium.
LET’S SET UP TWO, THREE, FOUR FIRMS
Caused by the general euphoria surrounding
the internet, the promising
growth of e-commerce and the
growing business with third-party
customers (i.e. not belonging to the
Otto Group) gave rise to the creation
of numerous companies under the
Hermes brand. “There was a lot of
hype at the time”, says Hartmut Ilek
today, self-critically. “We basically
thought we could do anything. We
have a call centre, we have people in
Otto who can produce a catalogue,
we’ll set up a web shop; we know
about logistics, and we’re already
selling that on the market.”
That was the idea behind Hermes
General Services, a company which
marketed the complete range of
services of the Otto trading group. A
marketing company pure and simple,
it wanted to exploit the two mega-
trends of e-commerce and outsourcing
to competent service providers.
When courier services were hived
off to Hermes Boten Service GmbH
& Co. KG, this gave rise to a subsidiary
which specialised in letters and
printed matter.
Hermedes, the Hermes medical
service, was also set up. Its function
was to deliver items needed by
healthcare institutions such as
hospitals and old people’s homes.
The Hermes shipment service and
Hermes technical customer services
department were merged and
managed by the newly founded
managing company Hermes Service
GmbH.
The idea of offering all services
along the value chain seemed to be
a logical pre-requisite for offering
services to more third-party cus-
M. StAuber
tomers. Most of these companies
no longer exist today because the
many individual activities intended
to give rise to a general supplier did
not pay.
“When we noticed that there is
no need for a supplier who can do
everything, we relatively quickly
pulled the ripcord on it”, say Ilek.
“There is some irony in the fact that
we were too early and are again
active in this area today. Having
said that, our presence is completely
different now because we
have specialists in all areas. We only
bring these specialists together
under one portal, one umbrella
brand. Then everything looked
different, which is why we joked
amongst ourselves that a day
without creating a new firm was an
unproductive one.”
102 103

40 years of Hermes
The 1990s
As on 31 December 1999:
– A total of 141 million
consignments were carried
in the 1989 financial year.
– Total turnover stood at
DM 641 million.
– On average Hermes employed
3,350 of its own staff, around
2,000 subcontractors/cooperation
partners and more than 5,000
part-time delivery agents.
Unusual courier trip:
Can’t we fit just another one in?
104