“This is an exciting development for our customers and our teammembers, as the benefits of integration are coming to life througha faster, more comprehensive service for businesses trading withinEurope,” said Bert Nappier, president of FedEx Express and CEO of .“Through integration with we are building Europe’s premierlogistics business, and the integration of our economy networkstakes us one step closer.”

　　The service improvement is currently being launched acrossGermany, United Kingdom, Benelux, Poland and Spain and willprogressively roll out across the rest of Europe throughout thefirst half of 2019. As a result, many customers will see fastertransit times and some may see co-branded drivers pick up ordeliver shipments, as more stations integrate. Tracking andshipping tools, customer support and invoicing will remain thesame, ensuring a consistent interface for customers.

　　However, there is still a long way to go to full digitalization,with only 4% of SMEs reporting they are fully digitalized. Thesurvey suggests there is significant development potential with thenumber of SMEs who have fully digitalized logistics processesprojected to more than double. Another 18% of the surveyed SMEsanticipate that more than 80% of their logistic processes will bedigitalized over the next five years.

　　These results have been obtained as part of a survey of over2,000 small and medium-sized enterprises in Germany, France, Italy,and Spain about their export and import activities. Among the 501German companies who participated in the survey, 262 were verysmall enterprises (1–9 employees), 126 small companies (10–49employees) as well as 113 medium-sized enterprises (50–249employees).