Logistics firm DHL has claimed big data tools have enabled it to cut both the time and costs of its distribution operations.

According to V3, vice-president of business controlling for DHL's Express division Graeme Aitken stated as little as three years ago the business relied on various legacy databases sent out to each country via CD.

He said: "It was being done quite well in some countries and not at all in other countries. The whole thing was just utterly fragmented and nobody really trusted it. And the less they trusted it, the worse it got."

Big data refers to sets of information so large they are hard to process through traditional means, as typically they are too large to visualise. Yet new technology can assess this and, using the larger information, identify accurate trends and conclusions.

The company, which has around 60,000 vehicles and 250 cargo flights each day, is also the first logistics organisation to be accredited by the Association for Project Management (APM) in the UK. APM acknowledged DHL for its project management achievements.

One of the benefits of big data is that shared information can be used to provide the biggest picture of a market or industry but DHL, however, is keeping its figures unpublished.