Peter Klaus

1944 Born on March 9 in Frankfurt/Oder

1963 Acquired university entrance qualification at the Dürer-Oberrealschule school in Nuremberg

1964 to 1966 Apprenticeship as freight forwarding assistant at Kraftverkehr Klaus, his father's firm in Nuremberg

1968 Awarded a degree in Business Management by the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg

1970 to 1978 Various management positions at Kraftverkehr Klaus, appointed Managing Partner in 1972

1997 Sale of Kraftverkehr Klaus to the Unilever Group

1979 to 1983 Studies and PhD in the USA: "Master of Science (Transportation)" at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge in 1982 and Doctor of Business Administration at the University of Boston in 1983

1982 to 1995 Professor of Business Management at the University of Applied Sciences for Business in Pforzheim

1990 University Professor, holder of the Chair of Business Management with the focus on logistics at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg

1995 Head of the Fraunhofer Working Group for Technologies in the Logistics Service Industry (ATL) in Nuremberg

Since 2006 Chair of the "Logistics Cluster" in the "Cluster Offensive" launched by the Bavarian Ministry of Economic Affairs

2009 Induction into the Logistics Hall of Fame

• You can’t manage what you can’t measure. It was in line with this motto that Peter Klaus "measured" the logistics market more exactly than anyone else. The outcome of this work was the popular study entitled "Top 100 in Logistics". They key results can be expressed in two figures: a market volume of 220 billion euros and 2.7 million employees. It was with these two numbers that Professor Peter Klaus, D.B.A./Boston Univ., brought logistics out of the shadows, putting an end to its image of a business that produces traffic noise and endless tailbacks. A sector was "born".
• The researcher was the first person to compile soundly based turnover and workforce statistics for the logistics sector. His data also supplied detailed information on the various sub-entities in the logistics industry. Comprehensive data of this kind, of this scope and in this quality had previously not been available either in Germany or Europe.
• The significance of the data compiled by Klaus extends far beyond the world of research and science. His turnover and workforce figures enabled associations and the media to solidly profile the sheer size and importance of the logistics sector. It also made it possible to establish logistics as one of the biggest sectors in terms of volume and employees, and to underscore its significance for the German economy and its contribution to GDP for the first time based on hard data. This resulted in a hugely increased awareness of logistics among political decision-makers and the public at large and, consequently, a greatly improved image of the logistics sector among the general population. The impacts of this development are far-reaching; two aspects that are particularly worthy of mention are the hugely increased appeal of the industry for talented job applicants and the involvement of the sector in drafting the legislation that is of relevance to logistics operations. The logistics boom of the new millennium can therefore be largely attributed to the efforts of Peter Klaus.