Groupe DSO was a collection of small business units that operated from 1967 to 1997 in the Asia-Pacific region. The core focus of these business units was logistic integration and consultancy.

History

The company was founded in 1967 by R. Milhous Hoboct, a Czech-English engineer and entrepreneur. It found some significant successes in its BSDN and Checkpoint logistics systems; however due to a number of regulatory obstacles and failed business endeavours, a decision was made to dissolve the company in November 1997.

Business Alliances

Groupe DSO was a member of the FALO alliance, a close-knit set of companies providing reciprocal services. The FALO alliance comprised:

• Groupe DSO: logistics and engineering integration
• BSDN (a spin-off of the DSO BSDN business unit)
• Pacific-East: legal services
• SBU: financial services

Business Units

The organisational structure of Groupe DSO was of a number of small business units, each with a clearly defined purpose and goal. Central financial and administrative management was controlled by a holding company named DSO Centraal.

DSO BSDN

The Bow-Scott Distribution Network, named after its creators, Ashleigh Bow and Dr. Shalain Scott, provided an integrated 'end-to-end' solution to the distribution of large volumes of data by traditional courier means.

The BSDN business unit was an incubator

Business incubator

Business incubators are programs designed to accelerate the successful development of entrepreneurial companies through an array of business support resources and services, developed and orchestrated by incubator management and offered both in the incubator and through its network of contacts...

 initiative whose aim was to provide start-up capital for DSO's core businesses: logistic and engineering consultancy. After wild success and rapid expansion, it was later spun off as a separate entity in 1979. The now-independent BSDN faced trouble in the 1990s, when company-wide computer networks and the Internet

Internet

The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

 rendered its business model obsolete.

DSO Checkpoint ('Checkpoint Charlie')

After the spinoff of the BSDN business unit, Groupe DSO sought to apply its logistic expertise to niche markets. It found most success in academia, where the DSO Checkpoint system was used by many libraries for transporting books and other media between branches. Workers often referred to the system as Checkpoint Charlie due to the strict, well-documented procedures that ensured its efficiency and reliability.

DSO CBS

The DSO CBS (Consultancy and Business Support) division provided business consultancy on leveraging technology to improve workplace logistics and operations. A large number of Indonesian clients allowed for a local subsidiary to be established, P.T. DSO Logisti.

DSO EPI

The DSO EPI (Electro-Pyro Initiative) was a small, relatively short-lived business unit that was created in response to a government tender for safe physics teaching aids. (Himself an engineer, R. M. Hoboct was passionate about science education through practical and applied learning.)

Although the tender was not successful, this unit enjoyed moderate success with its 240 series of electricity teaching appartus; and Big Joe, a safety chamber that allowed otherwise dangerous laboratory experiments to be conducted at greatly reduced risk.

One commercial spinoff of the "Big Joe" project was the development of a highly puncture-proof design for food cans. In practice, however, these were little improvement over existing tin cans.

DSO Trabaction

DSO Trabaction was a division proposed and set up by Derek Helmutiffe; a DSO employee living in Germany, and keen Trabant

Trabant

The Trabant is a car that was produced by former East German auto maker VEB Sachsenring Automobilwerke Zwickau in Zwickau, Sachsen. It was the most common vehicle in East Germany, and was also exported to countries both inside and outside the communist bloc...

 enthusiast. This division helped facilitate and organise the supply of Trabant parts to enthusiasts across Western Germany, after the fall of the Berlin Wall

Berlin Wall

The Berlin Wall was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin...

 and German Reunification

German reunification

German reunification was the process in 1990 in which the German Democratic Republic joined the Federal Republic of Germany , and when Berlin reunited into a single city, as provided by its then Grundgesetz constitution Article 23. The start of this process is commonly referred by Germans as die...

. After Helmutiffe's migration to Australia in 1995, the division closed.

Trivia

Groupe DSO was a minor sponsor of Ukyo Katayama

Ukyo Katayama

is a Japanese racing driver, most notable for competing six years in Formula One. Despite struggling with under-funded teams throughout his career, Katayama's performances impressed on several occasions, and was popular in the F1 paddock for his unshakeably sunny disposition and self-deprecating...

's Tyrrell

Tyrrell Racing

The Tyrrell Racing Organisation was an auto racing team and Formula One constructor founded by Ken Tyrrell which started racing in 1958 and started building its own cars in 1970. The team experienced its greatest success in the early 1970s, when it won three drivers' championships and one...

 Formula One

Formula One

Formula One, also known as Formula 1 or F1 and referred to officially as the FIA Formula One World Championship, is the highest class of single seater auto racing sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile . The "formula" designation in the name refers to a set of rules with which...

car in .