Posts should have a long-term business vision that covers electronic services without forgetting physical mail, said postal CEOs at the UPU’s World Postal Business Forum in Vienna, Austria.
The postal business is constantly transforming, a process that could take years to complete. “It’s a marathon, not a sprint,” said Herna Verhagen, CEO, PostNL, the Netherlands’s designated operator.
“Prepare for the future. Be clear about the long-term view on the mail business and use existing competencies as well,” she added.
All postal businesses have been hit by failing mail volumes and it is crucial to manage this. “You can manage the decline by reorganizing your business, reducing costs and, where possible, increasing prices,” Verhagen advised.
Georg Polzl, Austria Post CEO, pointed out that many Posts were being innovative as they faced the opportunities brought by the e-commerce boom. “We are developing our shares of the business-to-business and business-to-consumer markets in Europe as well as in Turkey,” Polzl said.
The CEOs attending agreed that managing the business of e-commerce fulfilment was an important source of revenues for postal operators both now and in the future.
SingPost CEO Wolfgang Baier underlined that Singapore’s designated operator was well on its way to redefining itself as a Post that can deliver e-commerce services from end to end.
SingPost has sealed a deal to run sportswear company, Adidas’ e-commerce business in South-East Asia. While proud of this achievement, Baier underlined that mail was still SingPost’s main business, accounting for 80 per cent of revenues. “We cannot leave the core business of mail on one side. It will continue to be important [to SingPost] for some time to come. We must never forget that we are postal business,” Baier said.
Baier, Polzl and Verhagen were speaking at an annual forum organized by the UPU, which is held at Post-Expo, an industry event.
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