Austrian Post yesterday unveiled a package of measures, including 360 job losses and seven depotclosures, to downsize its parcels business during 2008 in response to the loss of key customers. It
is also looking for a new head of parcels and logistics.The Austrian national postal operator said it would reduce the number of parcel deliverydepots from 21 to 14, and increase integration of the parcels business into the mail deliverynetwork. Parcels outside city areas would in future be delivered by mail staff. Some 360 people outof the 2,000-strong parcels workforce will lose their job but Austrian Post aims to transfer themto the mail division or agree redundancies.
Austrian Post also said it would launch a new premium product, 24-hour next-day parceldelivery for B2B and B2C customers, as well as offer Saturday and multiple delivery attempts toimprove its service offering. It reiterated the target of increasing its B2B parcel market sharefrom the present 5% to 20% by 2011.
Austrian Post stressed that the Parcel & Logistics Division would remain profitable nextyear and reiterated its medium-term 5% EBIT target for the business.
The plan, which was approved by the supervisory board yesterday, comes in response tocompetition from German parcels firm Hermes Logistik, which entered the Austrian market this summerand which has won major mail-order customers Otto, Quelle and Neckermann for 2008.
“With all these measures and a more offensive business strategy, the role of Austrian Postwill be transformed, making it not only the traditional caretaker of the Austrian postal market butalso a hunter more aggressively striving to increase its market share“, said Austrian Post chairmanAnton Wais.
At the same time, Austrian Post will create the new position of board member responsible forthe Parcel & Logistics division, and is publicly seeking candidates for the post.
