The world’s postal operators are embracing new technologies to diversify revenue sources asdeclining mail volumes hit their core business, industry leaders told a UPU event last week.
The global financial crisis and the continuing effects of electronic substitution are pushingoperators to take strategic steps to generate new business opportunities and revenues. In response,Posts around the world are harnessing the power of innovation to remain relevant, delegates heardat the UPU Postal Operations Council plenary forum on how the postal sector responded to the pastyear’s turbulent events.
In a video message, Jack Potter, the United States’ postmaster general, said Posts need tosupport business on the Internet. USPS, which has a successful partnership with online trader eBay,recently made its own website more e-commerce friendly and developed innovative applications formobiles such as the iPhone. “We are changing to meet the needs of our customers,” he said. Theoperator is now focusing on the growing parcel business. “The changing mail mix and lower volumesare a huge revenue challenge. Without major changes, we potentially could face a $200 billioncumulative loss over the next 10 years,” he admitted.
For its part, Korea Post is also boosting the competitive parcel and EMS business. Throughgreater automation and new e-commerce initiatives, the Asian postal operator expects parcels andEMS items to make up 53% of its overall postal business by 2020, compared to 28% today. Letters,accounting for 72% of today’s business, will only make up 47% of it by the end of this decade.
More Posts are also developing their financial services and capitalising on customers’ trust tobeef up their postal revenues. In Morocco, where only 30% of people have bank accounts, the Postwill launch the Al Barid Bank in June. The bank will target low-income people at home and abroad. “It is a strategic imperative… in order to preserve and develop our financial services,” explainedthe Post’s new director general, Amin Benjelloun Touimi.
At opposite ends of the world, Nigeria and Bhutan explained how they are using satellitetechnology as the communication backbone for a string of e-services that are better integratingcustomers into the information society.
In a discussion on CSR in the postal sector, UNI Global Union General Secretary Philip Jenningshighlighted the importance of social issues, criticised “the failed policy of liberalisation” andcalled for a jobs pact for the postal sector.
UPU Director General Edouard Dayan welcomed the various activities of the postal operators inthe face of the current challenges. “Instead of hiding their heads in the sand, Posts are showing agreat ability to be innovative,” he commented.
Meanwhile, the “politics of post” was the subject of a special conference parallel to the POCmeeting in Berne last week organised by Switzerland’s Federal School of Technology at Lausanne.Prof Matthias Finger argued that Posts have been more vulnerable to increased competition fromprivate players than other public services, such as the railways. “The historical operator ishandicapped due to its public-service obligation in the face of competitors, which cherry-pick themost lucrative business-segments,” he said.
Concerning European postal liberalisation, the industry expert was critical. “The EU isliberalising its postal market by reducing the public monopoly to zero, thus removing the Posts’traditional financing mechanism for the universal service obligation,” he said. At the same time,the European Commission had shied away from re-defining universal service. “This leaves thehistorical operator in an almost impossible situation: it still has the universal serviceobligation but not the monopoly to finance it,” he underlined.
