PostNL has acquired the Dutch courier company Valid Express to expand its product range forcustomers who need reliable same-day delivery services, as part of its strategy to grow its
business in “adjacent markets”.The Dutch postal group said the acquisition of Valid Express provided PostNL with anationwide courier network “with a social heart”, because Valid Express specifically employs peoplethat are chronically ill or physically disabled people. Valid Express was founded in 1999 byNicolette Mak because her disabled brother was unable to find a job. It now employs sixty people,with branches in Amsterdam, The Hague/Rotterdam and Utrecht and has 600 customers.
Gerrit Mastenbroek, CEO of PostNL Parcels, said this approach “fits seamlessly into PostNL’scorporate responsible profile”. He added: “We expect a lot of interest for this new service fromour customers, because this way, retailers and webshops can differentiate themselves even more fromtheir competitors.
“The fact is that we see the preferences of receiving customers becoming increasinglydiverse. The customer wants increasingly more influence on where and when the parcel is delivered.With the acquisition of Valid Express we can deliver parcels even faster and give further meaningto our social ambition.”
A spokesman told CEP-Research that there were obvious corporate social responsibility (CSR)benefits that came with the acquisition, but it was impossible for a company that has a reputationand culture of responsibility to state whether a transaction is either primarily done forcommercial or CSR benefits. “When you are a responsible company, people, planet and profit all havethe same level of importance,” he said.
But there were certainly commercial and strategic reasons for the purchase, he stressed, andthat it fitted with PostNL’s plan to offer services that complement its core business of mail andparcel delivery in the Netherlands and neighbouring countries.
Other elements to its strategy to grow into “adjacent markets” included the company’sacquisition of logistics company Trans-o-flex, and the acquisition of Mikropakket, offering aproposition for customers wanting to ship high-value goods, as well as PostNL’s recently launched ‘Extra@home’ service for the delivery of large consumer goods purchased online, such as washingmachines and refrigerators.
The spokesman told CEP-Research that the plan was to expand the Valid Express business byoffering same-day courier services to PostNL’s existing customers, but he said it was “too early tosay whether that would lead to an expansion in terms of resources”.
He said PostNL did not intend to expand into the business of its former sister company TNTExpress “which is primarily an international, B2B business”, although he said the boundariesbetween different sectors of the delivery market were becoming blurred as market dynamics evolved.
PostNL processes around 8.7 billion addressed postal items annually, including 106 millionparcels, delivering to addresses in the Benelux, Germany, the UK and Italy.
