Austrian Post is successfully implementing its regional growth strategy and has started making homedeliveries of online food orders, according to senior executives.
The partly-privatised postal operator’s strategy of ‘defend, grow, optimise and customise’is paying off, CEO Georg Pölzl told the World Postal Business Forum at Post-Expo in Vienna thisweek.
In the domestic mail market, Austrian Post is defending its market leadership, whichgenerates high profits, with a ‘two-brand’ strategy. The core Austrian Post brand is a ‘high pricepremium’ service while the ‘budget brand’ Feibra “is a much cheaper product with a completelydifferent service”, he explained.
The ‘growth’ business of parcels and logistics is expanding both in Austria andinternationally, Pölzl told senior postal managers from Europe and overseas. In the domesticparcels market, Austrian Post is now the second-largest B2B company after DPD and ahead of DHL andGLS, he pointed out. It already dominates the B2C segment with a 75 per cent share, far ahead ofDPD and GLS.
In Germany, the group has invested in start-up pharmaceuticals distributor company AEP whichlaunched this week using the market-leading trans-o-flex network for deliveries. “We believe thiswill be successful. AEP is a ‘Motel One’ style business,” Pölzl said.
In South-East Europe, Austrian Post has now entered the Turkish market through its 25 percent stake in Aras Kargo. “They are the fastest-growing company and are very profitable,” the CEOmade clear. “We have a clear path to 75 per cent ownership in 2016 if the business goes asexpected.”
Regarding cost savings and optimisation in Austria, Pölzl explained that staff costs hadgradually been reduced by taking on more staff under new collective contracts, while the number ofcivil servants had been reduced to 50 per cent in recent years.
In parallel, the retail network had actually increased to 2,000 locations from 1,500 inrecent years, with the number of traditional post offices falling from 1,000 to 500 but the numberof postal agencies rising from 400 to 1,500. “We have reduced costs significantly but increased thecoverage,” he pointed out. Moreover, the self-service network, ranging from self-service letter andparcel shipping to parcel pick-up stations is being gradually extended, he added.
Meanwhile, Gerald Gregori, head of Logistics Services, told conference delegates in aseparate session that Austrian Post has been extending logistics services for e-retailers in recentyears. For coffee capsules firm Nespresso, for example, it not only offers nationwide next-daydelivery but even same-day delivery in Vienna.
One new project is with start-up online food sales company Kochabo.at, which offers weeklyhome deliveries of fresh produce, ingredients and recipes. Austrian Post currently has 2,000deliveries a day and plans to offer same-day deliveries in major towns and cities in future,Gregori said.
