Finland’s Posti will retain just 21 of its 98 remaining post offices, transferring 77 outlets to partners over the next three years, but also plans to further expand its network of service points.
The company said it has completed the cooperation negotiations concerning the outsourcing of its remaining 98 post offices and will continue managing 21 of these. These 21 post offices are located all over Finland including six locations in Helsinki. Negotiations will be held concerning 77 outlets to be transferred to partners between the years 2015 and 2018.
In addition, Posti plans to open 100 new service points in different parts of Finland. Its network currently counts approximately 1,400 service points, which include 470 parcel points, with the number to grow to 1,500 in a few years. Its service network will remain the most extensive in Finland, the postal operator stressed. About 90% of the 800 postal outlets in Finland are already operated by partners.
During the negotiations with partners, it was agreed to reduce the number of necessary redundancies from 380 to 319, as part of outsourcing its own post offices to the partners. All employees have the opportunity to participate in the ‘Uusi polku’ (New Path) support programme, which offers training and support for job seeking, retraining, or becoming an entrepreneur.
“The changes will be made one outlet at a time as the negotiations with the partners proceed and will take place over the next two and a half years, with the first changes estimated for August 2015 at the earliest,” the postal operator explained. Customers will be informed of any changes in their local postal outlets well in advance, and the outlets will continue their normal operations until then. The negotiations will not affect other Posti services.
“We are developing our services on the basis of customer needs, by improving the accessibility of the services and taking all our different customer groups into account. It is important that each area has its own service point that meets the local needs and provides the services that the local inhabitants and businesses want. When evaluating service points, we have taken into account customer flows, customer structures, amounts of mail dispatched and received and the population density,” Riku Kuusisto, Vice President of Posti's Retail Network.
Earlier this year, Posti announced that it will ‘renew’ its service point network in order to offer longer opening hours, individual flexibility and new online services in response to changing customer needs. “With the renewal, we also aim to tackle the increasing number of parcels caused by the growth in e-commerce, as well as the fast delivery of these parcels,” Posti said.
The renewal of its service network is based on customer research studies conducted over several years. According to a survey conducted by TNS Gallup, more than 70% of Finns want Posti outlets to have the same opening hours as shops.
“In the future, Posti can often be found closer to its customers. We are adding one hundred new service points in different parts of Finland. We will also improve the operation of our own outlets. In addition to personal service, many Posti services are also available online,” Kuusisto stated.
He pointed out that a similar change of transferring postal outlets to service providers has occurred previously in, for instance, Denmark, Sweden, Norway or Netherlands, where postal companies have very few or no postal outlets of their own.
