La Poste will continue to diversify by expanding its express parcels and financial servicesbusinesses to compensate for a long-term major downturn in mail volumes and profits, CEO Jean-Paul
Bailly said at Post-Expo yesterday.In a presentation entitled “re-inventing the postal model”, Bailly said postal operators facedthe short-term challenge of surviving the crisis and the longer-term one of re-inventing theirbusiness model. But La Poste did not see any need to change its fundamental strategy, hestressed.
After a 3% volume decline in 2008, La Poste expects domestic mail volumes to slump further byabout 6%-6.5% this year, he told the World Postal Business Forum. “We have planned to face a 30%volume decrease by 2015 and stable profitability,” he stated.
In the mail business, La Poste aims to make its fixed costs more flexible to try to protectprofit margins, he stated. Bailly also raised the issue of the future of the universal postalservice. “We will have to think about the future of universal services because they are significantfor our fixed costs.”
Although the express and parcel sector had been differently impacted by the economic downturnthis year, “very big potential” remained due to e-commerce growth, Bailly said. “The opportunity isB2C. It is fast-growing, European and there is convergence with B2B,” he commented.
The financial services business, La Banque Postale, had continued to grow this year and is nowthe third-largest retail bank in France, Bailly said. “A bank is a real asset through the crisis,”he commented.
“The solution to the crisis is innovation and also partnerships,” he commented. Partnerships arenot “in the nature of large incumbent Posts”, he noted. “One of the main efforts in coming yearswill be to change this climate towards cooperation with smaller partners.”
Other potential future postal activities included “materialisation and dematerialisation” ofmail and global mail, parcel and financial services for SMEs, Bailly added.
