Singapore Post, Deutsche Post, Austrian Post, Post Danmark, Eesti Post (Estonia) and Solystic werethe winners of the 2012 Postal Technology International awards that were handed at Post-Expo in
Brussels this week.SingPost was voted Service Provider of the Year for its overall achievements this year,including its strategic changes and financial results. SingPost Group’s CEO, Dr Wolfgang Baier,said the dynamic and competitive nature of the postal industry means that just adapting to changeis no longer good enough. “It’s all about looking to the future and making sure we stay relevant.We have been adapting to the macro environment by rebalancing our business portfolio to build newrevenue streams in digital services and e-commerce while pursuing growth.” He added: “We are trulydelighted to have won this award as it affirms our relentless efforts to stay relevant to newgenerations of customers, our pursuit of innovation and our unwavering commitment to excellentservice.”
The Last Mile Delivery Innovation of the Year award went to Post Danmark’s e-bikedistribution system. Post Danmark introduced two models of e-bike – a three-wheeler and atwo-wheeler – into its bike distribution system in between December 2011 and January 2012 in orderto improve the flexibility and efficiency of its postal service in an €11 million investment. Theintelligent e-bikes from Nihola can carry a higher payload than manual bikes and feature a flexiblepacking system capable of carrying different types of mail.
“The main benefits of the e-bike system are drastically improved delivery times and adecrease in CO2 emissions in relation to depot delivery and collection,” said Ib Larsen, seniorproject manager at Post Danmark. “The work environment for the postal worker has also becomebetter. We are also working on other business opportunities where we plan to distribute smallparcels on all our e-bike routes.”
The Retail Innovation of the Year was the Geovista Standortcheck from Deutsche Post DHL. Thisonline geomarketing tool was developed to make location analysis easier and enable entrepreneursand franchises to forecast retail sales volumes. “This award represents a tremendous pat on theback for our hard work,” said Claudia Losse, Vice President of Innovations MAIL at Deutsche Postand Head of the GEOVISTA Project. “Thanks to the Standortcheck, small and midsized companies canalso easily use proven geomarketing know-how. Up to now, this has largely been reserved for largecompanies. With our do-it-yourself solution, we even make geomarketing attractive to peoplestarting their own businesses.”
Eesti Post (Estonia) picked up the Digital Mail Innovation of the Year award for itsElectronic Mail Centre, which is a digital environment that enables customers to send differenttypes of letters electronically and then manage and track their status. Launched in October 2011,the Electronic Mail Centre currently has 140 business clients and a growing number of privateclients.
The Environmental Achievement of the Year award went to Austrian Post for its CO2 NeutralDelivery initiative, which aims to deliver all mail items and parcels within Austria in a CO2neutral manner. According to Walter Hitziger, a member of the board at Austrian Post (Mail andBranch Network Division), this has been achieved “without any exception” since 2011.
Technology company Solystic picked up two awards, as Supplier of the Year for its overallproducts and services, and the Automation Technology award for its XMS (eXtended Mail Sorter). Thissystem, designed in close collaboration with PostNL, sorts flats and letters together,automatically processing 95 per cent of mail that can be handled mechanically and reducing manualoperations by 70 per cent.
More than 160 suppliers presented their products and services at this year’s Post-Expo whichwas attended by some 3,500 visitors while over 100 experts spoke at the conference sessions. Nextyear’s event will be held in Vienna from September 30 to October 2.
