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Foreign postal services reveal opportunities for innovation, profits s reported in last month’s Postal With margins shrinking and costs rising, training and coaching on developing Record, Great Britain recently sold Swiss Post projects that traditional entrepreneurial ideas to improve all of Aoff the , privatizing one will decline by one-third by 2015. Swiss Post’s business lines. of the world’s largest and oldest postal To help combat these declines, Swiss The postal service also offers money services. While conversations about Post has introduced several new prod- transfers and bill payment, ATMs, auto- foreign postal services must consider ucts. Perhaps the most innovative of mated postal services, e-tracking, and privatization, no picture of what is hap- these is the hybrid mail product Swiss even passenger transport through its pening in the wide world of mail is Post Box, which allows customers to PostBus service. The financial services complete without looking at countries receive by e-mail scanned images of account for much of the agency’s profit, that are investing in their postal services, their paper mail. They then can decide though Swiss Post has been seeing finding new ways to innovate and profit- whether to have Swiss Post open a its delivery profits increase with the ing from them. , scan the contents, and e-mail increase in package delivery, just as “Around the world, government them; to have the letter destroyed; or USPS has. leaders are deciding whether to carve to have it physically sent to the original up their postal services and sell them or other . Many postal industry to the highest bidders or to realize the observers believe that this hybrid ap- potential they have in their postal net- proach represents an important model works and give them the tools to inno- for the future of mail around the world. vate,” NALC President Fredric Rolando Swiss Post Box is just one of the or- said. “When they choose to innovate, ganization’s “ePost Solutions,” which these postal services often find new and also includes secure identification on remarkable services for their customers, the Internet, legally compliant elec- in a way that profits the public and not tronic signatures and verified electron- just private businesses. ic mail, essentially linking a person’s “NALC is working hard to educate virtual identity online to a real person Another innovator is Brazil’s Empresa our leaders in Congress and the White offline. To do it, Swiss Post developed Brasileira de e Telégrafos, or House to create legislation that allows an identify verification system called ECT for short (also called Correios). the United States Postal Service to in- “Post SuisseID” using USB thumb Wholly owned and operated by the gov- novate and succeed rather than cut it drives, which the post brands as ernment of Brazil, ECT is the only com- until it has lost all of its value.” “SwissStick.” A customer can use the pany with a footprint in every municipal- USB stick on any computer to establish ity in the country. It has a monopoly on his or her secure identity. mail service, but also a universal service “Swiss Post wants to satisfy the needs obligation, which is a challenge in the of its present and future customers large country, as its infrastructure is so and stay competitive, too,” the agency poorly developed. ECT also operates the says on its website. “That is why it is express mail company Sedex. However, continually developing its products traditional mail delivery is becoming a Many industry analysts point to and services and designing new ones. smaller part of ECT operations and rev- Switzerland’s Swiss Post as the leader Developing innovations is one of Swiss enues. As elsewhere in the world, mail in postal innovation. Like other posts Post’s strategic objectives.” volumes are trending downward. worldwide, Swiss Post is facing many Swiss Post boasts about special With an extensive network of 12,200 challenges in traditional delivery as management teams that aim at devel- post offices, ECT has been reinvent- electronic diversion (business that was oping innovations. It even launched ing itself as a “bank of services” for traditionally done through the mail that a year-long competition open to all Brazilians, contracting its distribution is now being done online) is a major issue of its employees, called PostVenture, infrastructure to other government for the technologically advancedPhoto by country. Miikka Skaffari that gave employees access to external agencies and private businesses.

16 The Postal Record January 2014 These services include bill process- 1981, when it became a government- In September 2013, Post an- ing, tax registration, online access, owned corporation. nounced a pilot program in to forms and documents, auto registra- provides service to 14.8 million ad- provide same-day deliveries for online tion, passports, voting, fee collection dresses, delivering 9.8 billion items in purchases from Walmart, Best Buy, and more. By operating as a retail 2012. Delivery service is performed by Future Shop and Indigo Books & Mu- location for these services, ECT has 15,000 letter carriers. sic. The cutoff times for ordering and found a valuable source of revenue, Though it is not as innovative as having a package delivered the same accounting for as much as 20 percent Swiss Post, nor has it seen as large a day ranged from 11 a.m. at Best Buy to of its income. profit swing as Brazil’s ECT, the postal 12.30 p.m. at Indigo. Canada Post was Through joint ventures and contracts, service of our neighbor to the north promising delivery by 9 p.m. ECT also has moved aggressively into has found several small ways to in- “In testing, we want to see if online banking services of all kinds. While novate that will look familiar to USPS shoppers actually embrace it,” said Rod many countries’ postal services are city letter carriers. Hart, general manager for domestic synonymous with banking, Brazil didn’t In 1993, Canada Post purchased Pu- parcels and e-commerce development get into banking until 2001. At that rolator, a competing company. at Canada Post. “Will consumers really time, ECT and Brazil’s largest bank, In 2010, this branch of Canada Post change their behavior because they can Banco Bradesco, entered into a 10-year was the leading overnight courier com- order something before lunchtime, in joint venture whereby Bradesco could pany in the country and contributed the morning, and have it delivered that use ECT post offices as bank branches, 18.8 percent of Canada Post’s revenue. day sometime between 5:30 and 9?” especially in remote areas. Because no Canada Post also maintains an agree- If the pilot program is successful, one knew what to expect from a postal ment with FedEx Ground in which the Canada Post has promised to expand it bank, the initial 10-year contract was delivers FedEx packages to other urban areas. valued at approximately $125 million. to some of the country’s more rural Though not all of its innovations The new venture, Banco Brazil and isolated . have been successful, and it has taken Postal, was so successful—offering In 2000, Canada Post created a some steps backward on door-to-door deposits, loans, credit cards, bill pay- company called epost, which allowed delivery, Canada Post has proven to ment, direct deposit, tax and social customers to receive their bills online be adaptable and open to putting security payments, as well as phone for free. It offered all-in-one-place innovations into practice quickly. The and Internet banking on Bradesco’s convenience for bills and statements Canadian Union of Postal Workers network—that when the 10-year for cable, phone, utilities, credit cards, has helped by negotiating agreements contract ended in 2011, ECT awarded property taxes and more. Eventually, with Canada Post to create joint com- a new five-year contract to the Bank of Canada Post absorbed epost. mittees of representatives from both Brazil for $1.5 billion. In 2010, it also launched a com- the union and management, where The revenues from these non-mail parison shopping service for Canadi- product ideas that both sides agree on services are helping to offset the ans called Canada Post Comparison can quickly be implemented. These expense of delivering to the entire Shopper. It allowed shoppers to find agreements have granted the employ- country, as delivering the mail with and compare products available to er speed and flexibility to deal with reasonable promptness across Brazil Canadians from more than 500 stores new conditions. remains a formidable undertaking. across the USA and Canada. Notable “There is no one right formula for features included price comparison, the perfect postal service,” President store policy information, cross-border Rolando said. “Postal services are as shipping, duties and fees estimation, different as the countries they serve. price history charts, reviews and color But by taking advantage of the unique search ability. However, as of 2012, the delivery networks, there’s a world of Mirroring the USPS, Canada Post Comparison Shopper service was no opportunity to deliver for a nation’s was a department until longer available. citizens.” PR

January 2014 The Postal Record 17