Postal activity has always been international in nature, and today it is increasingly global, both in terms of the market and the operations of individual postal business entities. This stems from the specific nature of this field of economic activity, which involves providing postal services that are network-based and span the entire world.
Over the years, only the balance of power and the opportunities available to individual postal operators—resulting from the ongoing liberalization of the postal services market—have changed. This balance of power and opportunity has depended on the policies of individual countries, which either enabled or hindered postal operators from undertaking activities beyond the scope of universal postal services, especially services such as express and logistics. The gradual opening of postal markets and integration into the global market force postal operators to increase their attractiveness by improving their service offerings on both a national and international scale. The strategies adopted by leading European public postal operators, based on the following assumptions, are a manifestation of the changes undertaken in this direction:
• internationalization through acquisitions, equity stakes, and cooperation with courier, transport, and logistics companies
• introduction of innovation, understood as the absorption of new internal solutions and the ability to immediately implement external solutions that can increase operational efficiency
• building a network of strong positions in all globally strategic countries (primarily in the triad countries) to gain first-mover advantage and scale
• introduction of a globally standardized product, thereby gaining an advantage in both setting industry standards and customer loyalty
• building a global network based on optimally coordinated and localized operations, allowing for a cost and quality advantage that competitors will find difficult to match
• promoting a global brand and developing global advertising to build an image that competitors will find difficult to undermine.
The implementation of these assumptions in individual postal service markets is naturally characterized by varying intensity. This is determined by the following factors:
• the amount of available financial resources
• the state of infrastructure, which conditions the creation of competitive advantage and a global network
• the pace of changes in new technologies, the implementation of which enables service standardization, but is often associated with limited financial resources and credit opportunities.
Globalization as a trend in the evolution of the postal services market is supported by international organizations such as the Universal Postal Union (UPU) and the World Bank. On the European postal services market, public postal operators that have transformed into globally operating, modern market enterprises include Deutsche Post World Net, TPG-TNT Post Group, Royal Mail Group, and Groupe La Poste. They are often colloquially referred to as “super-posts.” As a result of this transformation, they occupy a significant position alongside such postal market entities as UPS (United Parcel Service) or FedEx (Federal Express).
The interest of public postal operators in global-scale operations is confirmed by the economic practice observed at Deutsche Post World Net, TPG-TNT Post Group, Groupe La Poste, and Royal Mail Group, whose levels of participation in the global market are presented in Table 1.
Undoubtedly, Deutsche Post World Net (DPWN) holds the strongest position in the European postal services market. The second strongest European postal operator is TPG-TNT Post Group. In the face of the total liberalization of the EU postal services market planned for 2009 and the declining growth in letter mail volume, the DPWN group is attempting to secure alternative sources of income through expansion and the acquisition of private postal operators. It currently owns approximately 1,300 subsidiary companies. DPWN plans that in the coming years (starting from 2005), half of the group’s total income will come from the logistics and express services sector.