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Une journée mondiale de la Poste au cœur de la nouvelle normalité

Graphique : les Etats-Unis à la veille de la saison des fêtes 2020.

Cette journée mondiale de la Poste 2020 marque un tournant dans l’histoire postale. En effet, elle s’inscrit à seulement quatre jours du lancement de la saison des fêtes pour les e-marchands du monde entier qui commercialisent aujourd’hui leurs produits sur des plateformes mondiales de commerce électronique aussi diverses qu’Amazon, Etsy, Ebay, ou encore Jumia. Les consommateurs sont prêts à entamer leurs achats de Noël et de fin d’année plus de deux mois avant de remettre leurs cadeaux à leurs proches, alors que la plupart s’y prenaient deux semaines à l’avance il y a encore quelques années. Bienvenu à la nouvelle normalité du commerce électronique qui impacte à son tour tout le secteur postal et de la livraison !

Ce tournant dans l’histoire postale résulte bien évidemment de la pandémie et du grand confinement qui a bouleversé les modes de vie et de consommation de milliards de personnes dans le monde. Télétravail, achats et autres services en ligne : le digital est en croissance explosive depuis quelques mois et nous nous retrouvons aujourd’hui plus près des projections qui avaient été réalisées pour le monde numérique en 2030 que celles qui avaient été prédites pour l’année 2020 en cours. Les services postaux en subissent les conséquences de plein fouet : effondrement des volumes de courrier déjà en déclin depuis plus d’une décennie, et très fortes hausses du trafic des petits paquets et colis, parfois atteignant même des croissances à trois chiffres dans certains pays et certains mois de l’année.

Le secteur postal vient de commencer à nous apporter le futur. C’est un véritable condensé de ce que nous allons continuer à vivre au cours des prochaines années : les consommateurs, les citoyens et les entreprises ont définitivement abandonné l’ère analogique en cette année zéro, soit notre année 2020, et ont été précipités dans l’ère numérique de gré ou de force pour affronter l’ennemi commun, le Coronavirus. Or, il ne s’agit pas de se tromper d’ennemi pour le secteur postal. Le défi sectoriel le plus important n’est pas, paradoxalement, le Coronavirus et ses effets sur l’évolution du trafic de la poste aux lettres ou des colis postaux. L’ennemi postal, beaucoup plus insidieux et difficile de combattre, c’est l’état d’esprit du secteur pour les réformes à venir ; c’est le frein à l’accélération de la transformation des modèles d’affaires dans les entreprises postales et de logistique ; c’est le manque de soutien aux innovateurs au sein de ces institutions bien souvent myopes sur ce qui les attend demain ; c’est la crainte de s’unir et de collaborer plus ardemment que jamais avec les autres acteurs du secteur alors que ce pari pourrait s’avérer gagnant-gagnant pour tous. Alors, les acteurs du secteur tendent à avoir recours aux vieilles ficelles pour affronter l’hyper-demande pour les services postaux et de livraison de colis ; c’est l’introduction de nouvelles taxes additionnelles sur les flux de la saison des fêtes comme aux Etats-Unis ou ailleurs aussi ; c’est aussi l’introduction de quotas de livraisons par client pour éluder les limites de capacité des infrastructures de chaque entreprise de livraison prise séparément ; ou c’est simplement l’interruption de services pour les très petites entreprises qui vendent en ligne, comme l’a déjà fait Amazon.

Dans cette nouvelle normalité postale et logistique, il n’y a aucun doute pour un rôle proactif de la régulation et du régulateur postal. Il ne s’agit pas de se contenter de la nouvelle normalité, mais d’accélérer aussi vite que possible la transformation de celle-ci en une meilleure normalité en agissant de concert avec tous les acteurs et parties prenantes du secteur. A l’instar de notre passage définitif à l’ère numérique, un autre bond vers une nouvelle régulation postale s’impose désormais. Rappelons-nous que l’ami postal a été à nos côtés pour nous amener soins, prospérité et résilience pendant la grande pandémie. Nous souhaitons le garder près de nous, en pleine santé et orienté vers l’avenir.

Bonne journée mondiale de la Poste en ce 9 octobre, et mes meilleurs vœux de réussite dans vos entreprises de développement postal.

 

Dr. José Anson, Fondateur et CEO de UPIDO, et économiste postal.

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Could Trump save the UPU? (II)

In my last article, I was leaving you with a “saving the planet” call for all key e-commerce delivery stakeholders under the auspices of a new UPU. Today, the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change confirms that uniting all postal and logistics companies with this noble common goal must be immediately secured should we really deliver a future to our children. But for this purpose, our children need education and development at the first place.

Jack Ma’s applications to prestigious universities and institutions were rejected many times. Harvard rejected him ten times if I remember well. This did not prevent him from persevering on its way to success. Perseverance is often the driver of true fundamental changes for development. Nobel prizes are often awarded to talented individuals that truly persevered in their obsession to solve a problem. Unfortunately, some people and institutions do exactly the opposite: persevering in not solving a problem and keeping the status-quo instead. The UPU has been one of them.

In terms of development, the UPU has been persevering in funding it, with little or no results, by maintaining a highly economically distorted system of international postal rates, the increasingly “renown” terminal dues system. Subsidizing postal rates paid by developing countries for sending mails and packets abroad was meant to allow access to international postal communication by the most economically and socially vulnerable populations. The sad reality is that the most vulnerable of all, namely in Africa, were cut from postal communication by the establishment of prohibitive rates for receiving mail instead.

In too many cases, you still have to rent a very expensive P.O. box for receiving mail, and small packets, in most Sub-Saharan African countries today. No surprise the poor preferred cheaper mobile phones as soon as they became widely available, and free reception of calls and electronic messages, to unaffordable postal reception channels.

Jack Ma, one of the first proponents of free delivery for the recipients of his platform products, is still asking himself what levels of extraordinary delivery convenience this expensive African P.O. boxes provide their recipients with? Are they digitally connected? Are they smart? Are they talking to the recipient? Are they personalized? Are they accessible by delivery drones? Are they flying themselves? And what’s their address? Can all recipients easily know where they are located?

They have none of these highly desirable features in spite a 50-year of UPU subsidies and terminal dues discussions and negotiations. They are not even close to move to any of these “futuristic” features. Yes… there are exceptions and recent fascinating innovations particularly in the addressing area. However, I would like to stress that we are not talking about a decade of subsidies here! One would have expected so much more after “supporting” several generations of senders and recipients of mail, at least in terms of readiness to move towards the next delivery model. The humble lesson for UPU 2.0, should Trump save it, is clear regarding what does lead to little or no development progress when rethinking the way of funding a badly needed leapfrog of postal networks in most developing regions of the world. They are in urgent need for new paths to relevance in the 21st century.

The international postal crisis will hopefully unleash a revolution for postal development. And Jack Ma certainly has new insights to share with us in my next article! We’ll keep you posted.

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Could Trump save the Universal Postal Union?

The Universal Postal Union is finally getting the attention it deserves in the news. Unfortunately, the sudden public awareness of its very existence is related to the announcement by the United States of a scheduled withdrawal from the 144 years old organization. However, resolving this first major international postal crisis could bring numerous positive developments for the levels and quality of global postal and logistics connectivity in support of sustainable international trade exchanges and the digital economy.

The UPU crisis could help dramatically reshaping the way international postal and logistics operates today. Only a stronger union of all stakeholders involved in these international exchanges, from Jack Ma to the postman, can bring back relevance and resilience to this United Nations specialized agency.

But how are Jack Ma and the postman related in this story?

In order to fully seize the reform opportunities brought over by the latest multilateral system crisis, the UPU should quickly reinvent itself. The organization certainly is one of the noblest creations in human history and has been the first to foster global communication and trade through greater postal connectivity as early as of the end of the 19th century.

And yes … Jack Ma has also been one of the first to connect with your postman in order to build up an empire and help any shopper in the world to connect and buy from thousands and thousands of small producers as never before in international trade history!

It is then clear that fragmenting and dividing networks bound together for more than a century hardly constitutes any progress for a country. However, keeping other relevant postal and logistics companies away from this system (just because they were not among what is called the historical operators) is equally wrong and dangerous.  And it is equally wrong for the UPU outsiders to sometimes voluntarily stay away from the international postal family.

We live in a fascinating yet increasingly unstable and volatile time regarding the sustainability of our economies and societies. We all want to save the planet and we should all be part of the solutions. For the UPU, this means integrating all cross-border e-commerce market participants and delivery networks in its policy and operational frameworks so as to achieve much greater green efficiency in the movements of international goods bought online. For the other global logistics networks, this should not be an invitation to be refused. A common zero-emissions package goal! A noble dream shared by all of us! A world without shopping bags!

Nobody would doubt that Jack Ma wants to save the planet, too. He will dedicate a great share of his wealth, built thanks to the millions of postmen and women of this world, for this very noble purpose soon. As a former teacher, he naturally focuses on educational projects. Sometimes an obscure international organization can help deliver more than billions of small packets. Indeed!

For the reader’s “education”, the UPU opening up has been postponed for more than two decades and even more sadly, no lesson has been learnt on the path to this crisis. So far, the organization has kept a number of logistics and delivery players away from its decision-making processes, without even talking about accessing the operational “codes” and “green lights” needed in the management of international postal operations, as if these logistics and transportation companies were not part of our planet. Being inclusive should mean finding the solution to key global challenges, such as climate change, together with the other parties moving international e-commerce and not against them. To be united as never before for a true noble common goal: saving the planet!

But sustainability is not sustainable without development at the first place. And maybe Jack Ma could give us a few advices in my next article. I’ll keep you posted, of course!

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Funding a postal revolution

The annual turnover of cross-border e-commerce exchanges is expected to reach more than a trillion dollars by 2020. Funds available for postal development in developing countries are not even reaching a hundred million dollars today. This means that for every thousand dollars of online sales, less than ten cents of a dollar are today potentially available for funding a much-needed postal development catch-up in many countries. Peanuts for international postal development! This must quickly change.

First, funding postal infrastructure development for least developed postal economies should directly target the international movements of goods bought online, i.e. international ecommerce. There is no way back from the globalization of exchanges in spite of mounting protectionist pressures. Any postal or delivery company should have “delivery to and from any location in the world” at the very heart of its value proposition. Revolutionizing funding of postal development start by “thinking global” and global thinking!

Then the “who is funding”, “who is funded”, “what is funded” and “how is funded” must be totally revisited in the very few international postal development funding programmes, such as the UPU’s Quality of Service Fund (QSF).  

So, what should be funded in terms of global postal development? Only the projects with critical collaboration benefits across all sector stakeholders in the current context of the fourth industrial revolution! The era of ever-increasing benefits for those who dare to collaborate, connect and create together!

One lesson can already be learnt from existing postal development funding schemes, such as the UPU’s QSF. Isolated projects, which do not connect with a broader development strategy integrating a wide variety of national and international stakeholders, are most likely to produce little or no results, and this will be even worst in the fourth industrial revolution context that penalize “single agents”. Posts cannot remain the single and disconnected agents of development.

Instead, postal development projects that systematically tie all parties involved in improving the transportation and delivery of e-commerce merchandises should be prioritized. Nobody has the end-the-end solution to global delivery challenges today. Funding truly interoperable operational tracking systems across all delivery, postal and transportation companies, in turn accessible by countries’ official authorities such as customs and security agencies, could be a best practice example of the huge economic and societal value when daring to involve all relevant parties in funding postal and delivery infrastructure development. The response to the first international postal institutional crisis is more inter-sector and stakeholders connectivity rather than less, and this already starts at the “what should be funded” stage!

Setting up the first stage of the postal and delivery infrastructure development in this way would be the best invitation to Jack Ma and other stakeholders to participate in several billion dollars global development projects to effectively and sustainably connect Jack Ma’s products, as well as Jayme Smaldone’s mugs, to any man or woman willing to buy them. We’ll talk more about the new funders in my next article. As always, we’ll keep you posted.

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