The International Post Corporation (IPC) held its annual conference in Vienna, Austria, on the theme of “Postal Innovation for the future of e-commerce” – with over 80 high-level representatives from 30 posts worldwide, including more than 20 CEOs in attendance.
The attendees discussed how the boom in e-commerce – driven by the Covid-19 pandemic – has enabled global e-retailers sufficient volumes to provide their own delivery solutions and e-commerce platforms to offer delivery chain solutions to small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs). The IPC annual conference looked at how posts should innovate to meet competition from global e-retailers, platforms, integrators and digital native startups.
The conference was hosted by Österreichische Post on May 24-25 after a two-year pause due to the Covid-19 pandemic and featured four keynote speakers who shared their thoughts on the rapidly changing needs and expectations from customers for e-commerce delivery, including: Andreas Marschner, vice president of Amazon Transportation Services Europe; Benoit Robinot-Bertrand, director of EU transportation at Amazon; Dennis Li, general manager of Eastern and Northern Europe at Cainiao Network; and Malte Hans, associate partner at McKinsey & Company.
During the IPC annual shareholders meeting which took place prior to the conference, IPC members unanimously approved a new member to IPC. Postal company Omniva, which is based in Estonia, will become IPC’s 26th member this July. A key player in the Baltics, Omniva provides domestic and international postal and logistic services, with over 80% of its revenue driven from e-commerce. Omniva has been an active player in many IPC services and has been using Interconnect since its launch.
Mart Mägi, CEO of Omniva, said, “For us, IPC represents the values of excellence, innovation and teamwork which for us as a small innovative country are very important. I believe Omniva can contribute a lot to IPC, but we also have a lot to benefit from the cooperation with the other posts through IPC.”
Holger Winklbauer, CEO of IPC, commented, “E-commerce throughout the pandemic has been described as giving new oxygen to the postal sector. Today we find ourselves in a world that is very different from the world of our last conference. The war in Ukraine has resulted in increases in energy prices and costs around the world have gone up. Despite all of this, e-commerce continues to offer great potential to all postal operators, even if at a slower pace. Posts have advantages but innovation is key for them to meet the needs of customers.”