Botond Szebeny, Secretary General at PostEurop looks back at the achievements and development of the postal sector over the last 15 years.

“Witnessing the transformation of the postal sector has been absolutely fascinating for me. I’ve seen the industry become more commercial, more dynamic and more profit-orientated in a way which wouldn’t seem possible when I joined the industry 15 years ago. Today post is now comparable to any other sector in the economy and that is a massive achievement and one which continues to impress and inspire me in my job.

I started out in the industry in 1999, and immediately afterwards, I became responsible for the International Strategy of  the Hungarian Postal Service (Magyar Posta). At the time the sector’s success went hand in hand with a country’s Gross Domestic Product so if a country’s finances were stable then the postal service would do well. Also at the time the letter mail market was growing rapidly and that’s where the investment was focused on, especially in terms of automation. The idea of letter mail diminishing didn’t seem feasible.

In the 90’s parcels didn’t play an important part in postal operator’s portfolios – they were simply complimentary to letter mail and funnily enough treated as an old fashioned traditional product – in the same way that consumers have come to regard letter mail today.

The major concern for the post at the time was whether liberalisation (separating the postal companies from the government and opening the sector up to competition), would impact on the practice of traditional postal operators. Most posts were half way between being part of the national administration and being commercial companies.

Once separated from the state, the individual posts had to radically change their mentality and the way they did business and regarded their customers as they were suddenly commercial entities.

By the time I joined Magyar Posta it was already separated from the government. It was a fully state-owned company, functioning as a shareholding company, with a sole shareholder.

From a governance point of view the company had a relatively high level of commercial freedom already at that time, however the main challenge of that period was how to transpose this general commercial approach into the details of the daily business operations.

In 2003 I became Executive Director for International Business at Magyar Post, with the overall responsibility for the international business and international relations.  I was also on the executive committee for the organisation.

I was directly involved in the commercialisation and transformation of the business. Our strategy was to develop business units with clear P&L responsibility, organisational streamlining, massive cost adjustments and heavy infrastructural investments. We also increased the quality of service of different key products and diversified our portfolio.

I moved to PostEurop in 2009 and gained much more of an overview of the sector in Europe. As a result I have had the opportunity to witness the major developments in the postal sector both through my former role with Hungarian Post where I had direct contact with customers and other posts and also from a Europe-wide high-level perspective. PostEurop exists to defend the interest of our industry so here I provide an expert overview of the industry.

In recent years, e-commerce has dominated the agenda. The whole concept is reliant on the postal services’ traditional know-how and its familiarity with the age-old challenge of delivering challenging items.  The postal sector is the natural partner to e-commerce and so it is of critical importance that our members are key players.

Before e-commerce took off, postal operators didn’t have to consider both the sender and the receiver’s perspective as they didn’t interact with them both in the same way. Whereas today receivers have become the customers too and have expectations about their delivery which need to be met and this is a big challenge for our members to address.

At PostEurop we are trying to help make the parcel delivery chain as smooth as possible and we are working together with IPC on a project to remove cross border barriers.  We have responded to the EU’s Green Paper to improve cross-border parcel delivery market. Based on this, EU have agreed they won’t create any more regulation and that they will rely on market forces in moving towards an integrated parcel market for online purchases.

Today we are at a half-way point in terms of addressing the e-commerce challenge.  The majority of posts have identified the challenge and some have made huge leaps forward in terms of logistics and investment but there is a lot of development still needed in the coming months. I’m really optimistic that by 2015 the European e-commerce chain will be robust.

PostEurop has been sponsor of the Growth category for the fifth year in a row, as we believe in the growth of the postal industry. This growth aspect has become more relevant than ever, as the boom of the e-commerce market has created a huge commercial opportunity for the entire sector. Consequently, our sponsorship for this category is reflecting a genuinely positive approach concerning the future of the postal business.  It is really wonderful to see such a positive outlook for the industry after a period of great change and something that everyone in the industry should be proud of.”