Going the Distance
This article is an extract from the Autumn Edition of MER Magazine published in August 2019. You can read the full article as well as other articles from MER for free by becoming a member of Post & Parcel today.
MER speaks to José Luis Rodríguez – Gerente General of Correos de Chile – about the challenges and opportunities of his role.
What excites you about your job?
Without a doubt the most exciting thing about leading a company like Correos de Chile is the way that we can impact millions of people who use our services in their businesses, homes and lives on a daily basis.
How do the digital habits of Chileans compare to other South American countries?
Chile has the highest levels of digitalisation, bank system use, and e-commerce consumption in South America and as a country that is open to the world, international e-commerce took off in Chile before doing so in neighbouring countries. This situation has led Chilean customers to become very demanding and we have found the need – and the obligation – to transform our processes and become strategic allies of our customers.
What do you see as the key obstacles for Correos de Chile?
Chile has one of the most striking geographies in the world because of the country’s length – greater than the distance between Moscow and Lisbon, for example – together with harsh climates that range from the desert regions in the north to the extreme cold in the country’s Patagonian region.
This means we have had to come up with various ways to support our workers; from uniforms suitable to the climate to devices that support our postmen and women in their delivery tasks.
Another difficulty has to do with the need to be everywhere with a quality service and at prices that are accessible to the vast majority of Chileans. To overcome both obstacles, along with others
inherent to our business, as a company we are immersed in a major transformation process that will without doubt allow us to fulfil our service promise better.
What stage of transformation are you at?
As a company we are going through one of the biggest transformations in our history. We went from being a company with a postal focus (letters and documents) and migrated to become a service increasingly based on parcel delivery and e-commerce. To bring about this transformation, in 2018 we completed drafting of our Strategic Plan, which seeks for over two-thirds of our revenues to be associated with the world of parcel delivery within three years, which in turn entails significant growth.
To fulfil that goal, the Strategic Plan has been designed taking into account industry best practice, which in turn led us to make key investments in our people, in technology, in processes, and in digitising the relationship with our customers.
We have already made significant changes that will be reflected in the short term with the implementation of the new Correos de Chile International Plant, which will make a powerful contribution to the development of e-commerce in Chile and significantly improve our processing capacity to the benefit of our customers.
It is very important to highlight this transformational process that we are going through it along with our workers, who are the company’s biggest capital. The idea is for all of us to feel proud to belong to Correos de Chile and for us to work toward a cultural shift that places customers at the centre.
This article is an extract from the Autumn Edition of MER Magazine published in August 2019. You can read the full article as well as other articles from MER for free by becoming a member of Post & Parcel today.
