Postal strategies in a digital age

Electronic communications impact all of postal operators? businesses. While letter mail volumes are decreasing due to electronic substitutes, parcels are thriving. Postal operators react in differ-ent ways to these challenges and opportunities. Some try to compensate the loss in their mail business by converging their services toward telecommunications, e.g. by offering hybrid or electronic mail. Some focus on parcels and electronic commerce solutions. Some try to reduce their universal service obligations and try to cut costs. Some leverage their networks, e.g. post offices into banks or retail centers, or mail carriers into community service providers. And many apply a mix of those strategies. This paper explores various approaches by means of selected case studies and an overview of performance indicators. The indicators reveal particularly successful strategies, namely those that leverage infrastructure, reputation and competencies. Based on the results, generic strate-gies are derived. Special attention is given to the legal and regulatory environment which criti-cally affects the post?s ability to adopt a successful business strategy.