On the Group’s 160th anniversary, Poste Italiane CEO Matteo Del Fante gave an interview to the trade magazine Mail & Express Review (MER), a reference point for professionals in the postal and e-commerce sectors. Below is the full translation of the interview with the CEO.
How is Poste Italiane celebrating its 160th anniversary?
“Poste Italiane has marked 160 years of life spent serving Italy, contributing to the socio-economic development and modernisation of the country, from its foundation to the present day. It was a special birthday, which Poste celebrated with the first event of a series called ‘Our History in the Future of the Country’. The event, which took place in Rome, was attended by the President of the Italian Republic Sergio Mattarella, the Vice-Presidents of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, several ministers and government representatives, MPs and representatives of local institutions, and civil, military and religious authorities, as well as business and cultural leaders. We thanked all the men and women of Poste Italiane for their commitment and professionalism”.
What is your vision for Poste Italiane in 2022?
“The Poste Italiane model is based on a strong integration between physical and remote accessibility to the services provided, with 94% of Italians living within five minutes of a Post Office or PuntoPoste. The full integration of our channels allows us to effectively manage our customers, from engagement to sales, through a data-driven service model, supported by technology-intensive processes and customer operations. This model also contributes to the digitisation of the country by reducing the digital divide. Through our omnichannel interaction platform, we manage 20 million daily customer interactions, 6.7 million of which are from digital channels. Indeed, we live in an increasingly interconnected environment, with a huge number of physical and digital touchpoints which are rapidly evolving towards instantaneous and real-time interactions. Poste Italiane is poised to become the largest omnichannel platform in Italy for accessing services and products”.
What are Poste Italiane’s main strengths?
“Our key to success is business diversification and transformation. Five years ago, the company was overexposed to declining markets, such as post and payment receipts, which accounted for over 30% of revenues, while growth markets were underrepresented. Our strategic efforts over the past five years have enabled us to turn the scenario around. Expanding markets now provide 34% of our revenues and declining markets only 23%”.
What challenges does Poste Italiane face?
“In 2017, we started our transformation journey by building on our historical competitive advantages with a clear growth and transformation strategy. Our main challenge is defined by our ability to build on our reputation perceived by the community, our shareholders and our people. Today, Poste Italiane has consolidated its role as a strategic pillar for the country, for example by providing around 30 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine and enabling the vaccine booking platform for one third of Italians. We are here to support the digitisation of the country through our 22 million digital identities which allow citizens to access a growing number of services, taking advantage of our state-of-the-art IT and digital properties”.
What is the company’s strategy to keep the business profitable over the next five years?
“We can call Poste Italiane an antifragile market player. When we faced the pandemic two years ago, we managed not only to withstand the shock, but also to improve our business by taking advantage of changing market trends and refocusing on growth areas. Even in today’s turbulent geopolitical situation, our corporate structure allows us to continue our work along strategic lines. For example, in the payments sector, cash payments are still largely dominant in Italy, leaving opportunities to be exploited. We have always stated that our client asset allocation is oriented towards capital-guaranteed products. During this crisis, they have an advantage because they are less affected by market turbulence, with 93% of our TFA clients not exposed to market volatility. But we are doing more. We are entering a new retail business, combining gas and electricity with our Internet plan, expanding our B2B logistics services and creating the conditions for further expansion in the healthcare sector, also leveraging a recent acquisition”.
How was Poste Italiane able to serve citizens during the pandemic?
“The pandemic was a difficult experience from which we learnt to adapt to changing conditions, while preserving the continuity of our activities, using our resilience and flexibility. We kept the key promises we made to our stakeholders. We have a proven track record of taking advantage of favourable market trends and pursuing organic as well as inorganic growth opportunities”.
How have the needs of Poste Italiane’s customers changed over the years?
“The three traditional pillars of Poste’s product offering have been post, payment policies and postal savings. For two out of three, which are in structural decline due to innovations, we hinged our response on innovation itself, investing heavily in technology and logistics, with a good intuition to use the extensive postal network to deliver post and parcels together and thus intercept the e-commerce boom. Our investments in technology have enabled us to improve the customer experience and accelerate product development. They have also allowed us to launch new businesses to meet the needs of new customers. These development initiatives were far more important than efficiency, ensuring sustainable convenience for our customers. The 2021 results once again demonstrated Poste Italiane’s ability to keep its promises while navigating difficult times, guaranteeing value for employees, customers, and shareholders. Our implementation plan is ahead of schedule, while our multi-channel approach and the new incremental opportunities seized in recent months will further strengthen our creation of sustainable value. Our investors will be rewarded with a generous and visible dividend policy, while our commitment to keep them competitive over time is confirmed”.
Poste Italiane has committed to Net Zero by 2030.
“We have set out a clear and ambitious roadmap towards a 30% reduction in total CO2 emissions by 2025 and carbon neutrality by 2030, in line with the Paris Agreement, the recent 2021 Glasgow Climate Pact and the European Green Deal. As part of our journey towards carbon neutrality, we are moving forward on structural initiatives to achieve the ambitious targets we have set ourselves and our new energy offering will further accelerate this transition. PostePay will become the energy supplier of the entire Group, acquiring 100% of its energy from renewable sources, thus contributing to our decarbonisation strategy. In all our activities, we are implementing strategic and structural changes to achieve our goals. We have continued to reduce emissions by renewing our company fleet reaching 10,000 low-emission delivery vehicles, i.e. those used by our postmen and women. We believe we are meeting the expectations of our stakeholders — particularly the younger generation — and, even if we do not, Poste is in the institutional position to pave the way for decarbonisation”.
Mr Del Fante, what is the best piece of business advice you have ever received?
“You should always love what you do and have passion for your work”.
