A Postal Operator
De Post-La Poste (Belgium)

Context

The Project of a 2nd European Postal Directive of the Commission of the European Community was discussed between PostEurop, Federation of 15 postal operators and the European Commissioner, Mr F. Bolkenstein in 2001. A proactive approach was followed by the Belgian Postal Operator to create a concensus within PostEurop. In another context, negotiations took place about the postal management contract with the Belgian Federal Government and other stakeholders such as the trade unions and the regulatory authority (IBPT/BIPT). Between 2001 and 2003 I advised De Post-La Poste in these negotiations as a modelling manager. I was also in charge of quantifying Strategic Cost Reductions, Optimal Real Estate Policies and Internal Quantitative Data Coherence.

Customer Demand & Needs in the Regulatory field

• Create a consensus of the postal operators in the European Union, to be discussed with the European Commissioner, on the basis of objective analysis and quantitative arguments

• Convince the stakeholders - the Belgian minister in charge of De Post-La Poste, the trade unions, the General Assembly, the CEO and the directors of De Post-La Poste - about an appropriate agenda of liberalization of the postal industry.

• Construct quantitative scenarios of possible liberalization processes of the postal industry and its impacts on the quantitative objectives of many stakeholders in Belgium and in the European Union.

Benefits for De Post-La Poste

• Generate quantified arguments for the negotiation of the 2nd European Directive and for a feasible compromise between the speed and extent of liberalization and a productivity improvement agenda for the operators

• Understand the costs and benefits of a change of each separate regulatory lever for De Post-La Poste and its competitors, the impact on its NPV, market share, employment etc

• Balance the benefits for the customer from the universal service obligation of De Post-La Poste with its costs

• Compute the sensitivity of the business plan under alternative regulatory setups

• Forecast next year's demand using conjoint analysis of customer behaviour.

Work done

• Quantified regulatory levers : areas to be retained, licensing conditions, price caps, price homogeneity, network access, access pricing conditions (timing, monopoly under what grams, geographic coverage, minimum quality requirement, obligations for competitor, points of access, cost rules for access pricing.)

• Ran and extended a McKinsey built model: customer/product/geography items produced, cost profiles per activity segment of incumbent and competitors, customer behaviour (loyalty and elasticities, sensitivity to quality.), market structure and profit maximization process

• Identified scenarios and solved the model to provide impacts on quantified stakeholder stakes

• The scientific methodologies used were of crucial importance . See section Our Expertise.

• Presentation : PREMO , model for the negotiation of the Postal Directive at De Post-La Poste ( Belgium )

Other work done on Regulatory issues in the Postal sector, with Mr Bernard Amerlynck

• In 2005 I presented a communication on « Profitability of the Universal Postal Service Provider in a Free Market with Economies of Scale in Collect and Delivery» at the 13th International Conference on Postal and Delivery Economics held in Antwerp (Belgium); click here for article and here for slide presentation.

• In 2004 I presented « Economics of Scale in the Graveyard Spiral of the Postal Sector» at the 12th Conference in Postal and Delivery Economics in Cork ( Ireland )

• In 2003 I presented « Financial Viability of the Universal Postal Service Provider under Uniform and Cost-related Tariffs » at the 11th Conference in Postal and Delivery Economics in Toledo (Spain), published in "Competitive Transformation of the Postal and Delivery Sector", edited by Michael Crew and Paul Kleindorfer, Kluwer Ac. Pub., 2004.

My other successful missions for De Post-La Poste

•  Cost cutting strategy in case of a 30% decrease in volume: confidential

• Postal Corporate Coherence : click here
•  The Corporate Postal Strategy Process , the Cell of the CEO and the Mission Statement of Modelling: click here
•  Real Estate model: confidential

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