2004-05 Annual Report - Australia Post

we are committed to providing
an accessible, reliable and
nationwide letters service,
including the delivery of a letter
from anywhere, to anywhere,
in Australia for just 50 cents.
I’m proud to say that this year
we met all of the regulated
performance standards relating
to our community service
obligations and we exceeded our
main service performance target
by delivering 94.9 per cent of
domestic letters on time or early.
I can confidently report that
Australians still enjoy one of
the most efficient, reliable and
lowest cost letters services in
the world. While many of the
world’s leading postal businesses
have reported declining letter
volumes over recent years,
we recorded domestic letter
volume growth of 1.2 per cent
in 2004–05. Significantly, nearly
all of this growth is coming from
the promotional letters category
(or direct mail). This is a pleasing
result, given all the work we are
doing to develop new services
and resources for the advertising
and direct marketing industries
(see p. 22). This year, we made
direct mail more flexible by
launching Impact Mail and we
also developed an innovative
letters offering that will be
launched in early 2006 that is
specifically designed to help
companies acquire customers.
Beyond our mail marketing
initiatives, we are adding value
to letters in a number of other
ways. In August, we launched
the Bulk Mail Partner program
to improve the efficiency of
bulk mail processing for major
customers (see p. 21). Our
subsidiary company Decipha is
providing outsourced mailroom
management and document data
capture services for some of
Australia’s largest corporations
(see p. 22).
And on the day after the end of
the financial year, we acquired
PrintSoft, a developer of specialist
software products, including
a comprehensive hybrid mail
capability that can be directed
from a desktop PC. These
products enable everything from
large-scale document preparation
through to mail production.
PrintSoft’s products are used by
companies worldwide to reduce
the cost and time involved in bulk
letter production.
Delivering for business
An important focus this year was
developing new and better ways
of serving Australian businesses.
In letters, the benefits of our
new mail-sorting technology
are clearly evident in the fact
that we delivered a record high
98.2 per cent of bulk-lodged,
barcoded letters on time or
early. In the retail network, we
expanded our range of agencybased
services and continued to
connect Australian businesses
and government bodies with
customers by processing over
200 million agency-based banking
and bill-payment transactions.
Many of our initiatives in parcels
and logistics are also aimed at
developing a more complete
distribution service for our
business customers. In February
we announced the formation of
our joint-venture international
logistics business, Sai Cheng
Logistics, in partnership with
China Post. In March we acquired
two companies – SnapX Couriers
and State Warehouse and
Distribution Services (SWADS)
– which add significant capacity
to our national courier and
logistics operations.
Also in March, we launched
Express Courier International (ECI)
– a global delivery service that is
similar to our Express Post service
but for the international express
market. ECI is proving to be very
popular with small and mediumsized
businesses because it
offers reliable delivery (usually
within four business days) to 190
countries and territories – at a very
competitive price (see p. 32).
Engaging our employees
Staff support for our major
change programs has been the
critical factor in the transformation
of our business over the past
decade. That’s why I regard
the October vote in favour of
our sixth enterprise bargaining
agreement (EBA6) as a landmark
achievement of this year. The
agreement provides a framework
for further business change, as
well as clear guidelines for staff
consultation through the change
management process. More than
19,000 staff participated in the
ballot, and 78 per cent of them
voted “Yes” to EBA6. For staff, the
agreement delivers pay rises that
are higher than projected inflation,
as well as performance-related
bonus payments that are linked
to meeting our on-time delivery
performance target.
Thank you
Every business day, we are
delivering mail to almost 10
million addresses and we are
serving over a million customers
in our retail outlets. Managing
this enormous load requires hard
work, persistence and teamwork
on the part of all of our staff. I’d
again like to thank our employees
for their loyalty and commitment
to Australia Post. I also want to
thank our licensees, contractors,
customers, suppliers and business
partners for their ongoing support
of our great business.
Graeme T John AO
Managing Director
Australia Post Annual Report 2004/05 Report of Operations
Managing director’s report
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