Service-oriented - Die Schweizerische Post

32 Annual Geschäftsbericht Report | Service-oriented 2006 | GHP and MailSource
Service-oriented | GHP and MailSource
Creating growth
with post-related
services.
The two groups GHP and MailSource
comprise around thirty subsidaries.
GHP concentrates on dialogue market-
ing and customer management, while
MailSource handles in-house postal
services plus scanning and archiving.
They thus extend the postal value
chain with upstream and downstream
services. Swiss Post’s strategy is to
develop solutions that will compensate
for declining volumes in its core
letters and parcels fields, create
growth and exploit synergies for its
Swiss and international business.
GHP – fit for the future with Swiss Post
The GHP group operates in the growing
market for customer loyalty programmes
and dialogue marketing. Whether at the
point of sale, via fax, the Internet, telephone
or by post – GHP enables all types
of interaction between companies and
their end customers. GHP is the market
leader in Germany for health insurance
cards.
The purchase of around two-thirds of
GHP’s shares in summer 2006 will enable
Swiss Post to globalize its business from a
base in Germany, grow along the postal
value chain and create synergies for a
Swiss health card. It will also acquire new
strategic options in terms of delivery to
end customers and document management,
which is important for both Swiss
Post International and Mail Source. GHP
opens up new opportunities for Swiss
Post in an increasingly liberalized market.
2006 was a year of change for GHP,
which had been looking for a strategic
partner since the management buyout at
the end of 2005. The company hopes to
continue stabilizing as a result of its association
with Swiss Post in order to achieve
strong growth again after the restructuring,
especially in terms of outsourcing its
entire dialogue and document management
business processes.
GHP’s total sales easily exceeded the figures
of the previous year. Clear increases
were posted particularly in the Cards
and Mail segments. GHP’s good performance
in 2006 was in line with the general
trend in the dialogue marketing sector,
although increased customer spending
initially only offset the decline of previous
years. Furthermore, the dialogue marketing
companies felt the slump in the classic
mail-order business, which had been a
steady source of income for many years.
Internally, restructuring and consolidation
measures in all three business segments
(Mail, Cards, Services), characterized the
business year. The focus on core business
continued in the individual segments. In
the Mail segment this means that, thanks
to the variety of technology available, GHP
can produce mailings in larger quantities,
with a higher degree of customization and
in a short time. The core competencies of
the Cards segment include the production
and personalization of credit, bank, chip,
prepaid plus customer and club cards in a
specially secure environment with a high
level of service. Since 2006, the Services
segment has concentrated on multi-channel
communication, document management,
IT-based system solutions in dialogue
marketing and support for customer loyalty
programmes. The measures implemented
enabled it to just break into the profit zone
again.
Outlook
The gradual integration of GHP into Swiss
Post Group will be continued in 2007,
with strategic, sales and financial proc-
Key figures – GHP and MailSource
Result
2006 2005
Operating income CHF million 329 114
Operating result
Employees
CHF million 11 5
Headcount MailSource Full-time equivalents 2053 1062
Headcount GHP1 Full-time equivalents 947 –
1 The GHP Group was acquired in september 2006.
Additional key figures are set out in the table of figures. ( 99)