Service-oriented - Die Schweizerische Post

36 Annual Geschäftsbericht Report | Innovative 2006
Innovative
Even greater
professionalism
through innovation.
“ If I pay the bill for my coffee
machine at the post office,
I have the receipt in black and
white.”
Renate Helber
Housewife, Basel
Deregulation of postal markets,
changing customer behaviour
and new technologies are all posing
challenges for Swiss Post. Conventional
products such as letters and
parcels are being replaced by electronic
means of communication. The
consequences are falling margins and
lower earnings. On the other hand,
Swiss Post is benefiting from the
opportunities that these same technologies
offer. We use them to increase
efficiency, optimize processes
and develop innovative, customeroriented
services. In this way we
strengthen our core business and
grow with new post-related, electronic
offers both in Switzerland and
abroad.
Innovations are a key element in our
strategy 10 . They improve competitiveness
in our core business and enable us to
achieve profitable growth in new postrelated
services. Corporate evelopment
supports the innovation processes of the
units, if so requested. Important tools in
innovation management include Postidea,
the ideas management system of Swiss
Post, and Compass, the knowledge and
innovation platform. 11
Strategic customer management
Strategic Customer Management bundles
knowledge and experience, existing offers
and innovations into individual customer
solutions on a company-wide basis. An
understanding of the customer’s value
chain is key to developing business mod-