Strategic objectives

Strategic overview

We are a people company and our people play an indispensable role in our strategy. We create a work environment in which employees have the opportunity to develop their skills and work with adequate tools, and together we deliver the right customer experience. As part of our drive to keep it simple but smart, we are accelerating the digitalisation of the customer journey and our logistic networks and processes. At the same, time we continue to develop our business models and network capacity to capture growth and achieve a solid and sustainable financial performance.

Below are the strategic objectives and drivers that are helping us achieve our strategy.

Help customers grow their business

Our key drivers to achieve this are:

  • Capture growth of e-commerce

  • Manage capacity

  • Deliver smart logistic solutions

  • Enhance customer interaction

  • Lead through business model innovations

As part of our journey to become the favourite deliverer, we are working to provide our customers with the best possible logistic network solutions. We are investing in and managing our network capacity, helping to support the growth in e-commerce. We are improving our service quality and operational efficiencies to exceed customers' expectations. And we are using data and digitalisation to innovate our business models, improving our services and solutions, our logistic processes and our dense networks. Together, these developments help our customers grow their business and flourish.

To increase customer value we need to solve their business needs and wishes. This means delivering smart logistic solutions, ensuring their shipments are moved swiftly, efficiently and sustainably from collection to delivery. It means enhancing our customer interaction, by developing data and digital solutions that provide them with the right solution wherever and whenever they need it. And it means leading through business model innovations, bringing innovative value propositions to the market.

Secure a sustainable mail business

Our key drivers to achieve this are:

  • Realise synergies of PostNL and Sandd networks

  • Sustain accessible, reliable and affordable postal services in the Netherlands

  • Adapt the organisation to volume decline with cost savings

The consolidation of Sandd helps us to safeguard the key aspects of the postal service, while preserving decent labour conditions in what is expected to remain a shrinking market. Given our history and competencies, we believe we will have a key role to play in the future postal market in the Netherlands. We actively engage with the government, regulators and other stakeholders. And we aim to further intensify engagement with our customers so that we continue to meet future needs, including all the digital solutions that our customers have at their disposal, while keeping mail attractive.

The ongoing decline in the mail market continues to impact PostNL and other postal logistic players in the market enormously. To help counter this, we are reshaping our mail business model, continuing to invest in smart technologies, and developing cost-saving measures. As the designated universal service provider (USP) in the Netherlands, we have a responsibility to maintain country-wide coverage and deliver on specific quality targets, ensuring accessible and reliable postal services at affordable prices.

Attract and retain motivated people

Our key drivers to achieve this are:

  • Manage personnel capacity

  • Strengthen employee engagement

  • Stay healthy

  • Realise change

As one of the largest employers in the Netherlands, we provide thousands of people with job security, a stable income based on fair compensation for everyone, and opportunities for personal development and growth. But in today's competitive labour market, we need to focus on employing and retaining people who want to grow and prosper with us. This means providing attractive jobs, including training and development throughout our people's career, and adapting to their changing skill requirements. It means offering jobs where safety and a healthy work environment are a top priority. And it means making people feel at home, working in an atmosphere that nurtures diversity and inclusivity, thereby helping create the long-term success of our company.

Reduce environmental impact

Our key drivers to achieve this are:

  • Green innovation and energy efficiency

  • Green kilometres

  • Sustainable buildings

  • Sustainable value chain

At PostNL, we proactively take responsibility for the environmental impact of our operations, and have set ambitious targets to reduce our environmental footprint. We want to deliver all parcels and mail emission-free in the last-mile in the Benelux by 2030. And we have set an intermediate goal to achieve emission-free delivery in 25 city centres across the Netherlands by 2025 across all our networks.

But we are not only planning to reduce the environmental impact of our own operations. We have also set targets to reduce the footprint of our delivery partners, especially in delivery services. On a consolidated level, we have set targets to reduce our absolute and relative emissins towards 2030. We have initiated concrete actions that will contribute to achieving our objectives, launching a company-wide programme called "Zero 2030" in 2019 to manage our progress. This includes engaging with our delivery partners on how we can support them in reducing their impact.

Deliver profitable growth and generate sustainable cash flow

Our key drivers to achieve this are:

  • Ongoing focus on cost savings

  • Operational excellence

  • Synergies in networks

  • Smart yield management

To create value for our investors and the company it is vital that we focus on generating sufficient profits and cash flow throughout the company. Within Parcels we want to shape the growth in the e-commerce market and concentrate on balancing volume and value, such as by developing new markets, creating new packaging solutions, or offering new delivery options. We will also invest in our operations, such as network capacity and digital solutions, increasing efficiency and improving customer service. This will include developing in-house fulfilment centres for customers, or constructing new sorting centres focused exclusively on small parcels.

In our international business we are enabling customers and consumers to tap into the growing global e-commerce market. Spring, for example, will focus on diversifying its portfolio in 2020, providing customers with more value-added options. And to maximise our operational efficiency, we will continue look for synergies across our networks and between our businesses.

Our Mail business is focusing on continually improving the customer experience in a declining market. We are strengthening operational excellence and achieving cost savings by optimising our processes and increasing flexibility, such as increasing automatic sequence sorting on our SMX (sorting machine extra) machines, and introducing a new delivery model across our mail operations. At the same time, we use data and IT to innovate. This includes further developing our digital capabilities, such as those offered in our app, which helps mail remain attractive in today's digital society.