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Home > Highlights and overviews > Chairman's Report
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 “Post has had a challenging and successful year. Challenging because of the continued decline in growth of our core letters business. Successful because we maintained our focus on addressing these challenges, with real results starting to show.” CHALLENGES Post’s ability to produce record profits in a year of subdued revenue growth and mail volumes reflects strong management, efficiency and innovation. However, with Post already one of the world’s best performing postal services on almost every financial measure, we realised some time ago that we could not rely on doing the same things better to counter the global decline in mail volume growth. STRATEGY Australia Post’s business strategy is to extend and defend our core businesses, including letters and parcels delivery, retailing and financial services; to be leaders in the markets replacing physical mail; and to build on our core competencies to create new business and new markets. While lifting the performance of core products and services to new levels in 2001–02, we also maintained a clear focus on this longer-term strategy. DEFEND AND EXTEND In order to defend and extend core businesses, we strengthened our network, improved delivery performance and prepared for our next round of network restructuring. Innovations included electronic parcel tracking for business customers. New on-line services included the sale and encashment of travellers cheques, the extension of business banking to 320 outlets and the introduction of a moving services web portal – movepost.com.au. While our Letters business faces challenges, we are confident that the direct mail industry offers ongoing opportunities. Even accounting for population differences, the US direct mail industry is around ten times the size of Australia’s, and the UK’s is six times as big – indicating we have substantial room to grow. Research tells us that consumers respond to mail; and Post will continue to help customers and potential customers realise those opportunities. SUBSTITUTION Several years ago Post recognised the reality of substitution and changing customer needs, and entered electronic substitution markets. This year, Postbillpay telephone payments increased by more than 50 per cent, and our on-line bill payment service grew by about 20 per cent per month. Eleven billers now use Post both to deliver bills on-line and to receive payments on-line. TRANSFORMATION Many new services and products emerging from Australia Post are natural extensions of our core competencies. These include our growing logistics business whereby through our partnership with Microsoft for sole Australian distribution of the Xbox video gaming system, we became players in fourth-party logistics. In 2001–02, our high-volume data processing division started marketing its business services externally. We also purchased corProcure, the on-line procurement service, with customers like Harris Technology connected so their customers can purchase on-line from an extensive catalogue. YEAR AHEAD Our business environment will continue to present real challenges, and, with solid results showing, we are confident that we are pursuing the right strategy. We will continue to focus on efficiency and excellent service while creating value for our shareholder, our customers, our employees and the Australian community through innovation. THANK YOU Two of Post’s directors retired during the year: Megan Cornelius and Michael Keating. I thank them for their valuable contribution, and welcome Sandra McPhee and Ed Tweddell to the Board. Thanks also to our customers, staff, suppliers and partners for their support and involvement during the year. 
Linda B Nicholls, Chairman.
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