Driving profitable growth

Driving profitable growth is about identifying new revenue streams for the business.

Growing our parcels business is a key strategic priority. We are also focusing on advertising mail, delivered to homes across the UK to promote businesses’ products and services, and growing our share of the UK’s advertising market.

  • Parcels and premier letter services

    Parcels comprises UKPIL’s core network and Parcelforce Worldwide; and General Logistics Systems (GLS) our European logistics company. It is a substantial contributor to the Group’s revenues, and delivers around one billion parcels every year.

    Our mail mix is changing. Parcels form an increasing proportion of the items we deliver, in large part due to the growing popularity of online retailing. By 2016, online retailing is expected to account for 12 per cent of the UK’s overall retail spend1.Benefiting from this trend is a key strategic priority, both within the core network and in Parcelforce and GLS.

    We are investing in technology to improve our already high standards. Our postmen and women can now electronically capture “tracks” and signatures on their rounds, as a result of the distribution of PDAs. We have already automated our mail sorting processes in the network and are now investigating how to implement this for larger items.

    1Boston Consulting Group: The £4.2tn Opportunity, the Internet Economy in the G20

  • Advertising mail

    We are increasing our strategic focus on advertising mail, delivered to UK homes to highlight business’ products and services.  We believe this area will be a key driver of future profitable growth.

    We have prioritised the development of our media business. Direct mail provides a greater return on investment than almost any other form of marketing when used in isolation; when used in combination with other marketing mediums, it enhances their effectiveness. That is why some of the world's largest internet companies use our direct mail services.

    The UK advertising market was estimated to be worth £16 billion in 2011. We want to grow our share of the market by targeting the top 3,000 advertisers and creating partnerships to reach SMEs.