STRAIGHT TALK
MARK BARNES: A global post office could be a brilliant central repository for deep-data mining
We know where you all live and we have everyone’s personal delivery address
Iam not a natural-born conference-goer but occasionally they’re an important and necessary part of the job. Last week I attended the Universal Postal Union (UPU) annual CEO forum in Istanbul — a get-together for CEOs of post offices around the world to share thoughts and developments in the industry, learn from one another’s experiences and plot future global postal strategy. I was invited as a speaker and a panellist, but mainly I learnt a lot. The union is an intergovernmental organisation, established 144 years ago, with a membership of 192 countries. It’s a universal network, with physical, financial and electronic dimensions within a formidable infrastructure, providing essential public services to billions of people and businesses. Worldwide, we employ 5.3-million people, who process and deliver 320-billion letters and 9-billion parcels a year. It is the world’s largest physical network, operating out of 690,700 locations. Many of the opportunities and challenges facing indivi...
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