Australia Post: Adapting to the Digital Landscape (Semester 1, 2024)

Desklib provides past papers and solved assignments for students. This report analyzes Australia Post's challenges and strategies.

Challenges at Australia post
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Executive Summary
In this report, they have analyse the various macro environment factors and industrial factors for
the organization Australia post. They have explain the various factors which affects the growth
of the business and also they have concluded the current position of the Australia post in the
market and various recommendations for the company in order to improve their performance in
the future. They have explain the various challenges and competitors if the Australia post and
what are the techniques Australia post can use in order to overcome these challenges. In the end
they have concluded the various business strategies, implementation of new techniques and
SWOT analysis in order to show the current performance of the organization.
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Introduction
In this report, they have explain about the company “Australia Post” which is established in 1809
in New South Wales. Australia post delivers letters and telegrams and in 1838, they have started
the service from Melbourne to Sydney. They have explain the importance of letters and parcels
in the early period where there was no mobile phones, social sites, mails and messengers. People
use to send messages through letters and parcels and the difficulties postman have to face while
delivering the letters have also been explained in this report. They have also explain the
challenges which Australian post have to face in today’s era and what changes they have to
implement in order to expand their business. This report has highlighted the main competitors of
Australian Post and the techniques which Australian Post can use to establish their name in E-
commerce.
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Australia post was established in 1809 in order to deliver letters and telegrams from one place to
another. In 1820, they have started to deliver the services from one city to another city and John
Bourke was given the responsibility to deliver those letters from Sydney to Melbourne. Australia
post has the highest post offices in 2008 as they provide reliable, affordable and accessible letter
services. They have tendency to deliver all the letters on time and delivers approx. 60 million
letters per weak which was the highest in the country. But after the arrival of technology and
various electronic devices and applications like mobile phones, electronic mail, various social
sites and sites (Brooks and Schellinck, 2013). As a result, there was a drastic decrement in the
growth of the company and only 1 percent of texts have been deliver by post now and 97 percent
of those messages are related to government and business mails. There are various external
factors which are affecting the growth of the company which are as follows
 Use of technology had affected the growth of the company, people prefer electronic mails
and social sites to send and receive messages which resulted in downfall of the company.
 Other issues is the tough competition given by the FedEx which is the globally active
courier organization.
Various macro-environment factors that contributed in Australia post performance are as follows
(Andrews and Entwistle, 2014)
Political factors- There is no political uncertainty issues on the Australia post as this
organization is government business enterprise.
Economic factors- There is a slow economic growth for the company as the company is
affecting by number of factors and the main factor is decrease in demand of delivering mails to
the public. As compare to early days, delivery of letters have fallen in a huge number which is
approx. 1 billion. Exchange rates and inflation also have a huge impact on Australia post as their
profits has been decreases due to travel cards and international money transfer. Confidence of
consumers in Australia post have also been decreases because of the slower rate of delivering the
letters and consumers have to pay more in order to deliver the mail on the priority. As a result, it
affects the financial position of Australia post.
Social Factors- In today’s world where lifestyle of people has changes in a drastic manner
which forced Australia post to bring changes in their working style and provide ecommerce
services in order to stay in the market. Australia post main strategy is to establish a partnership
with Australia’s ecommerce market so that they can increase Australia’s whole retail export
market. By establishing a partnership with Shippit, Australia’s post will be able to provide fast
parcel delivery to the public of Australia.
Technological factors- Development of new technologies has affected the profit of the company
and with the preference of using electronic mails and billing has decrease the number of
consumers of the Australia post (Brooks and Schellinck, 2013. With the increase in use of online
communication and use of email for billing purpose force the Australia post to update their
products and services. They are doing this by introducing a new product in the market which is
known as MyPost Digital Mailbox. This technique can be used to provide a digital service in
order to pay and receive bills and also it will store them with a lot of security of taxation process
in the future. Australia post is changing their work style and bring lots of technologies in their
work in order to give tough competition to their competitors.
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Legal Factors- Necessities to provide mails number of times and also to keep 4000 post offices
open is affecting the profits of the association. Supply and Demand for these services are quite
low and due to which it affects the company’s financial position.
Environmental Factors- For the protection of environment and to follow the environmental
regulations, there is a decrement in the amount of paper bills and also in the letters. As a result is
has damaging the purpose of Australia post for sorting and delivery of mails to the public of
Australia.
Market Analysis- Australia post has domination in most part of its domestic business but still it
is significantly affected by the broader community in Australia and also in overseas because of
their major trends in transporting goods and services (King and Clarkson, 2015). For identifying
the strength and weakness of the industry, there is SWOT analysis. The advantage of using this
step is to form the strategy analysis of the industry.
Threat of New Entrants- Due to its previous image and nature of delivering the letters in
Australia, there is less possibility of a new entrants in this business. The major competition for
Australia post is all the major corporations having wider customer face to face network which
contains insurance companies and banks. Australia Post has a bigger image in this market whose
biggest threat would be entrance of major international corporations.
Bargaining power of Buyers- Price settlement of postal delivery is set by the government
department in order to take the input from the Productivity Commission. Due to which, it affects
the commercial buyers which sums up as 80 percent of all the letters posted in Australia
(Grimmer and Bingham, 2013). Logistics and Parcel Buyers have an enormous power as they
have the option to choose from other international organizations such as DHL and Federal
Express
Bargaining power of Suppliers- Australia post’s suppliers do not have a great bargaining power
as they do not have an access to Australia post network.
Threat of additional services- The main threat of substitute products would be the online
communication which has been done regarding personal information and business
correspondence. Now a days, payment of bills and delivery of insurance and financial utilities
can be done online.
Rivalry between Existing Competitors- The main competition of Australia Post is in Parcel
and Logistics unit. Australia post have to developed State Warehousing and Distribution
Services (SWAD) in order to give tough competition to their existing competitors. This will give
the Australia post a surviving customer base from SWAD’s clients. Australia post have also
introduce Strategic alliances in order to cover the logistics deficiencies.
SWOT Analysis of Australia Post
Strength- Most important strength of Australia post is their dominance in delivery of letters in
domestic market and also they have a strong bond with the public of Australia (Culley, et. al.,
2017). Australia post have established a strong a strong connection in the Asia Pacific region in
order to provide them integrated logistics solution. Their partnership with China post has also
help the Australia post in becoming famous in country like China where they supply parcels
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directly from Australia to China (Wang, 2016). Australia post is known to be third largest
importer of goods and services in Australia.
Weaknesses- Australia post uses legislative responsibility in order to provide services of letters
and parcels which may cost them in the future. In order to provide Agency services, Australia
post has over stretched themselves. Over stretching themselves proved to be a biggest weakness
of Australia Post.
Opportunities- If Australia post uses Agency services in an appropriate manner then it will
provide them many opportunities but this step can be risky as well. UBS Consultancy have
examined that customers do not want to leave their existing companies (Crew and Brennan,
2016). By expanding their business and provide car insurance can turn out to be an opportunity
and with the help of that, they can counter bill payments, international money transfer and
banking.
Threats- The most important threat for Australia post is the excess use of technology and use of
social sites and electronic mails. Due to which less people wants to deliver mail with the help of
letters and parcels (Cruz-Ros, and Gonzalez-Cruz, 2015). This proves to be a biggest trend in
international market in the recent years. Australia post feels that increase in the rate of delivering
letters and parcels which may resulted in putting the use of letters and parcels out of the market.
Another threat for the Australia post would be formation of end to end logistics market which is
offered by Post Logistics.
Challenges and Changes- The biggest challenge for Australia post is excess use of electronic
mails which delivers mails instantly and the courier company which charges a little amount in
order to deliver mils directly to the customers. Australia Post must endorse their delivery
standard in order to compete in the market.
Strategy Analysis- To evaluate the business strategies of the association, they are using four
types of business strategies in order to increase the growth of the business (Schaltegger, et. al.,
2017). These strategies are as follows:
 Market penetration- It is a strategy in which marketer’s sells their products offering wide-
ranging of general goods and services in the existing market.
 Market development- It is a strategy in which marketer’s sells their existing goods and
services in the new developing market.
 Product development- It is a process in which company offers new goods and services in
the existing market.
 Diversification- It is a business strategy in which company offers their new products,
goods and services in the new developing market.
Australia post is using diversification business strategy in order to increase the growth of their
company and according to this strategy, they are providing new goods and services in the new
developing market. They are improving their efficiency by dealing with money and insurance,
parcels and mails, travel and business solutions. They are offering various products and services
in order to improve the satisfaction level of the customers.
Recommendation and future of the Australia post- Australia post should examine their letter
services and improve the efficiency of the services using business strategies in order to compete
in the market in future. Australia post should improve their monitoring techniques so that they
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can be able to observe performance against the appropriate standards. They should evaluate the
method to finance the delivery of the community service responsibility (Kaveke and Gachunga,
2013). They should evaluate the policy agenda in order to provide access to the communications
infrastructure. They should implement new techniques to make their services cheaper as compare
to their competitors. This step will bring more efficiency in the organization and it will result in
improving the growth of the company.
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Conclusions
From the above report, it can be concluded that all over situation of Australia Post is better in the
market. By examine the PESTAL analysis, it can be concluded that macro environmental factors
is upsetting the working of Australia post. By examining the portal-five force model, it can be
conclude that power of suppliers and buyers is low because of the tough competition in the
market and threat of new entrants is also low because of various risks and huge investment in the
business. It can be concluded that Australia post is using diversification as a new business
strategy in order to enhance their services in other countries.
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References
 Crew, M.A. and Brennan, T.J. eds., 2016. The future of the postal sector in a digital
world. Heidelberg: Springer.
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performance in professional service organisations. Accounting, Organizations and
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environmental management: Striving for sustainability. Routledge.
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 KAVEKE, J. and GACHUNGA, H., 2013. Determinants of profitability of postal
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