Many years ago, when I lived in the United States, the mail was a constant source of excitement. I would look forward to opening the mailbox and sifting through the new wonders with giddy excitement. The serendipity of not knowing what each day would bring was a small but cherished part of my day.
I haven’t experienced those feelings in nearly 20 years, partly because the utility of the postal service is different outside of the US and partly because of the rise of all things digital and paperless.
In South Africa, where I now live, the postal service is in a state of near collapse. The SA Post Office was put in provisional liquidation in February. The decline at the post office has been slow and steady for the past two decades. Now executives are applying to the court system to be placed in business rescue to avoid additional lawsuits from creditors and escape liquidation.
I have to use the postal service here sparingly. Even though I have canceled my beloved print subscriptions to magazines and journals, I still get issues delivered from years ago. I recently opened my cobwebbed post box to find a copy of the London Review of Books dated April 2022.
Post offices around the world do a lot more than deliver mail. Traditionally they have offered essential services to communities like access to benefits, bill payment, and banking services. Universal (and free) access to mail and parcels is just one service. In developed and developing countries, access to these services is vital for underprivileged urban and rural communities that lack other options.
Pundits and analysts such as Business Day columnist Khaya Sithole have lamented the inability of the SA Post Office to use its large footprint in the country and pivot the business model.
Sithole said new business ventures, “such as providing social grants and reducing the digital divide between citizens by bringing technological resources closer to communities, it languished in mission drift where the main activity became paying salaries to its employees at the end of each month.”
Fading role
The demise of South Africa’s postal service is an extreme example of a more significant trend. As more essential services like bill payments move to smartphones and the need for physical mail dissolves, the post office’s role as a service hub is fading.
The Indian post office is more than 167 years old but has struggled in recent years to stay relevant in the digital age. Similar to the infrastructure challenges facing the US Postal Service, India Post hasn’t been able to leverage its existing resources to continue offering the services residents demand.
In the Middle East, where the first postal service may have originated in ancient Egypt and where the Persian Empire developed a sophisticated delivery network that formed the basis of many modern systems, the story is somewhat different.
Several nations have already moved on from a model where the post office served an essential role.
The United Arab Emirates, for example, has never offered universal access to mail services. Access is provided for a price, and regular mail has never taken off in the country. Utility bills and other officialdom have generally found their way to one’s office but now everything is handled through apps and over e-mail.
Interestingly, Emirates Post never became a significant actor in either bill or remittance payments. Without a footprint in the remittance market, the post office was never going to have a large role in society. The UAE is a global focal point for remittances because of the many foreign workers.
Curiously, the lack of a robust postal service and the country’s unique system of road addressing (or lack of a system of road addressing) were vital ingredients needed to create one of the most valuable companies ever built in the UAE.
Aramex, the first Arab company listed on the Nasdaq, started as an express delivery service in Dubai and has grown into a massive multinational logistics empire. The genius behind the Aramex model is how the company uses drivers that have highly localized knowledge. Without clear street names, these drivers must rely on landmarks and local expertise to ensure packages are delivered to the right person and on time.
Digital reality
As an idea and service, the post office still has an essential societal role. To realize this role, the post office must radically pivot away from paper products and embrace our digital reality. This is a painful reality for those with fond memories of receiving mail every day, but we can’t stop how pervasive our devices have become.
For the post office truly to embrace its mandate in the digital age, it must move to complete digital options. Imagine if the post office in your country functioned much the same as the app store on your phone – no physical branches, accessible on all your devices with a click of a button.
There is room for innovative ideas concerning the digital post office, but we might have to wait a while to see them take effect. As one of the largest and oldest state-owned enterprises in many countries, changes taking root in the post office tend to be glacial at best. Yet smaller countries with less traditional postal operations can make changes with a lot more ease than larger countries.
With its failing post office, South Africa is another area where change could occur. The direction of travel is clear; it’s just a matter of finding the political will to build the post office of the future.
This article was provided by Syndication Bureau, which holds copyright.