In February the major Swedish financial daily Dagens Industri carried several large advertise-ments under the heading Grönt så in i Norden (Green deep into Norden). There were five different announ-cements under this banner, one for each weekday.
Each advertisement carried the trademark of four different mail- and distri-bution companies in Norden: Frioscandia, Nor-Cargo, CityMail and Box-Delivery (with IKEA as its largest customer).
What the advertisements do not reveal however is that all four companies are owned by Posten Norge (Norway Post). Their logo was however nowhere to be seen in these advertisements. Was that a deliberate attempt to reduce controversy? – No, Kjell Rakkenes, head of press at Posten Norge, assures us; the reason is that it is through these four companies that we are best known in Sweden. It is all about product recognition.
Posten Norge has over the last three years invested no less than five billion NOK in buying up companies "to gain a good foothold in the Nordic market" as they state in their press-release. This expansion has, primarily, been in Sweden,
– Our plan is to double our foreign holdings by 2011, states Dag Mejdell, CEO of Posten Norge according to Dagens Industri.
The reply from Posten Sverige has thus far been that: – We will wait and see, says Per Ljungberg, head of press at Posten Sverige who adds: – We are used to competition, in fact the Swedish market was deregulated already in 1993.
Posten Norge had a net income (before tax) of 949 million NOK last year. Almost 23 percent of this figure was generated in Sweden. Net income for Posten Sweden was 1 564 billion SEK.
Total turnover for Posten Norge in the last three years has grown by 10 billion NOK reaching 27.4 billion NOK last year. – That means we have outgrown Posten Sverige, measured by turnover, states Kjell Rakkenes of Posten Norge.
The official figures for turnover of Posten Sverige last year were 30.0 billion SEK or 25.5 billion NOK. Posten Sverige employs more than 30 000 people and is one of Sweden's largest enter-prises. Posten Norge em-ploys just over 23 000 people.
Like Posten Norge, Posten Sverige has acquired its own transportation com-pany. In fact the Swedes took over Norwegian Tollpost. Posten Sverige had previously also bought Strålfors, a large company in the graphic production and information logistics sector. Post Danmark has in the meantime been ex-panding southward by initiating co-operation with Deutsche Post, potentially the largest mail and logistics enter-prise in Europe.
One central ele-ment in the new Posten Norge campaign is to present all their companies under one trademark. According to marketing analysts however this can be a risky business, particularly since it is the trademarks more than the vehicles, people and logistical systems that Posten Norge has bought.
The new trademark for Posten Norge has not yet been decided. It has however already been agreed that the image will be green. At the same time however they want to maintain their traditional red colour in Norway. In the press-release however they use the green livery of BoxDelivery.
Kjell Rakkenes of Posten Norge says that the new environmental profile in particular will be applied to transport. He has, however, little news to provide on how that is going to be implemented. At the same time he underlines that Posten Norge is very keen to further develop Nordic cooperation in this field.
– Particularly for Norway, it is important to get more post off the roads and onto the railways, but at present little in the way of free capacity is available here. Indeed it looks like we are unlikely to see a change here until the new railway expansion programmes are complete, he adds.
Economically, the transport sector will soon account for almost half of the turnover of all Nordic Postal enterprises. The IT business accounts for around ten percent, while the traditional distribution of mail accounts for the remainder. More than anything however net-trading has rapidly helped to change the traditional concept of the post.
Already back in 1998 Posten Sverige, Posten Norge, Post Danmark and Itella (Post Finland) joined forces in the Nordic logistics market and established PNL Pan Nordic Logistic. This was based on an understanding that there really only exists one market in the Nordic countries. However Finland soon broke away and Sweden also left in 2001. PNL nevertheless continues to have its headquarters in Stockholm.
It is however interesting to note that the two remaining owners of PNL, Posten Norge and Post Danmark, are fighting each other for part of the market in Denmark, in particular in relation to the distri-bution of mail. Thus far CityMail (owned by Posten Norge) covers 1.0 of the 2.5 million households in Denmark, but the Norwegians are hoping that a liberalisation of the market will occur which will mean that they can cover the whole country.
In Sweden CityMail covers 43 percent of all households and also here there are plans for expansion. CityMail was by the way originally a privately owned Swedish company.
By Odd Iglebaek