When the internet caught on in Brasil it was expected that email would eliminate written letters.
In fact, the number of letters fell.
But the businesses of the Brazilian Company of Post Offices and Telegraphs went against the flow and grew in clever and adaptive ways.
In 2008,11 billion Reals .
The president of the company, Carlos Custódio, explains this performance by linking to the extraordinary growth of the Brasilian economy in recent years.
He also credits the launching of new products, based on internet technology.
The next challenge is the cellular telephone. "Actually It is our main competitor:”
The people still send letters? Very few.
As an example, in 2002,the post office processed 5 billion letters.
In 2008, they did not reach 3 billion. In this year, only 10% are people to people.
What was the damage to the Post office? Nothing!
Each year reaches a new invoicing record.
In 2008 it was over 11 billion Reals.
As the economy was heated, we have gained in customer base.
The new products, like Sedex 10 and services use the Internet.
The great challenge is to confront the move of letters to electronic formats. We process the bills for residential light, telephone and water, and this is growth. We believe that soon this correspondence will be delivered by email when trustworthy digital certification is more common.
The post office is adapting to the internet for example,the public can send a telegram via the Internet: log on to the Post Offices site and write - the Post office prints and delivers.
The delivery of Internet purchases is an area that the Brasilian Post office is very efficient and economical at processing, beating the courier companies inside the country.
One major challenge is cellular phones, due to SMS messages.
The cellular operators generated millions of letters
This is a significant competitor.
We already sell the cellular daily recharge card and we also carry out the recharging of the cards.
The strategic choice is uniting with cellular phones and growing with it. In the short term, the post office needs to become logistical partner of the operators.
As an example, repair services for the phones, the operators will the Post office to send to assistance and then return to the customer
Another idea, in the long run,is to become a reseller of cellular time credits. The Post office can buy a few thousand minutes for 300 Reals and would resell the credit for 400 Reals .
This is already SOP at European Post offices.
