Delegates who attended the inaugural Small Posts & Islands Postal Forum, hosted by Isle of Man Post Office, are hailing it a huge success.
More than 30 delegates representing small postal administrations from around the world including Aland, Barbados, Estonia, Falklands, Greenland, Seychelles and Swiss Post, attended the three-day forum held at the Sefton Hotel, Douglas. The event was designed as not for profit and was sponsored by Escher, a Dublin and Boston based IT business providing solutions to the postal world, Jon Enschede, high quality security and stamp printers based in Holland, Swiss Post Solutions, one of the most innovative Posts in digital solutions and Ukash, a global e-money business who see the Posts as key business partners.
The forum, officially opened by the Chief Minister Allan Bell MHK, was by invitation only and aimed at key decision makers and senior officials from postal administrations around the world.
With declining mail volumes, technical substitution, economic uncertainty and the changing social tenders of customers, all Posts are facing the same kind of challenges, be it a large Post or small. Smaller Posts do not always have the resources to invest heavily in solutions to these global problems and instead have to rely on creativity and resourcefulness to continue to compete successfully. The purpose of the forum was to allow small Posts to come together to exchange ideas and best practice, explore current and future trends, network, address common issues and identify new areas and opportunities for collaboration.
There was a varied programme with some very interesting speakers. Full day sessions covered all aspects of the postal industry from digital and physical integration, innovation in philately, customer service, engaging with government for retail services as well as reform to modernisation and corporatisation. They were presented by a variety of key speakers and proved invaluable in bringing together a wealth of experience and knowledge for all the attendees to benefit from, as well as a number of enlightening question and answer sessions.
Within the event programme, Isle of Man Post Office took advantage of the opportunity to showcase the Isle of Man to the visiting delegates with trips to Laxey and the south of the Island so they could see how it differs from their respective homelands. The group also had free time to explore the Island at their leisure.
Commenting on the forum Ingimundur Sigupalsson, Managing Director and Chief Executive of Iceland Post said:
"The Forum was beyond my most resplendent expectations; very well organised and exceedingly informative in all respects." Meanwhile Chief Executive of Jersey Post Kevin Keen said: "This was an excellent initiative of Isle of Man Post Office to bring such an interesting group of organisations together. Although we were certainly geographically diverse, the challenges faced are certainly similar and it was great to be able to share them with colleagues and new friends."
"The hospitality provided by the Isle of Man was first class including attendance by a number of your most senior politicians, even the sun shone!" he added.
The forum was facilitated by Derek Osborn, an acknowledged postal expert with more than 22 years experience in senior management within Royal Mail and 14 years working internationally across the postal industry.
Mike Kelly, Chief Executive, Isle of Man Post Office said:
"We were delighted to host the inaugural forum for small Posts and would like to thank the Chief Minister for welcoming the delegates to the Island and officially opening the conference. We are also grateful to the Minister for Economic Development John Shimmin MHK, for closing the topical session which focused on Posts engaging with government, he spoke about a number of issues which echoed similar situations the other Posts are facing with their principle stakeholders."
He continued:
"We have been inundated with positive feedback from the delegates about the forum which is very pleasing. There are many conferences held for the larger players in the postal industry throughout the year yet there had never been one for the smaller Posts until now. We hope the forum will flourish into the years ahead and are especially pleased that Gibraltar Post has offered to host the next one in 2014. It certainly bodes well for its future success."
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