Opening of the Forum and welcome
09:30 - 09:35

Universal Postal Union World Leaders Forum - Partner to transform - Powering postal digital (r)evolution

Session 1: Towards global digital readiness - enabling a powerful digital postal ecosystem
09:35 - 10:25

Digitalization is transforming supply chains and customer needs. These trends are spawning considerable changes in Posts’ strategic objectives, requiring them to increase their reliability, transparency, security, sustainability and efficiency to meet new customer expectations. The UPU leads projects that bring together key players to improve the digital capacity and capability of Posts and bridge digital readiness gaps between countries and regions. During this session, panelists will discuss how digital technologies are transforming the industry, and how postal operators can leverage digital tools to provide high-quality customer-focused services, as well as looking at successful UPU-driven projects that can support Posts on their digital transformation journey.

Session 2: Game-changing emerging technologies - how emerging and advanced digital technologies can re-shape the postal industry
10:40 - 11:30

Together with its members, the UPU has been regularly studying and identifying new technological trends and opportunities, such as the potential and pathways for innovations in postal digital financial services, artificial intelligence, or opportunities in the area of blockchain. Emerging technologies have the power to reshape our industry in a way that was not possible before. For example, interest in blockchain and other distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) has been growing, with more and more Posts exploring the role DLTs may have in their digital growth. The UPU is following these trends and opportunities closely, and panelists will discuss how emerging technologies can help the postal ecosystem create an even stronger network and seize unique opportunities for Posts, their customers, and societies at large.

Session 3: Driving change in the postal sector - how to leverage the enormous partnership potential
11:45 - 12:35

The UPU is committed to working closely with partners from the private sector and across the UN system, alongside industry stakeholders and organizations that share the objectives of inclusive, innovative, sustainable development across its 192 member countries. As of 1 July 2022, private companies are welcome to apply for membership of the UPU’s Consultative Committee (CC). Postal stakeholders that are not public postal operators or regulators can now add their voice to the UPU's deliberations through the CC. The panelists will discuss why cross-sector collaboration is growing increasingly important, how these partnerships can drive innovation for the benefit of the global postal ecosystem, and what new CC members expect from this new relationship with the UPU and its member countries.

Closing of the Forum morning sessions
12:35 - 12:40

Postal technology show: Part 1 - Universal Postal Union Postal Technology Centre showcase
14:30 - 15:45

Topics: Domestic Postal System (DPS), International Postal System (IPS), Customs Declaration System (CDS), and electronic advance data.

Postal technology show: Part 2 - private sector partner showcase
16:05 - 16:55

Closing of the Forum
16:55 - 17:00

Room A Conference Opening Session
09:00 - 09:20

Room A Post and parcel strategic directions - industry leaders (Plenary Keynote and panel)
09:20 - 10:50

Room D Solutions for cost and revenue management
11:20 - 13:00

Room A The future shape of the sector
11:30 - 13:00

Latest developments and ideas in postal, parcel and logistics business and operations. What has been learnt from Covid about resilience and adapting? How is the sector’s position changing in the new market conditions? What are the important things to focus on? What business opportunities are there in the whole e-commerce ecosystem and more broadly in parcels and logistics? What is the future shape of the sector?

Room D Latest innovation in parcel locker technology
14:10 - 17:20

Room A What next for parcels?
14:20 - 15:50

How resilient is the parcel market? Will the Covid pandemic parcel volume boom be sustained? Or will the economic and supply challenges dampen growth and soften demand? What are the latest operational ideas and innovative approaches to End-to-end parcel handling for e–commerce? What are the next challenges and opportunities for parcels?

Room B Cross-border challenges and opportunities
11:20 - 12:45

Based on the PIP Cross-Border Report 2021 (published in February 2022) panelists will present and discuss current challenges for providing a ‘seamless’ cross-border service to their customers and discuss new market opportunities for cross-border business as well as solutions to cope with new legal requirements. Focus on • New cross-border requirements and challenges • How postal and logistics companies can provide a seamless solution (focus on eCommerce market needs) • New solutions and technologies which will help to seize market opportunities

Room B PIP Start-up competition
14:10 - 16:45

Room C Returns and reverse logistics
11:20 - 12:40

Room C Green transport initiatives, electric vehicles, fleet transformation
14:00 - 17:10

Room D AI, robotics and automation
09:00 - 11:00

Room A Digitally enabled business - 'digital customer touch points'
09:00 - 10:30

Modern logistics delivery services & retail are investing to create state of the art digital customer experience journeys. Physical delivery more and more is accompanied with Digital Services to improve customer experience. The speakers will provide best practice experience from retail, parcel delivery and postal services for digital and hybrid solutions to introduce and improve digital customer touchpoints as an important business lever to gain market share and improve customer retention.

Room D Innovative solutions for the last mile
11:30 - 17:00

Room A New technologies and the digitization of the supply chain
11:10 - 12:40

How postal operators are using new technologies and digitizing their businesses to enable powerful operations and processes as well as new levels of customer centricity. Focus on • which new technologies and digital products will transform the postal and logistics industry? • how can postal and logistics companies grow through diversification? • How and which digital solutions will drive and strengthen customer centricity? • Which new technologies and digital solutions will optimize services and processes? • Which strategies and use cases highlight the enormous opportunities of those new technologies?

Room A Winning the race for the last mile
14:10 - 15:40

Latest developments in last mile delivery, out of home PUDO parcel lockers and delivering choices for receiving customers. In the highly contested and competitive last mile what do consumers want or need and how to resource and deliver their choice whilst taking account of location accuracy, service quality and efficient, sustainable delivery operations. Deciding between home and out of home delivery and PUDOs vs parcel lockers – what are the drivers of each delivery model and how does the ‘offer’ impact on customer behaviour?

Room B Facing the challenges of sustainability
09:00 - 10:30

How can the sector show leadership in sustainability? What are the essential elements of a sustainability strategy? Should there be more collaboration and collective action across the sector and how might this work? Can there be one sector road map to ‘net zero’? how can the focus on sustainability transform postal or parcel businesses?

Room B Urban/city logistics, emission free cities, consolidation hubs
11:10 - 12:40

An exploration of the issues and challenges which threaten the sustainability of today’s Online Shopping supply chain. Cities like London are actively examining the impact of eCommerce growth on their congested and polluted streets. Light commercial vehicles (vans) are the fastest growing form of urban transport, increasing by 25% in recent years with last mile delivery fuelling that growth. City Authorities are concerned about air pollution and congestion in equal measure and are setting new challenges to reverse the trend of environmental damage. In order to achieve a step-change in environmental impact the parcel industry to find new ways to deliver services and reduce consumption which are deemed acceptable to both cities and their citizens. Alan Barrie will lead a session with insight from 3 separate European perspectives, exploring why environmental, commercial and consumer pressures are creating the ‘perfect storm’ for major change in last mile operations.

Room B Challenging thinking with different perspectives
14:10 - 15:40

Traditionally in these conferences topics are covered by speakers with very similar backgrounds, experience, and demographic. This session aims to provide the opportunity to hear different perspectives to challenge conventional thinking in the sector.

Room C Warehouse and fulfillment, track, trace and data management
09:00 - 11:00

Room C E-commerce ecosystem tools and solutions
11:40 - 16:50

Room A Small post perspectives
09:00 - 10:30

Traditionally in these conferences topics are covered by speakers from medium or large parcel or postal businesses. This session aims to provide the opportunity to hear from leaders of smaller businesses in the sector with their unique and different perspectives, from four different continents.

Room D Fulfillment, warehousing and sorting solutions
09:00 - 13:00

Room A The Conference Debate
11:10 - 12:40

What have been the strong messages in the conference? What are the immediate imperatives for the sector to address? What were the most surprising or interesting things that you heard or observed? What are the key insights or ‘take aways’ from the conference? What was not discussed enough or at all? This final session will be a moderated panel discussion to address all these questions and more. Come and debate with experienced industry experts and help to set the agenda for next year!

Room B Post Europe Innovation Forum in partnership with PIP
09:00 - 11:00

Posteurop and the Postal Innovation Platform (PIP) have joined forces to organize the Posteurop Innovation Forum this year as part of the Parcel+Post Expo conference in Frankfurt. The session will be open to all Parcel+Post Expo conference attendees and will cover game changing technologies and solutions for the postal and logistics sector. In part one, an expert panel will discuss the opportunities presented by blockchain. Blockchain technology is transforming the industry, from optimizing processes, tracking, creating efficiency and transparency in the supply chain, verification, payment simplification, to crypto and NFT solutions in the most traditional postal domain – philately. Then, in part two, several startups will be invited to share their innovative solutions for the postal and supply chain sector and an industry panel consisting of several innovation leaders of the postal industry will discuss with the startups their solutions and the benefits for the postal sector. The panel will also discuss success factors for a viable innovation strategy and best practice to implement innovation and new technologies to face the challenges of a continuously evolving market environment, driven by eCommerce, customer centricity, and competition.

Room B The long view
11:40 - 13:10

This session aims to take the long view of the sector, reflecting first on the journey taken over the last 10 years. Then addressing the reality being faced today and the prognosis and prospects for the future. Finally looking at what the future might look like in 10 years’ time both in physical networks and logistics and to visualizing the supply chain of the future.

Room C Latest innovative technologies – AI, data, autonomous vehicles, robotics
09:00 - 13:00