 Okay, everyone, I think we'll get started in the next minute or so, so welcome back, hope you enjoyed lunch. I don't know if all of you were here for the first two sessions this morning, but we heard from CEOs about cross-border logistics and e-commerce, as well as diversification visions. So we're going to continue along those two themes. We're going to revisit them this afternoon. And we're going to dive deeper into more tangible strategies and how we can actually implement these visions. So we'll start first with logistics and cross-border e-commerce, and I'll call our panelists up, our experts on this topic. We have Tony Stanky from Head of Global Strategic Partnerships with Zonos. William Shaw, Senior Vice President of Chanyal Network in France. And Dr. Faria Awuharan, Deputy CEO, SPL. And Jan Bonyatsky, Supply Chain Coordinator with the UPU. So join me in welcoming our panelists and we'll get the discussion started. I'll make another quick note, if you weren't here this morning, that this is really an interactive discussion. So we have someone with a mic on either end of the room. Raise your hand, stand up, let me know if you have questions, or if you want to answer any of the questions that we're discussing here about what you're doing and your own strategies within your organization. So we'll get started. All right, Tony, I'll start with you since you're right here, my first victim. So let's talk a little bit about, in times of change, how can postal operators really play to their strengths and get close to existing customers and attract new ones in this cross-border space? Yeah, I think it's a great opportunity for post being that you're the last mile, you have that connection with customers. I think you're set up in the right space. But I do think there's some changes that have to happen. I know that e-commerce is somewhat new over the last 20 years, and we need to start talking their language. So I'll kind of go over a few things that we've seen at Zonos. So she said, I'm Tony Stanky, I'm head of partners at Zonos. Do we have a clicker? Yes. Or who was here? Let me see where it's at. My next slide. Yes, thank you. Just the green button, I'm assuming. Okay, perfect. So Zonos is a technology company, and we're here to help with the cross-border experience. We are located in the U.S. We've been in business for over 15 years. We also have an office in Gold Coast, Australia. But we work with thousands of e-commerce merchants, and we help them on the front end of their website to help localize that consumer buying experience so that it's easy, it's transparent, they know what the full costs are going to be. And we just really help close that process because we also work with shipping softwares, carriers, postal, in ensuring that the data is correct, collecting the payment for duties and taxes, and just make sure it's a real end-to-end process for that customer and a good one for them. So I don't think it's a secret that e-commerce, although it has slowed in growth, it is still growing. We still see this with our merchants that we're working with today. There's more consumers buying online than ever. I like to use my dad as an example. He always had a flip phone that did nothing until about two years ago. I had to teach him how to use the iPhone for the first time, and now he orders everything online. He never goes into a store. So I think generations, all generations are starting to do online buying. And so we're going to continue to see that grow. But it also is what we're seeing is that the post is losing in its share in that market, and it's because we need to start talking their language and make it easy for them. I am one of the reasons that probably Amazon is successful, and they've kind of created a monster in me because I buy from Amazon all the time. I know what to expect from them. It's easy. My son, he texted me last night. I was in bed at 10 p.m. He said that he was out of toothpaste. So I went on within three clicks. I have it ordered when he wakes up this morning in Utah. He's going to have toothpaste on his doorstep. So I don't actually buy from Amazon because they're the cheapest or anything like that. I buy from Amazon because it's so easy for me. I can do, you know, it's localized to me. I know what I can expect from them. I keep buying from them over and over again. Well, for online merchants, this is hard to create that same buying experience for customers on e-commerce sites because a lot of these e-commerce sites, they're not set up for that international customer. So Shopify, for example, it may localize to the customer, but it doesn't always show the total cost of shipping, what the duties and taxes are. A lot of times customers get onto a website and they have no idea if that company even ships to their country. And so it just makes it a tough buying experience. And when you have 90% of your business is domestic and 10% is cross-border, it makes it really hard for these online retailers to put focus into what that experience looks like. But I am an online retailer myself. So I have a coffee subscription business. It's on Shopify. I co-own it with another lady and she's really good at focused on our product, where we get our beans from, what our packaging looks like, all of that. So that leaves the rest of the business to me. So I have to do the technology. I have to create the website. I have to work on the customer experience. I also do finances, which is really scary for us, but I do handle the finances as well. And it's impossible for me to know all of that and be an expert in it. So I have to focus my time in certain areas and use partners to do other things. I personally focus on the customer experience because that's important. It's a subscription business, so I need customers coming back over and over again. And I need to create that buying experience for them. That leaves a gap in my supply chain because I have to figure out shipping. And for someone who hadn't done shipping in the past, it was really important that I turned to partners who came in and gave me the easy button. And that's what these customers want. They want you to come in and tell them how to do this, how to make it easy, how to be plug-and-play on their site. And I know that's something that's super important for me in my supply chain business. So customer experience matters to e-commerce. Lifetime value matters. If I don't get customers coming back to me, it's no good. If you come and make one coffee order, I don't make any money. So I need them to come back over and over again. And by the way, for my coffee business, it's 90% of them come back on our repeat buyers. So we do a really good job at communicating with our customers and keeping that experience well. So what are some of the challenges that post-run into and logistics companies run into? Well, duties and taxes, knowing what that is going to be, being able to communicate that and actually collect that payment, being able to have the correct data, which by the way, this is not all on the online retailer's fault or on the post-fault, why we don't have good data. But as I said earlier, the technology, the platforms aren't always set up for that right customer experience, but it's also not set up for the data. So let's say that I have a 10 to 14-digit HS code. That doesn't mean that my e-commerce platform, I can put that in the back end. And if I do, it doesn't mean it's going to transfer to the shipping software. And I also learned this year, just because I give information to USPS, for example, in a field and they read it, that does not mean that they pass that information to the receiving post. So having the correct data is going to be an issue that we have to fix throughout the entire process, and everybody has to have a piece of that. And then having ICS-2 and different things come up with all the changes that happen with countries, these are really hard for e-commerce merchants to know and how we can continue to work with that. I think that went, there it goes. Okay, so duties and taxes. How does it work today? Well, the express carriers are the ones for DDP who really figured it out in the first place, right? If I'm UPS, I send the package, UPS clears it through customs. They deliver to the customer and they turn around and they build the online retailer or the shipper or a third party, whoever that is. Well, the problem is express carriers are expensive. And they have a lot of fees with them. And they haven't figured out how to get on the front end for the e-commerce platform either. So then you had the freight forwarders and consolidators who came in and they figured out how to do the same thing, but a little bit cheaper. They don't charge as many fees and then they inject it into the post and you guys typically do the final mile delivery, not always. So how is that an area that we can improve and get a piece of it? DDP is the right choice for customers because they want to know what that cost is up front. They don't want to be surprised when they hit the door. Online retailers don't want to have to deal with abandoned packages. They also want to provide that customer experience. And this would help open up new markets for post. To be competitive, you have to have a DDP option. And those consolidators or freight forwarders, they're clearing commercially and then they inject it into the post, right? So how can we change that experience for them? It's important that we use partnerships to do that because this isn't going to happen for post unless everybody works together. It's not one person who can do it. It has to be everyone working together. Zonos uses AI through really all parts of our company. If you get an email from me, it probably was written by AI. And that's not just for Zonos, but that's for my coffee business as well. And so I think this is an opportunity that everyone can look at what their processes are, what tasks you're doing daily and how you can use AI to help you build it. Because it's not going to change the world and it's not going to do everything, but it is going to help save us time and give us more productivity. So I know I'm running out of time, so I'm going to make this slide quick. With ICS-2, and I already talked about how important data is with HS codes. Remember, it's not all the online retailers fault that they don't have it, but they're not experts at cross-border trade. And we have to be able to give them the tools to be able to know what the HS codes are, how to get the information to the right place. Zonos does this today with our customers by anyone who signs up with us. We give them 10,000 free classifications. So we're trying to fix the data on the front end, so also working with companies like USPS, APPC, who I know sits here today, but how do we build out this DDP solution? How do we give you the correct data to also have and help clear that order through customs? So I'm out of time, and that was my last slide. My contact information is here if you have any questions. Thanks, Tani. Yeah, I think it's really important that you mentioned the DDP products because this is something that when we were talking about the overall vision this morning in this topic, you know, we came back to customer centricity a lot and how it needs to be easy for the customer and how we need to be there to really facilitate that cross-border trade and business for them so they don't just fade away into the background when it comes to that market. But this is a topic that we didn't really dive deep into and how our posts doing with developing a DDP product around the world. So yeah, we can come back to that later in the discussion. William, a very important date is coming up, which is 11-11, which in Cologne where I live is the start of carnival season, but for Chagnall Network this is the biggest shopping day of the year. So how do you prepare for this huge day to cope with the volume boom during the peak season? Sure, sure. I'm very glad to be here. This is William Schum. I'm a Senior Vice President for Chagnall. And later on I will introduce a little bit about who Chagnall is and how we deal with the overall challenges and also opportunities for the cross-border logistics. Okay, sure. A little bit about Chagnall. So Chagnall was established 10 years ago as a logistic infrastructure for Alibaba Group. So today we are the largest cross-border logistics provider globally and we help the platforms within Alibaba ecosystem and also external customers to make their cross-border e-commerce deliveries fast and also easy. So today we create very diverse solutions for international logistics including cross-border express delivery. So we have what we call a five-dollar ten-days delivery and also we have a ten-dollar five-days delivery. So from all those key offerings that we definitely find that these are the offerings that are specifically designed for the cross-border e-commerce because it is probably not as fast as the premium commercial providers but it is with a very reasonable and fast lead time and also very affordable. At the same time that we also create our global supply chain by allowing merchants to pre-allocate their inventories globally so that we can offer a local delivery experience. For example, in a lot of the European countries through our so-called overseas and imported warehouse solutions we can offer the delivery within the next day. And in order to support our cross-border express delivery and also the import and export warehouses we also started to launch some of the local express delivery services in key countries. For example, if we take SPAN as an example right now we are offering the local delivery in SPAN by ourselves by leveraging the next day delivery that can be the last mile delivery and also be the last mile service for our overseas warehouse. We have a significant business in China that's where we grow together with Alibaba ecosystem and really enable and empower the W11 shopping festival. So we have very experienced capabilities to really enable those very significant uplift during those shopping festivals. And we have developed very sophisticated solutions empowered by our technology solutions to really pre-allocate a lot of the resources so that we can make sure that we ensure the fast delivery even for the major campaigns. And besides the express and logistics related services we also create a lot of the technology solutions for example, we operate the largest out-of-the-home delivery network in China with around 170,000 portal networks across China. That's the biggest network in the world and also we run the biggest logistics app in the world with more than 30 million active users on a daily basis. And we also create the logistics technologies that will support our own operation and also we create new solutions for our close partners. I think this is what Tsai Nian is doing. So we are primarily focusing on global and cross-border logistics. We have significant and high-quality deliveries and supply chain solutions in China and offer technologies and also other infrastructures. Particularly in Europe and Southeast Asia where we group these two regions together is really we have very significant overseas consumers here and we have been investing heavily in terms of infrastructures both supporting our cross-border business and also our local networks. So for example, we run significant e-hubs in the edge in Malaysia and also we have significant sorting centers to support our cross-border business and also very significant local networks across Europe. I think all these infrastructures that supports our smooth deliveries during the major campaigns. So if we talk about the W11, we have been organizing and preparing for that even three months before the campaign day. So we pre-organize a lot of the charter flights, working very closely with all the last-minute delivery partners in terms of planning for their deliveries and also enable our sophisticated technologies to make sure that all those plans can be executed effectively. Particularly we are enhancing our last-minute network in Europe specifically for example, Spain, France and Poland and also we work closely with our partners like the Express in Southeast Asia. Global supply chain is also a key part that we believe will be very critical for the global delivery. I think cross-border five-day delivery is already much faster than before. But if we want some of the even more extreme services for example, next-day delivery, we have to have a local warehouse. So that's why we create quite a lot of warehouses in Europe both for import purpose and also for export purpose. So for import, we allocate a lot of the inventories from elsewhere in Europe so that when consumers are ready to make the order, we can deliver on a next-day basis. So we started to offer the next-day service in Spain and later on we will expand that to Germany, to France, to UK and also to Czech Republic. And also we build quite extensive network to help the Europe exporters to serve their customers overseas. So particularly in Asia, we have millions of square meters warehouse in China and also in Southeast Asia and really helping the European and also US exporters to serve their overseas customers in Asia. We are a technology company. We have very significant investment in technology capabilities. For example, we run probably the largest unmanned vehicle fleet. So today we have around 800 unmanned vehicles serving some of the last-minute deliveries, particularly in university campuses because we find this is an operational environment with a lot of tech-savvy consumers and also very relatively easier operating environment for the unmanned vehicles. We self-develop significant sortation automations and also IOTs and digital supply chains. We even provide smart last-mars, namely lockers and also IOT devices for pick-up and delivery portal networks. So I think these are some of the technologies that we definitely first establishing our internal operating environment as a key differentiator to really create faster delivery with even lower cost and also can support W11 in much more efficient ways. And also we create those solutions for our close customers. Together, we help them to implement those technologies, particularly in logistics and supply chain areas, not only for the logistics providers, but also for a lot of the brands in terms of consumer brands and also industrial brands. The last but least is really about green logistics. So we definitely understand we have a significant commitment to green logistics and also to our ESG initiatives. For example, we create most of our logistics parks in a sustainable way. For example, we install significant solar energy systems on most of our logistics parks and also we introduced significant green delivery options. For example, for our spent last-mars delivery, we introduced quite a lot of electric vehicles delivery for those areas. We believe that the zero emission commitment is something that we definitely need to create as our commitment for the local community. And the last but least is really about our sustainable last-mars solutions. We believe the smart lockers and put-on networks will be a more effective way for consumers to welcome their parcels. So this is also an area that we invest a lot and also we work closely with a lot of partners. And then this is a little bit about ourselves. So as a quick summary, so we are a global leader in the cross-border delivery area by offering cross-border express delivery, cross-border supply chain, and also we invest significantly in our selected countries last-mars delivery. And we are a technology company with a significant ESC commitment, and we definitely want to work together with all our partners to really create the green deliveries in Europe and in Southeast Asia. I think this is what we are actually doing. And I believe it's not only serving the W11 with enough capacity and also good service level. It's really creating that in even more sustainable ways. Yeah, thanks. Thank you. Yeah, I think that this idea of partnerships is an interesting point to touch on later on when we start the discussion because we've talked about this earlier in the day. And you mentioned that you're setting up local delivery in places like Spain. So it would be interesting to talk about that further, where it makes sense to have partners and where it makes sense to set up your all-network. Fadi, national posts are increasingly working with the private sector. So we've, again, this theme of having partnerships to manage this complex supply chain. What are the advantages of this approach from your perspective? First of all, thank you, Amanda. And good afternoon, everyone. It's always a pleasure to be back on stage here in this event. And a big thank you to the organizers of the expo as well as the UPU World Leaders Forum. Just getting the slides up there. The partnership of the private sector players, Amanda, for the SPL group of companies has been, I would say, foundational to our strategy. The strategy that we founded and established back in 2019 this morning, we were fortunate to have as excellency post to SPL shed some light on pieces of that strategy, and I'll hopefully build on some of that. But when we go back to 2019, four and a half years ago, our strategy was built on two fundamental pillars, an organic side and an organic side. The organic aspect of our strategy is probably what we saw. Many programs of work being implemented over the course of 2019 to 2022, pretty much, and it's still ongoing. The inorganic pillars of our strategy is something that we embarked upon in terms of execution last year. And there's a variety of different examples that I'll shed some light on at a high level, and then I'm going to zoom in on one opportunity that we are about to embark on very shortly. But when we look at the private sector, once again, we look at the private sector from the perspective of growing at a much faster pace and a more efficient and effective manner, and relying and leveraging on the expertise and capability that these private sector players bring. Yes, we are proud of the talent that we have. We're proud of the know-how that we have, but we don't know everything. And yes, we can spend time on learning and building, but how can we fast track that and how can we leverage the ecosystem around us to fast track that and bring the best of the best to the table? So if we go back in history, Saudi Post back in 2006 started this whole venture of working with the private sector, and they established a joint venture company with a private sector player, and established a company which exists today called Naqal. I'm currently the acting CEO of Naqal, in addition to a few other roles that I play across the group of companies. Just last year, we completed the acquisition, the remaining acquisition of shares of Naqal, and we now are proud owners of 100% of that company. However, the private sector partner for those many years brought know-how, brought capability, brought expertise to the table, and Naqal today is absolutely not the Naqal it was back in 2006, and a big thanks and appreciation goes to the capability that that partner brought to the table. Another example that we announced last year, and I was very proud and excited to announce this on stage last year at the event, was the launch of Infinite PL. Infinite PL, once again, is another joint venture partnership that we established with the private sector. We own 55%, and our private sector partner owns 45%, and it is solely designed to develop digital and technological platforms for the logistics sector at large. So once again, when we look at building our joint ventures with private sector, we're not just looking at it to say what is this organization going to do for SPL? Rather, how can we actually create a new entity? How can we create a new organization that can cater and serve the needs at the market at large? So yes, it can help enable SPL, but more importantly, what can it do for the market? And that's something that I really want to make clear to the audience here. When we look at these JVs here, once again, yes, they do provide some enablement SPL, but at large, they're there for the market. Another example that we launched last year as part of our inorganic strategy is Parcelat. And that once again is another partnership that we joined forces with the private sector. We own 50%, they own 50%, and that's primarily focused on building a network of parcel stations that will be scattered across the kingdom, several thousand of them within a few years, and ultimately going out to the region as well. And there once again, the reason we went and built Parcelat was not for SPL's purpose, but rather how can we enable the logistics ecosystem at large and provide enablement for other players, even our competitors to actually go out and leverage this network and these technologies. But today, I'm extremely excited to announce a new strategic relationship that we are in the final stages of formalizing with our partners, GNTech, Global Network Technology. And this partnership is something that once again, similar example, not here just to enable SPL, but more importantly, enable postal operators globally and connecting the dots across the ecosystem. So GNTech, and I'm very happy and proud that we have our colleagues from GNTech here with us today as well, is designed to be a digital platform to connect postal operators, connect aggregators, connect airline carriers, connect couriers, various players and stakeholders across the ecosystem, across the global supply chain, all on one platform, where rather than connecting the dots on a one-to-one basis between your entity and another entity, you plug into this platform and once you're plugged into this platform, you have access to everyone else and the entire ecosystem of stakeholders built into there so that you can actually orchestrate and manage an entire global supply chain from A to Z. It's basically a virtual aggregator type of platform and would provide significant value and be a significant value proposition for any postal operator globally, let alone everyone else and any other stakeholder connected to it. So once again, extremely proud and excited to embark on this partnership and this relationship with GNTech. And once again, this is not for SPL. Yes, SPL can leverage this platform, but it is here for everyone else across the globe to leverage and maximize the benefit. If we want to zoom in on what GNTech is going to add to us specifically in KSA when we talk about Vision 2030 and those of you that don't know about Vision 2030 and the Kingdom, I encourage you all to read more about it because it is probably one of the most ambitious, it's not probably, it is the most ambitious transformation plan that any country and geography has embarked upon, at least in the history of my time and it really, it's cross cutting across a number of industries and a number of fillers, but when we talk about Vision 2030, the logistics component is crucial. Using KSA as a global hub connecting the east and the west is fundamental to our transformation, fundamental to Vision 2030. What does GNTech platform give us? It's going to connect the globe across the stakeholders and allow us within the Kingdom to go about and become that that global logistics connector and connecting the east to the west across a variety of aspects of this global supply chain. Once again, not only will it help us in SPL but any other operator within the Kingdom in the region and across the globe at large. Just to zoom in a little bit and give you a little bit of understanding and I'm not the expert on the logistics information system but once again, if you do have any questions, please feel free to talk to my colleagues afterwards. But it consists of a number of different modules and I think two in particular that make this unique on top of all of the other modules is the AI forecasting and we talk about AI a lot artificial intelligence but the artificial intelligence aspect and component of this platform will help from a variety of aspects one of which is prediction and forecasting. How can we actually predict how volumes are moving around from place to place and how can you as couriers if you are a courier or a postal operator get ready to understand those volumes in terms of when they're coming when they're flowing etc. or in good shape to get ready for those volumes and cater those needs. The carbon calculator once again in 2023 as we talk about everyone being sustainable and green this once again will help organizations whoever they are across the global supply chain to understand their overall emissions calculations from end to end across that supply chain as well. I think in summary the GNTEC partnership with InfinitePL is really going to help our customers or their customers to provide that agility, speed to market improve their overall service quality and most importantly really grow the cross-border e-commerce movement and that has been fundamental to the discussions we had this morning, this afternoon and we absolutely know that this aspect of e-commerce and cross-border e-commerce within the kingdom of the region is only going at its early stages and is only going to have a steep curve over the years and decades to come, ultimately last but not least connecting the overall delivery ecosystem across that global supply chain in an effective manner plugging into one platform getting done with it and moving on with your business and focusing on growth. I'll conclude there, thank you. Great, thank you, perfect. Looking forward to hearing more about your approach with joint ventures. It's really interesting. Okay, we have Jan Monjanski here again with UPU. Can you tell us a little bit more about Tawny talked earlier about HS codes and this kind of regulatory these regulatory borders bottlenecks when it comes to cross-border logistics. Can you tell us how changes like EAD are putting additional burdens on the supply chain and specifically the UPU's perspective on how it's managing the readiness of this. Thank you very much. Good afternoon to all. It's not easy for me after the lunch break and such great previous speakers to continue but I will do my best be short and introduce some activities which are already managed by International of UPU to help designated operators with their business and e-commerce business especially. I don't want to speak too much about some figures I don't want to speak too much about details of some latest technologies like artificial intelligence or something like that but of course I'd like to present some activities which were already done or are ongoing to help to improve supply chain or logistics of UPU designated operators and so I will focus on some activities which I grouped to three different areas we were listening to the morning a lot about the data management about more flexible networks and new products and services I could provide more examples but I will mention just one or two examples from each of this area in my slides sometimes I will focus on activities which are the most important to react on key drivers these days like we have heard about data management digitalization about artificial intelligence and cooperation and many others but I'd like to say that sometimes for UPU is the biggest challenge not to find the right way to recognize the trends or maybe develop tools the biggest challenge sometimes is to implement it in all countries because UPU is a global network we would like to be global and we need to find solutions which are feasible and possible to implement in all countries around the world this is the biggest challenge sometimes so I'd like to say that we are very proud that during the last two years we implemented global postal model or implementation of electronic advanced data exchange which is very important to meet all legal requirements coming from different industries countries and I'm very proud that during the last two years we really make all designated operators capable to exchange data with all supply chain stakeholders I think it's extremely important to exchange data with customs, with designated operators with supply chain partners like carriers handling agents and so on I can say that after many many capacity building activities we are now ready to exchange this data the biggest challenge for us was implementation of ICS-2 already mentioned earlier from 2nd of October I can say that no mail was stopped until now so I can say that I'm very proud as you can see on the screen more than 200 designated operators it means nearly all of them around the world are capable to transmit customs data, item level data as you can see we have nearly 190 designated operators which are able to send consummate level data to their carriers we have nearly 90 carriers around the world exchanging data electronically with POST and this is really great progress we organized last week meeting with IATA, UPU webinar and the carriers really thanked a lot to POST that they managed that in such a quick and short time I'd like also to mention that this global postal model is transport neutral so we are ready also to communicate with surface transport providers and we already do with sea operators, with road operators not only with air carriers and I hope that this data exchange will help us will help us there is one slide missing doesn't matter I'd like to say that the main focus these days is also on actually data exchange but data quality because we want to use this data for many different analyses for maybe seamless processes, paper-free processes so now the main focus is on data compliance to be able to to move as I said to paper-free transport to paper-free accounting, paper-free custom clearance and we are able to do that with data which we are able to collect from our SMEAT now I would like to say that to support these transport activities we would like to I don't know what's happened, I apologize but the slides are not in the order I prepared and I am looking for this one so I'd like to mention also that we recognize good lessons learned for us that we are depending too much on passenger flights the posts are depending too much on passenger flights so now we are much more open to cooperate with cargo carriers we are more open to discuss and pilot maybe with integrators and with others to be more flexible in some regions like Caribbean and Pacific we already help designated operators to optimize their network to speak to their carriers, regional small regional carriers to help them to become EVA capable to consolidate mail somewhere in the mail hubs, in regional mail hubs and we would like to continue later connect these regional hubs globally in the close cooperation with we call it vital postal sector players it means private companies because as I said we were depending too much on passenger carriers which was not the best strategy I'd like to say that cooperation with other supply chain partners, private operators is extremely important for us for a future to be honest I must say that we are not as important as used to be for carriers because the volumes in the traditional postal stream are lower so we need to try to understand each other much better than before we should not be so sometimes so strict as before and we need to find the language to discuss together and harmonize processes to make a business I'd like to mention also that that this is really I apologize this is old version of slides so I I'm skipping some of them I'd like to mention that the cooperation is not only focused on in the area of transport but previous speakers mentioned cooperation in the area of last my delivery that poses the pose are delivering items in the country of destination but we would like to be more open to cooperate with carries in international transport as I mentioned earlier in the last my delivery but also in direct injections it means in first my delivery we see the trends that the typical or core postal D2C model is changing dramatically or not changing it's changed now it's clear that now the mail is goods are shipped as a cargo to warehouses in abroad and then sometimes the postal networks are used for delivery in the last my sometimes not so we need to find solution also for B2B to see service and we would like also to work more to prepare cooperation with other stakeholders and very interesting business model could be model which we call postal prosperity zone which in which we would like to connect designated operators customs world free zone organization to prepare model to help designated operators use all data which we are able to exchange tools which we already prepared to help them with e-commerce in some specific regions thank you very much and I apologize for all the versions of slides fine thank you that's quite a lot of initiatives there that you mentioned the EP doing and quite large as well I have some, we'll continue discussing and I have some follow up questions for the panelists but I just also wanted to give anyone an opportunity that had a question at the moment now to follow up on with any of the presentations that you saw we have someone with the mic here and here so just stand up so I can see you better if you do have a question and if not we'll move on okay Tony you spoke about this GDP product and in this whole world of HS codes and regulations and to even think about establishing a GDP product and how to navigate that especially if once you put the systems in place to assign a product a number that that information isn't passed on between all the carriers or all the chains that are involved along the way so where does a post even start when it comes to a strategy for a GDP product yeah definitely I think I already mentioned earlier it has to be the post working together because if you have let's just take USPS for example who says okay I want to do GDP into whatever country maybe it's into the UK well now you need Royal Mail to say okay I'll accept the GDP and I'll help you with billing so I would say the hardest part about GDP for post today is collecting of the money and getting that in the right place today you're having to collect from the end consumer so it'll be actually faster if you can collect it ahead of time but just being able to take that package and know this package is going to be GDP and we're going to bill the shipper for it is probably I think where you start of knowing how to acknowledge what package is going to be GDP and then being able to collect that payment so I think that's the hardest part is figuring out what package it is that needs to be GDP and how to bill it the rest of it customers are used to it shippers are used to it they're doing it with the express carriers today so it's just being able to recognize the package and how are how are some of your your customers dealing with this now as far as is it just one-on-one relationships with other post or how are they approaching it you know by biggest market first or what have you seen some best practices there and Jan maybe you can chime in as well with this and maybe the UPS role in facilitating GDP products for a post yeah I think it does start with markets first because if you take like if you're shipping into the U.S. you know we have a really high de minima of 800 so most of post shipments are below that and then you run into state tax so it's a little bit different so that's not a country that you'd have to focus on right away whereas shipping into say like Brazil who does collect it often that's one that you'd want to set up so I do think it's picking countries that it's a need for definitely coming into Europe with IOS it makes it a little bit easier if someone's filing IOS and paying that way so it's picking certain countries that you see at first and that is one of the ways that like APPC that we're working with is looking at intra excuse me Asia and then also with UPS picking certain lanes that they can trial it and be able to set up the system to be able to push outward great, great, thank you Jan do you have any perspective from the UPU side of things on best practices for post and facilitating a GDP product no I cannot share some such information now but we are now preparing a cooperation with companies to help us with GDP I know that there are already many designated operators doing that but now we were focused on implementation of electronic advance data first to help all designated operators be able to transmit some data first and from that data of course with this data it's much easier now to prepare also the next steps like GDP great, great William and Fadi as well I heard a little bit about Shanaal being a tech company and that you develop a lot of this in house and then you have the approach and Saudi of doing this joint venture structure to develop a tech product so it'd be great to hear a little bit more from you on is everything developed in house as far as your own internal technology and when you see opportunities there to work with other partners and then Fadi as well how the whole joint venture model started and how that's changed over time sure I think we developed quite a lot of core technologies in house because we believe first the logistic industry definitely is an industry that technology plays a very critical part from several different dimensions I think first is regarding connectivity because today I think we operate the largest cross-border e-commerce delivery network and there we work with hundreds of partners across line haul charter flights like passenger belly the last mile delivery postal and commercial providers and by connecting all of that I think there are quite a lot of key technologies are really getting leveraged and that's not only for the systems for the artificial intelligence but also for some of the hard technologies for example right now we are leveraging quite a significant portion of our RFID in the cross-border transportation because that we put the RFID on our the big bags of parcels and then when the bags across different operation nodes I think it will quickly get rid of without a lot of manual kind of operations so that it will be much more efficient I think a lot of the areas that we need to really make sure that we have the end-to-end embedded technologies working very well together so that we can enhance the cross-border end-to-end efficiencies but to some of the other extent we also work very closely with a lot of partners for example for a lot of the hard devices if we believe that it is kind of something that we can work together with a lot of the component providers a lot of the OEMs and we will be very much willing to do so at the same time that from a lot of the network establishment we also work very closely with our partners for example we had a joint venture with DHR in Poland so that we jointly developed the last model of portal and local networks I think this is also an area that we believe that by creating an even bigger ecosystem that we can benefit each other in terms of consolidating some of the volumes and also have much better cooperation in some of the key countries so we definitely remain open on all of those corporations no matter whether it is trying to integrate with some of the other providers or us being integrated in some of the kind of end-to-end solutions or create a strategic partnership and even joint ventures with players in some of the key areas great, thank you great question Amanda I come from a tech background so apologies if I get extremely excited about how I address this but there is a number of parts to your question if we go back to Saudi Post originally Saudi Post legacy absolutely was building all their technology in house and we still operate on a lot of those legacy systems today however in the process of transitioning and migrating off those and we have a very clear digital tech roadmap to get us from where we are to where the future lies when we go back in time about two and a half years ago before we took the decision to establish InfinitePL which is our digital tech joint venture establishment we took that decision after really looking at what options we had and the reality was our IT department within Saudi Post yes was built on legacy has a lot of great talent a lot of good capability but the reality is when you look at legacy applications that have been built many many years ago there is only so much more that you can do to get them enhanced and enhanced and take it to the next level and the reality is the business that we are operating today is not the business we are operating when these systems were built and established so they weren't necessarily designed to be scalable from the perspective of the business that we are in today right absolutely if we want to continue being a postal operator it can cater for that but we are no longer a postal operator right post is part of our business but a very small part of our business and the world has changed and evolved so we had options we either say we take what we have and try to both fix it and get it enhanced which is probably going to be more inefficient and cost prohibitive not the most economical way we could go to a managed service provider outsource our tech to a third party and just basically pay them for a fee or we could partner with the company and say well how can we design technologies as platforms to serve the needs of SPL but also serve the needs of the market at large and rather than being a leading cost center making it a profit center and sharing the pie with a partner so for us it was truly a no brainer decision we were very fortunate to find our partners in Ride Digital that believed in our ambition believed in our vision believed in the transformation the kingdom was undergoing and I think very very quickly we were able to join hands shake hands and establish this partnership we launched InfinitePL just a year ago and today we have a team of over 60 plus individuals we have a number of partner organizations that we work with across the globe and we are also taking in a lot of our great talent from the legacy IT department and transitioning them into InfinitePL but what InfinitePL gives them is it gives them a clear focus on tech and digital so this no longer becomes a back office function within an enterprise organization where you have all these other functions that you need to manage and prioritize this now becomes a priority and the reality is if we want to be a leading player in the industry that we are in we absolutely need to take technology and leverage technology and digital embrace it with full open arms to take us to that next level because there's no way that we will be able to compete in today's world without that enablement and without that continuous agility and investment so what this partnership gives us is that focus that priority focus where digital is front and center and key and we'll hopefully not only reap the benefits for SPL but more importantly create a whole big market opportunity for InfinitePL to not only enable SPL but enable every single other player in the kingdom and globally to take them to another level in digital and once again what I announced today about our partnership with GNTech under InfinitePL is only another example and a great testament to how serious and how focused we are on digital and we're not just saying we now need to do everything ourselves within InfinitePL but how can we also within InfinitePL partner with other organizations to leverage the best of the best across the ecosystem and always bring that to the table so I think in conclusion answering your question do we do we do things in house legacy wise we did we absolutely are not doing that today we absolutely know that in order to win to remain competitive and to continue to excel we cannot do it on our own and even though we've established a joint venture we're not still saying within the joint venture we're going to do these things within a closed wall we are absolutely open to doing business with any partner out there that can compliment the talent that we have to compliment the capabilities that we have so that we can continue to grow enhance and scale great it's an interesting approach because as you said prioritization is key we kind of all know the problems in the industry where we're at where we want to be but posts are very operationally driven organizations and to have it kind of set aside as someone else in some other joint venture is prioritizing a specific thing that you know you all need I think is a way a great way to segment it and to make sure it stays a priority speaking of technology as William hinted to you can't really talk about cross-border e-commerce or trade without talking about the tech piece of it and everyone wants to talk about AI these days so I think it's appropriate to talk about it here and what you're seeing as changes and how we can streamline these complex cross-border processes and how AI is currently helping with that and how that's changed over the last say year because it is changing very rapidly and whoever wants to take the question and of course if anyone from the audience wants to talk about that as well yeah I think that yeah AI is going to make cross-border easier for somebody who's not an expert in it you know we talk about how important data is and you can have the data but then it's how are you going to use it and AI is the perfect way to be able to look at data figure out how to use it know all of the different you know once you have a specific customer or a specific product and what that looks like going into that certain country because it changes for each country it changes all of the time so being able to use AI to read the data and what to do with it to help you make better decisions I think it's going to be really important and once we grasp how to use AI for cross-border then it will make it not so complicated for somebody who you know isn't in it every single day how the AI was used now I mentioned a few times data exchange we have some kind of data set which was agreed between WCO World Custom Organization, IATA, IKO this is the basic data set but still more customers are asking for more data you mentioned HS codes for example and designated operators sending these customs data sometimes are not using this HS code this is not mandatory according to the UPU convention regulations but thanks to artificial intelligence European designated operators are using now tools which are able based on the description of the goods to implement additional information additional for example HS code to give the customs so it helps a lot to be more in compliance with all requirements even if they are higher or more than in our international treaty yeah I think a faster assignment of these codes is definitely an advantage and if anyone has any more input on where they've seen other advantages in streamlining this with an AI and cross border Kate? It's not actually AI but I wanted to ask you a question so I don't mean to change the course here but Kate Muth from international mail advisory group and I wanted to ask William if he's familiar as a marketplace if he's familiar with the Brazil remesa conform a e-commerce compliance program but more generally what he thought of this idea of countries establishing e-commerce compliance programs where marketplaces and others are certified and the standards are the same whether you come in through the postal channel or through the commercial channel everybody's got the same requirements I was curious what as a marketplace you thought of that direction. I mean really a very important topic to further discuss I've definitely noticed that increasingly as the cross border e-commerce are emerging and more and more countries are really establishing a more comprehensive framework to really manage and also guide the development of e-commerce I think that's critical and we noticed that for example two years ago in Europe we have the VAT reform which really governs the ongoing development of the cross border e-commerce into Europe and most recently in Brazil I think they have further regulations I think we definitely as e-commerce logistics provider we definitely welcome all those new regulations because we definitely believe that all those regulations have actually guide the healthy development of the entire e-commerce and e-commerce logistics from a pure business and operation perspective we definitely want to see even more healthy more sustainable development instead of like very rapid growth and then there are quite a lot of kind of negative impact either to the local small and medium business or some of the other ecosystem players so we definitely believe that cross border e-commerce can be and should be more sustainable business because it creates the variety of assortments that normally a pure local platform or local sellers cannot offer and then throughout the entire transaction we make sure that the sellers have a healthy platform to operate the buyers has very good selections very competitive price also very good experience and also as e-commerce logistics provider which was very very close there with some of the leading cross border e-commerce platform we really work very very closely on all those regulations for example we are the top players to really kind of combine to the VAT reform in 2021 in Europe right now already have our successful processes compliant to the new Brazil requirement and we regarding the volume I think some of the near term fluctuations might happen but on a more mid to longer term we definitely seen some very healthy behaviors and very healthy growth no matter what we are talking about Europe right now our volume is even bigger than what we used to have in 2021 and in Brazil we definitely see that as the regulation is providing more comprehensive and healthy guidance to the overall development we definitely seen the growth will be even more sustainable and we believe they are quite a significant lead time and also even cost advantages by complying to all those new requirements so we are very actively preparing for new offerings to really create even more differentiated services toward our cross-border business for example in Brazil thank you any other questions from the audience here good afternoon everybody Paul Needham from CEP Research journalist specialised in the sector I have a question probably mostly for Chaniao and Tanaka SPL in a sense you are both operating or wanting to operate ecosystems for the logistics or for a cross-border e-commerce and UPU of course also has the ambition or the aim to set up some kind of a big global system and there are other big names out there also operating let's say big ecosystems so the question is how many ecosystems can the postal sector actually cope with I mean is there a role for several which would compete or collaborate or cooperate how would it actually work you know everybody talks about it but we did actually work I think I want to provide my quick answer to this so I think definitely different ecosystems place quite different roles for us when we talk about ecosystem we are talking about how we work together with a lot of the partners especially in the last month delivery and also cross-border line haul to better serve our customers I think it's a very very specific collaboration to make sure that we can create the best end-to-end lead time and also cost and quality to our customers so I think we are not in a position to set any like industry standards we are really working very closely with all our partners to make sure that we can provide better services better offerings and by doing that we believe that I think it's also an earlier question that Amanda just mentioned so I think Chen Yao are only choosing some of the key markets that we want to really develop some of the deep operational capabilities because if we talk about cross-border there are more than 200 countries globally because we don't have enough resource and also capabilities to operate only about ourselves in all those countries so we definitely have very open-minded operations and collaboration mentality to work very closely with all the players and particularly a lot of the postal players in a lot of the countries but we definitely believe that it is not like a pure like our relationship we believe that by creating offerings and also the end-to-end experience that is much better than it used to be I think it really empower the consumers to have better experience and empower the platform and sellers to have even better business so that's why we try to work very closely with all the partners to define and collaboratively operate the next generation of networks our definition of how we see the ecosystem we definitely believe for example like Ayata like UPU as the global institutions they have very sophisticated standards and there are a lot of things that we are really looking forward to to really collaborate more if I can maybe build on that from our perspective the I think first of all to start with the general premise competition is always healthy regardless of what we are specifically talking about but I think zooming in on this in particular we are looking at the platform from a global logistics supply chain end-to-end and when we talk about logistics the world of logistics is is very big and very vast where postal is one part of it but not necessarily everything else so I think I just want to clarify that when we look at GNTech and the platform we are looking at a global logistics supply chain from end-to-end and not specific to the postal or the parcel perspective but it can do so much more beyond that the aspect is are we open to collaboration absolutely we are open to collaboration that's the reason why we are collaborating with GNTech to begin with is there room to be complementary to other platforms that are being developed whether that's in Kainau or in the UPU I'm not necessarily the expert on both of those two systems but should there warrant and be an opportunity to complement or collaborate absolutely we would be very open to that but I think at the end of the day until a platform exists and is out there that people can actually plug into tomorrow we should be focused on enabling the industry and the ecosystem and trying to get something out there sooner than later so the first mover's advantage in terms of who's out there and who's ready will have an advantage from an overall competitive market perspective but should there be more than one player down the line and should there be an opportunity to collaborate and complement absolutely we are open open to those discussions and open to those collaborations great thank you alright we're at the end of our session now so join me in thanking our wonderful panelists here today and we will continue in 15 minutes with another strategy session on diversification so come back and let's talk about that again revisit it from the morning session thank you