“Eighty per cent of our investments go into technology: eight years ago we asked ourselves what would become the big trends of the future and of course we found them in e-commerce, in the payments market, in digital services. However, we did not give up what has characterised us for decades: we kept the number of post offices stable at 13,000, and added new services. Just as we have not eliminated mail delivery, unlike some other countries: of our 120,000 employees, half still take care of the universal postal service, even though we are at an average of one letter every 11 days per person.” Il Corriere della Sera dedicates a long article to the speech by Matteo Del Fante, CEO of Poste Italiane, during the preview evening of Pact4Future, the event by Il Corriere della Sera and Bocconi University that will take place from 25 to 27 March to discuss how to build a fairer, more equitable, and sustainable future around three key concepts: People, Purpose, and Planet.
Del Fante and the transformation of Poste
Del Fante described how a historic company was able to renew itself without forgetting its people. “We realised that if we had remained anchored to the post office, we would not have seized many opportunities – reports the Corriere – So we have both focused on innovation, with investments in research and development, and enabled the 120,000 people who work for us to acquire new skills, especially in technology.” And so Poste Italiane became the first cloud user in the country and focused on Spid, making activation free of charge for several years, “a decision that caused us to give up around 300 million euros, but we made that decision because we were convinced that the service was a public good,” Del Fante emphasises. Such an important change does not happen just by investing, but by convincing people that it is possible. “We have given our employees a ‘purpose’: because if you explain that the company is going in a certain direction and convince them that they have an active role in the development of a project, then it will be easier to achieve the goals you have set.”
