The Internet never prevails. The television is making us all stupid. The written word puts us all back into the barbarian state. All these predictions have been made over the decades into everyday situations that are common for us today. Unfortunately, Deutsche Post is now joining the ranks of negative statements. Postal boss Appel is critical of the innovations DHL and Co have been working on in recent years and now wants to stop them.
trunk delivery, PostBot (about which I already wrote) and private parcel boxes. All this and much more were projects that were worked on during the last months. They should make life easier for the deliverers, but also for the end customer. But the advances into the future will probably come to an end now, because market and technology are not so far yet. The courage to take a big step towards the world of tomorrow was finally too big a step.
“Even in 20 or 30 years we will still have people as parcel deliverers”
It’s not as if postal boss Frank Appel was wrong about his skepticism. The market for decentralized delivery and automated helpers is still a small one and even the technical possibilities are, as things stand today, still often limited. But despite everything, new formats have to be experimented with. Closing off from innovations and technical innovations is quickly a death blow for companies.
Courage to take risks – also a relevant factor at Deutsche Post
Unfortunately, many managers tend to throw in the towel quickly after initial failures or inefficient start-ups. Even if the market of customers is still small, not all cars technically allow a trunk delivery and robotics technology is disproportionately expensive, a company has to deal with it at an early stage and constantly work on expanding its own product portfolio. Even a giant like Deutsche Post is not immune. Digital transformation and automation will affect everyone. You therefore have to gain experience on a small scale and expand it continuously as the market grows.
Skepticism is a good thing and keeps us as entrepreneurs alive, but it must not become an obstacle to the economy and development. In the follow-up to the interview given by Frank Appel, a company spokesman said that work on the PostBot would continue, but there is no clear statement on how to proceed with the clever helper, who should not replace the PostBot, but support it.
Even the Packstation, which actually sounds like a logical solution for the increasing decentralisation and temporal self-determination of people, is viewed critically.
“If the service to the front door were so unsatisfactory, many more people would have it delivered to Packstations”
With 3,000 Pakt stations in circulation not even everywhere possible and even if a Packstation is available, it does not impress unfortunately also by the best service. Far too often it is defective or full. But even here the conclusion is not to stop the project or not to expand it further. People, especially in Germany, need time to get used to a new service. Many only fall back on a service like the Packstation when they need it, but despite all the problems with the stations, I wouldn’t want to miss them anymore.
None of the statements made is a final out and entrepreneurial I can fully understand most of the issues. As an innovation profiler and future strategist, however, I do not support them. In today’s flexible and dynamic world, it takes courage to take risks and lead openly. With perpetual observation, consideration and scepticism, we are not moving into the future and Germany is falling even further behind in the international rankings of the countries. The land of poets and thinkers, inventors and innovators has unfortunately lost the fun of experimenting in many areas. Deutsche Post is just one example among many, but it clearly describes our problem. We must actively strive to shape the world of tomorrow. We must strive to shape the world as it is important to us. Only in this way can we move into the future and give our economy the impetus it needs.
