City Express is a company that was founded in 2002 and has had its development and potential recognised among international companies interested in our market. It was in November 2007 that the ownership of City Express was transferred to Austrian Post [Österreichische Post], a leader of the parcel delivery sector in the CEE region
Current development in the volume of operations is confirmed by the planned capacity expansion programme, which will take the form of the opening of new regional delivery centres and increasing the number of employees and vehicles.
How much has the COVID-19 pandemic led to your company’s operations changing?
Petar Anđelić, Sales & Marketing Manager: In the initial period of the pandemic, we noticed a general fall in the number of shipments compared to the prepandemic period. We also faced a disturbance in the redistribution of parcels in part of the segment dealing with deliveries to private individuals and registered entities. Due to restrictions on citizens’ movement and the reduced working hours of retail outlets, major retail chains and retailers based their trade on the B2C model, with retailers selling their products directly to consumers. This had a positive impact on e-commerce, which influenced the growth of our operations, and such a trend is continuing.
The first half of 2021 was still impacted by the pandemic, but it was very successful on the whole. Compared to the huge burdens in the background during the same period of last year, the volume of operations increased in the first half of 2021. With this good result, City Express has raised its expectations for 2021 as a whole.
You began as the country’s first private company for express deliveries and will celebrate your 20th birthday as a company next year. This been an exciting 20 years, right?
Goran Blagojević, Finance Manager & Procurator: The company was founded in 2002 and has been under the ownership of Austrian Post from November 2007. Since then, major investments were made in the modernization of all sectors of the company, raising the quality and introducing new services. With modern logistics software, the electronic tracking of shipments, automation of the packages processing and constant investment in personnel, the level of service has been raised significantly. We are proud of the fact that we’ve been a member of the CEE parcel division of Austrian Post for almost 15 years and that we’ve managed to set standards, which are aligned with the group’s strategy. Together we facing various challenges and sets priorities and goals, at present, we actively participating in a sustainability project, in which common aim is to switch to alternative sources of electricity, electrify the fleet and reduce our CO2 emissions.
You don’t only succeed in delivering about 97% of shipments to their destination within 24 hours, but also work constantly to introduce new services and improve existing ones. What is your secret?
Marko Čučurović, Logistics & QM Manager: Numerous new solutions introduced to operations and processes have enabled optimal and modern services, as well as strongly assisting in the growth of e-commerce. Our development strategy places the focus of all changes on the needs of users.
In order for us to respond to the needs of both users and the market, we have offered flexible shipment deliveries – through the Parcel Shop network of facilities, where it is possible to pick up and deliver a parcel. City Express is currently in the process of precuring ‘paketomat’ parcel pick-up vending machines, which will enable the sending and receiving of shipments 24 hours a day through a network of ‘paketomat’ machines set up nationwide.
By investing in new, top-class PDAs [personal digital assistants] manufactured by Zebra, we will offer two new services from the beginning of 2022: announcements of the impending arrival of shipments, with expected delivery times; and payments for reclamation and transportation services via payment cards.