There was confirmation this week that Australia Post would be axing 900 jobs over the next 12 months blaming the loss of letter volumes and looking at ways to cost save including the delivery of standard mail being reduced to 2-3 days a week. While the parcel side of the business is booming, it simply didn’t offset the letter business. CEO Ahmed Fahour was adamant that he didn’t want to go down the route of Kodak or the local video store.

On the surface, it makes sense. As we did with DVD’s, video streaming and illegal downloading, the postal industry has seen SMS, email and social media as legitimate threats to the act of writing a letter. Anyone who disagrees at this stage, please feel free to fax the BrandHook office.

All being said – are we as Australian’s too quick to raise the white flag and not look at innovation as a means of growing or changing the industries we operate in. Cast your mind back to the rumours of David Jones and Myer merging as a result of the threat of overseas and online retailers. When it all gets too hard, do we just look for the simple solution?

At BrandHook, when clients come to us for innovation work, we start with our international group of Presumers. This group of people are the thought leaders and early adopters who know what defines a great customer experience and often share their opinions and experiences. We use them to source innovations and inspiration inside and outside of the sector our client operates and take these ideas and translate them into the Australian market – matching them against the consumer unmet need – an approach that ensures the client innovations are built around business growth. So, in China where mail deliveries have increased by 75% since 2007, in Sweden where the mail is delivered 5 days a week and in Germany where Deutsche Post still enjoys profit, is Australia Post looking in the right direction rather than running away from their Kodak moment?