How you would evaluate your business performance in 2014?

VLADIMIR YATCHENKO Last year was quite interesting. We grew and we met our budget figures. We did it mainly because of the expansion of our market, providing best service and of course attracting new customers. The combination of these factors helped us to achieve our targets. We started the year quite well. Though there was a slowdown in May, we felt a new wave of improvement, and our business started to grow again. The period between May and October was characterized by a very good performance. Yet starting from November, we felt a slowdown. As last year we were focused on the Caspian area, now we have slightly expanded our facility there. We are working on a contract for a facility that will be one of the biggest in the area. We also focused on our operations in Almaty. Last year, we relocated the headquarters there. The new office is almost 300 sqm larger than the previous one. We also increased the number of employees there, and are focusing on Astana and Almaty.

What relationships does the company develop with other international companies in order to improve the quality of service?

BAGDAT MUSSIN We study the work of other countries in transformation, and employconsultants that successfully transform other markets. As an example of perfect logistics we like to look up to Post NL in the Netherlands. In financial services, Italy is a good example. Australia is a great example of using a branch network for public and social services. Unlike us, Australia does not have transit potential, but its post offices provide a wide variety of services, both governmental and non-governmental. Different countries have different experience with their postal services, and right now we need some improvements, because many of our processes are not client-oriented. The Netherlands has one of the best postal administrations, which turned the post office into a full logistics operator. The number of deliveries per person there is 130 million per 16 million citizens. We are currently transporting six million per 16 million. We also need to use all our transit potential and organize delivery services between different countries.

What kind of logistics services are the most in demand in Kazakhstan?

VY The majority of our services deal with express documents and parcels. We can cover the majority of cities in Kazakhstan in only one day. Moreover, between a few cities like Astana, Almaty, and Karagandy we provide same-day delivery.

To what extent do you start competing with such logistic giants as DHL or FedEx?

BM According to the Universal Postal Union, postal deliveries on waybill are transported by postal operators, in this particular case Kazpost acts as such a transit delivery service. DHL and FedEx do not have transit operational relations, and we are using this advantage of ours to enter into competition with other global delivery services. In our own country the postal service market is liberalized but there is only one assigned delivery operator, Kazpost.

What are your plans for 2015?

VY Our priority is to remain a market leader and provide the best quality service. We want to be a fast and reliable partner for our customers. We are working with many customers, in different business segments and we will keep concentrating on the highest level of quality and continue to grow our e-commerce tools.

BM We would like to create a network of post machines; automated post stations to receive and send postal items. We have already set up 18 post machines around the country, and this year we are planning to set up 100 more. We are sure that this service will be yet another way of stimulating the e-commerce market. We are also trying to unite the traditional postal service with internet services.