The agreement, which is already delivering to clients in the US, involves third party-developed hardware badged as Pitney Bowes who will provide software implementation and sales services for the products.
“We will supply the complete operating system that will drive the sortation lines as well as data capture services so we can provide our customers with a data stream and track-and-trace capability,” said Stefan Berndt, Pitney Bowes product and business development manager for EMEA region.
The bespoke systems will be built entirely based on individual customer requirements and so will not be composed of any existing Pitney Bowes devices, he said.
“Everything is tailor-made because parcels range from everything from e-commerce parcels to packages like refrigerators. We will propose a solution for them depending on the size and what kind of materials they are using.”
Berndt said that Pitney Bowes was targeting small courier businesses as well as larger postal operators, particularly in the emerging markets, for the new parcel sortation lines.
“We can fulfill whatever customers want. In Western Europe of course they have this kind of facility already, but in the emerging markets like Africa and Middle East they are facing a situation where more and more people are ordering online and the parcel volumes are really increasing on top of their standard letter volumes, so they need new solutions.”
He added that the company is currently in talks with international postal operators, where there were “some real opportunities”, while the first European installation of a bespoke parcel line was anticipated to take place this year.
“It's hard to make forecasts but I hope we could grow this parcel and letter sortation division by up to 20% this year and that includes an expected decline in the letter market because of changing demand,” said Berndt.
“We are going in this direction because we really see a demand and we want to provide this kind of solution in addition to our normal product lines. We are getting more and more interest from the market so it’s fantastic at the moment,” he added.
