The Information Factory was delighted to attend the UPU’s 33rd conference on Postal and Delivery economics where CEO Robert Jordan and Postal Consultant Manale Azar presented a paper titled ‘End to end costing in Postal logistics’.

In today’s parcel driven logistics landscape, traditional costing models, built for the letters business and based on financial data, are no longer enough. Cost data must reflect operational realities, not averages, to guide pricing, service levels and business strategy.

The Information Factory has developed an end-to-end costing solution that integrates operations data and financials to produce trusted, shipment and piece level insights. Now, we're bringing this to postal organisations looking to transform their business.

Our shipment-based cost model uses Activity Based Costing to track real costs and service complexities across networks. It reconciles precisely with the general ledger, providing a true end-to-end view of direct and indirect costs. This empowers postal leaders to understand cost to serve, assess product and customer profitability and design pricing strategies that align with actual costs and market demands.

As parcel volumes rise, this model will help Postal organisations navigate change, meet Universal Service Obligation requirements more accurately and fuel smart data-driven decisions.

The opportunity now is to move from having cost data to truly believing in and using it.