Best Startup
This year’s World Economic Forum in Davos convenes under the theme of Cooperation in a Fragmented World. The Forum of 2023 boasts the largest number of participants, including nearly 1,500 leading representatives of business, politics and the world’s largest corporations, as well as more than 50 heads of state.
“The meeting in Davos is taking place against the backdrop of the most complicated geopolitical and economic situation the world has seen in decades.”
– Forum President Borge Brende told reporters.
Despite these negative global factors, Poland’s development potential is evident. Data from the Polish Investment and Trade Agency indicate that foreign investors perceive Poland as a stable, law-abiding and, above all, perspective country, while Polish companies are successfully storming foreign markets. Of great interest at the Forum was the debate “Why Poland. Seizing the Opportunity in the Era of Transition from Globalisation to Regionalisation,” attended by Tomasz Kulik − Board Member and CFO of the PZU Group, Jerzy Kwieciński − Vice President of the Management Board of Pekao Bank, overseeing the Corporate Banking, Markets and Investment Banking Division, Mark Loughran of Honeywell (former President of Microsoft Poland), Krzysztof Krawczyk of CVC Capital Partners, Loic Tassel of Procter & Gamble and Rafał Brzoska − CEO of InPost.
According to Rafał Brzoska, CEO of InPost, Poland is currently in possession of advanced technologies that should even be readying to conquer the West, of which InPost is a perfect example. The company currently provides logistics services for e-commerce through a network of parcel lockers and courier services. Apart from Poland, InPost’s services are already available to residents of the UK, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal and the Benelux countries.
InPost’s data indicate rapid development of its network of postal devices. At the end of June 2022, there were almost 25,000 parcel lockers in European markets. In Poland, at the end of 2022, the company aimed to reach the number of 20,000 postal machines for sending and receiving parcels.
“With consumers in mind, we also registered the InPost Pay brand. The name reveals that it is going to be a payment system, but I can assure you that it will be a completely new version, a new approach to this service; if someone thinks that it will simply be another payment gateway, they are very wrong.”
− announced the CEO of InPost.
In an interview for PAP Biznes at the Davos Forum, Rafał Brzoska confirmed that InPost will offer its payment services for testing at the end of the first quarter of 2023.
What do we know about these services?
They will be innovative, unlike popular online payment systems, which are characterised by high complexity and low intuitiveness. The new payment system will launch first in Poland, and then be ready for implementation in other markets. The simple payment system is expected to result in a significant increase in customer purchases.
Rafał Brzoska is the originator, creator and CEO of Integer Capital Group, a leading e-commerce delivery platform. He also founded InPost, the Group’s flagship company, which has revolutionised the parcel delivery market in Poland.
The first parcel lockers appeared in Cracow in 2009 and quickly became a characteristic feature of Polish cities. Today, the network of Paczkomat® InPost devices offers the largest and most accessible automated parcel collection and delivery infrastructure in Europe, totalling more than 24,000 modern devices, 18,500 of which operate in Poland. InPost services are now also available to customers in the UK and Italy.
InPost’s acquisition of the French logistics giant Mondial Relay for €513 million in July 2021 was the largest Polish private foreign investment and allowed the InPost Group to enter the markets of France, the Iberian Peninsula and Benelux. The company’s listing on EURONEXT Amsterdam stock exchange was the largest debut of a European technology company in the history of the continent.
Last July, InPost announced that it had erected its 4,000th parcel locker in the UK.
Agnes Winnik
