Australia Post is preparing to launch a series of incubator and accelerator programs that will leverage the wide reach of its retail footprint to lure technology entrepreneurs as the centuries-old postal agency looks for new growth opportunities outside of its declining letters business. 
Australia Post chief executive Ahmed Fahour revealed the plans for the new accelerator at an Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce lunch in Sydney yesterday, when he said the program - which is scheduled to launch next year - would help the 200-year-old postal agency to continue its transformation into the nation's leading e-commerce hub.
"In this era of online, mobile and borderless commerce, Australia Post has a vital role to play in encouraging, enabling and supporting the growth of Australian small businesses," Mr Fahour said.
"We have the physical networks that small businesses can leverage to grow - domestically and beyond our shores. Initiatives such as this will be vital to us maintaining our role in communities." The program will take a multi-faceted approach to incubation and will look towards its own staff for innovative ideas that can be taken to market as well as partnering with start-ups that want to leverage Australia Post's 4000 retail stores to get their business ideas to scale quickly. "The funding is actually the least important part of what these accelerators will do," Mr Fahour said.
"There's plenty of other sources of funding out there, but what Australia Post has that other accelerators don't is a brand that everyone knows, a network of 4000 shops, and a logistic operation already delivering hundreds of millions of packages every year." Mr Fahour said that in exchange for network access, support and mentorship, Australia Post would take some form of -equity from the budding businesses. Mr Fahour also used his speech to detail how disruptive technologies had transformed the Australia Post business. Since 2008 the rise and now ubiquitous nature of electronic communication has decimated its once dominant letters business, which has recorded losses of more than $1.5 billion over the past five years.
The rot in its letters unit is continuing, but Mr Fahour said that Australia Post's strategy to transition into an e-commerce business had allowed it to pivot towards revenue growth in its parcels arm, which was benefiting from China's surging consumer class and jumps in domestic parcels traffic.
"For us to remain relevant and present in communities throughout Australia, the post office of tomorrow will necessarily be a very different place to the post office of today," Mr Fahour said."Simply continuing to do what we have done in the past will not allow us to be a community service in the future."