Alistair Houghton meets MARK BIGLEY, MD of Secured Mail

MARK BIGLEY’S 2006 lightbulb moment saw him create a business that slotted into a gap in the market like a bank statement through a letterbox.

Bigley set up Secured Mail in 2006, in the wake of the liberalisation of the postal market that saw Royal Mail lose its postal monopoly.

It now sends more than 350m letters a year, with Bigley hoping to up that to 400m this year.

Its logo can be seen on envelopes sent by Tesco Personal Finance, Vanquis Bank, LloydsTSB or Center Parcs.

“We’re now sending more than 1m letters a day,” said Bigley, a former councillor and Parliamentary candidate. “That’s a fantastic achievement for a business that was essentially a start-up five years ago.”

Secured Mail boasts a national transport infrastructure to collect bags and boxes of mail from its customers. It then sorts the post by postcode so it can go straight into Royal Mail’s systems. Royal Mail takes it “the last mile” to the recipient’s door.

Secured Mail’s Aintree plant hums to the whir of sorting machines, with dozens of letters every second spinning round a maze of conveyor belts into the waiting Royal Mail pallets.

“It’s not the easiest job,” said Bigley. “There’s a lot to do to get that mail where it needs to go.

“Then, we effectively have a half-hour slot at a Royal Mail centre. We’ve got to get to the centre exactly on time to get that mail processed. And security is very important. It’s very important that the integrity of the system is absolutely robust.

“If somebody’s personal bank statement is coming through your system, you’ve got to make sure you’ve got the right system in place.”

Bigley, who was born in Maghull, graduated in business studies before moving to Southport to become the UK’s youngest town centre manager.

He then moved to a similar role in Wigan, to Wigan Borough Partnership, where he worked to attract investment to the town.

Bigley next became an intellectual property consultant, but also pursued a political career.

He was the Tory candidate for Southport in the 2005 general election, losing to Lib-Dem John Pugh.

That same year, he had the inspiration that led him to found Secured Mail.

He said: “I’d been speaking to people who were at Royal Mail or Parcelforce, who had experience of the postal system and knew liberalisation was on the horizon.

“What I did was go one step further and say ‘What does this mean? Where is this market going? And how can somebody enter it?’”

What Bigley found was that the other big players in the postal market were concerned with securing high volumes of first-class mail. He realised that by starting off with lower value contracts, he would quickly be able to grow his business.

He said: “I used the bank, a business angel, my house – anything I could get my hands on to get this business off the ground.

“We had to get the system up fast and prove the concept, then get the customer.”

Bigley had planned to stand as Tory candidate for Southport in 2010, but in 2007 he decided to stand down to concentrate on his young family and young business.

“I had a choice to make – it was either business or politics,” he said.

“There was such a tremendous opportunity to be in the right place at the right time, with the liberalising of the regulated postal market. There was a window of opportunity to achieve something fantastic.”

As the business grew, Bigley needed more investment. In 2008, he secured a £1.6m investment from Aquarius Equity Partners, the fund led by former paper tycoon Steve Sealey.

Today, Secured Mail employs 120 people at its headquarters and depots. It turns over £32m, but Bigley hopes to top £50m this year.

“Over the next five years, we hope to take this business to £120m,” said Bigley. “And we’re profitable – that keeps our investors happy.”

Secured Mail has depots in Liverpool and Dartford, Kent. As Secured Mail has grown, it has spread to three buildings in Aintree.

To accommodate further growth, the company will soon be opening a base in Warrington.

Bigley says he expects to open depots in the South West and Scotland this year, but does not expect to open many more.

“I don’t envisage having a huge hub and spoke network because we don’t need it,” he said. “This business is based on being as efficient as we can be, and giving people the best quality of service that they can have.

“We don’t need a big infrastructure for that. We’re not a parcel carrier. We don’t do express parcels.”

Secured Mail may be a small player compared to giants such as DHL and Royal Mail, but Bigley insists it is more flexible than its competitors

“We’ve been able to grow from zero to almost 400m letters a year – we must be doing something right,” he said. “A lot of that is down to good quality account management, being sensitive to price, and being as efficient as we can be.

“Our competitors are on the whole national or multinational businesses. It feels like David and Goliath.

“But we are far more flexible in our logistics. We’re highly customer-focused. We’re nimble. That’s given us competitiveness.

“Quality of service is very important. We have to be able to look our customer in the eye and, if we say we’ll do something, we’ll do it.”

If you asked the man on the Crosby omnibus, he would probably tell you that the postal market is in decline. But, as Secured Mail proves, the letter is far from dead.

“A lot of people see post as an unnecessary cost,” said Bigley. “But post works. Direct mail works.

“Those companies that can understand and unlock the potential and value of post, alongside other communications channels, will benefit.”

Bigley says many bank customers still prefer to receive their statements by post rather than online. And he says that, despite the rise of online shopping, the catalogue is far from dead. Many retailers still print catalogues to ensure customers can browse offline.

And the idea that e-communication is inherently greener than post gets short shrift from Bigley.

“The environmental agenda has been overplayed,” he said. “As long as the paper is recyclable or recycled, and the inks are appropriate, I see no reason why post cannot sit alongside other areas of communications.”

Bigley also served as a councillor for Ainsdale, Southport, until he lost his seat last year. And the entrepreneur, who is married with two children, has not ruled out a return to the political arena.

“Being a councillor was incredibly rewarding,” he said.

“Politicians are too often maligned. Most people go into politics to make a positive contribution. Most don’t go into it to feather their own nests.”

Bigley is particularly proud that the company has been able to give jobs to many people who had been unemployed for many years.

He said: “People asked why did you go into politics? I would say I wanted to eradicate poverty. This is one way to achieve that.

“It’s fantastic when you see that people who could have been thrown on the scrapheap really do have something fantastic to give.”