The acquisition will also pave Urgent Couriers' way into the truck business, as Inter City Urgent has a truck arm to its business, with five 5-7 tonne trucks providing on-demand pallet deliveries across Auckland. This will facilitate Urgent's further diversification into the physical product market, offsetting the rapid disappearance of the document market due to technological advances.

Urgent Couriers, New Zealand's only carbon neutral courier company, will go from 17 to 21 full-time employees and from 65 to 90 contractors.

Applying innovative technology such as web bookings, Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking, electronic communications and instant customer service should shake up metro truck services in Auckland, said Urgent Courier's Managing Director Steve Bonnici. Urgent Couriers expects significant uptake of the truck services from within its existing courier client base.

"It's a natural progression for Urgent Couriers to move further into the physical product market and, while trucking is new for us, we think we can grow our market share in this area by providing an enhanced customer service to prospective clients requiring fast pallet deliveries," said Bonnici.

"We are also positioning for a greater Auckland, with ever increasing levels of commercial activity and demand to get freight from one end of the city to the other using a responsive and reliable service."

Bonnici founded Urgent Couriers in 1989 and the company has grown to be one of the largest specialised, on-demand courier services in New Zealand. While the courier is Auckland-based, it has nationwide coverage via a network of independent operators.

The company has had to move with the times. Once couriers were employed by lawyers and accountants to ferry signed agreements and deeds across town, often by cycle. Now couriers have to find new market opportunities in the parcel sector and, with Urgent Couriers' new acquisition, into the delivery of freight such as pallets.

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