The best courier journal companies offer very flexible and far-reaching services. Even the second or third tier companies can typically offer faster service and better reliability than overworked public mail systems. The beauty of globalization has made these companies part and parcel (pun intended) of the way the world works today. If you are based in the Philippines for example and need to send a package to someone in Burkina Faso overnight, you could! That is, if you are prepared to pay the fees. Public mail, while it has its uses, could never hope to match this kind of effectiveness.