The “Postal Innovation” concept is about physical, virtual and financial postal services in a trusted environment. Posts that have adopted this model have achieved good financial results despite the recession. The so called threat of “physical substitution” is in fact a myth. On a recent visit to Abu Dhabi, Richard Wishart gave a TV interview on this topic.

http://www.idworldabudhabi.com/index.php?id=richardwishart_vid10ad

UPS became the first small package carrier in the United States to unveil such a product when the carbon neutral program was introduced last fall, building on UPS’s legacy of sustainable business practices and satisfying the demand for eco-friendly products. A contract version for customers who want to offset the carbon impact of all their shipments will also be available.

In Canada, UPS carbon neutral fees will range from $0.05 for a UPS Standard® package within Canada to $0.75 for a UPS Express package to any international destination. In other countries, the fee will vary slightly by country depending on the type of service selected and the origin and destination of the shipment.  UPS carbon neutral service will be available using UPS Internet Shipping and UPS CampusShip shipping applications.  Online retailers who have integrated UPS into their websites will be able to offer their customers access to UPS carbon neutral. Customers who visit The UPS Store locations and other UPS shipping outlets will soon have access to the option.

“Our customers want a convenient, cost-effective means to address climate change in a real and tangible way,” said Wayne Bosch, vice-president customer solutions, UPS Canada.

To use this service simply requires checking a box during the shipping process, he added. In 2010, UPS will match offset purchases up to $1m.

I was up there to look at how large corporates could make a difference in the health and well-being of these communities, and what their future needs are likely to be. Aging populations are a fact of many communities, however the particular dynamics of these more remote settlements makes this an ever increasing issue for the support systems that are, or are not, in place.

Anyway you may ask what has this got to do with the postal service? One of the things that struck me was the role of the postal service in these remote environments. Not only do they bring the letters and parcels, but they perform a real social service, and one that although may be recognised, may be under threat with cost cutting and potential privatisation of the Royal Mail in the UK. These communities depend on not the content of the mail, but on the contact it brings.

One story was related to a son, living in London, who sends his mother a postcard every week - not that he is on holiday every week but it means that the postman will call at his mother’s house on a regular basis to check and see if she is OK. Is this a good use of the post? Is it value for money? Well, of course not. But for this family it is comfort for all parties and definitely worth the price of a stamp!

With the continuing decline in mail volumes and the increasing dependence on online services, the future of these rural postal services must be under threat, however the need for them is actually increasing as the communities grow older and more dependent. I don’t believe this is a problem solely for the north of Scotland, as recent stories in the press and media in the UK state that loneliness is an increasing problem in all areas of the UK - both town and country. The postal service offers a unique service - both social and commercial and somehow we need to understand how we can keep the service alive and profitable for the future.

Making sure both content and contact is maintained for the good of society, wherever we live.

OÜ Smartpost council member Peep Kuld said that the company’s partner in Estonia is Itella Eesti, a subsidiary of the Finnish Post. Via Itella, the packages reach the foreign partner, one of Europe’s biggest courier companies GLS.

Kuld said that the main focus of the company is still on selling the Smartpost package automates, their hardware, software and business model know-how to foreign markets. The service offered in Estonia is just a model to introduce and export the technology, Kuld said.

Smartpost has 36 self-service postal box sets in different shopping centres and elsewhere in Estonia. People get an SMS on their mobile phone when their package arrives, they insert the code given to them into a postal box and can get their package from the box. People can also send packages from the Smartpost postal boxes, by paying with bank card. Last year the service was used by 65,000 people.

Cellcode for Direct Mail response

The presentation was fully interactive. Using a smartphone with a QR reading app, you could take a picture of the QR code and be redirected to a Landing Page on my Website that had been specially prepared for the event. Celloon provide a “homepage” symbol on the code and the redirection to the Web landing page http://del-mgt.co.uk/Cellcodes.aspx is via a Campaign Management application.

Redur’s network covers the entire Iberian Peninsula, with 50 branches and 1,900 employees. Redur sends out around 1,000 company trucks each day. The new LWA cooperation partner’s core areas include procurement and distribution logistics as well as professional contract logistics, including warehousing and value-added-services. Redur carries out this work in its 19 logistics terminals with a total of 200,000 square metres of warehouse space.

“With Redur as our new cooperation partner, we can continue to offer premium-quality logistics services in Spain and Portugal via the LWA network”, says Hans-Peter Schneider, Managing Director of the LWA.

“As our customers become increasingly international, the demand for cross-border services is also increasing”, explains Alberto Lozano, member of the board, at Redur.

The dispute led to widespread walk-outs by staff in the run-up to Christmas, crippling the UK postal system.

It centres upon the company’s modernisation plans - a concept the union has always supported, though the two parties have disagreed on what shape these plans should take.

Around 60,000 people have left the company since 2002 and both Royal Mail and the union agree more jobs must go as new technology is introduced.

But Sky News business correspondent Joel Hills said there had been ongoing disagreement on the level of job cuts required and the kind of workload and pay the remaining staff should expect.

Hills said some areas of contention remained but the parties had found enough common ground for the CWU to put the draft agreement to its 17-strong executive for approval in the coming days.

Royal Mail is keen to do a deal as quickly as possible as it strives to remain profitable.

The CWU is believed to be equally keen for a prompt settlement as it wants to come to an agreement with a Labour Government about the company’s huge pension deficit - now estimated to have reached £10bn.

Hills added: “It does look as if some sort of negotiated settlement is in the offing and certainly progress has been made since the tail end of last year, when there were five days of industrial action.”

UPS has partnered with Honeywell on the device, which will undergo field testing in late 2010 with plans to begin a multi-year, global deployment in 2011.

The mobile computer — The DIAD V (Delivery Information Acquisition Device V) — is about half the size and weight of the devices UPS drivers now use and has faster Wi-Fi support. It allows on-the-fly switching between cellular carriers, meaning the computer can automatically jump to another cellular carrier if the preferred carrier’s signal is lost.

The color display and microprocessor has substantially expanded memory to support driver training and future applications like navigation. A color, auto-focus, flash camera will allow proof-of-delivery and help resolve customer claims more quickly.

Its 2D imager can decode many symbologies, including existing UPS linear barcodes and the UPS Maxicode, and speed the upload of additional package information at the time a package is first picked up. The 2D imager also will make it even easier to “capture” a clear view of a recipient’s signature.

We all assume, usually wrongly, that everyone lives their lives as we do - has our experiences, our wealth, our family, our values and our education - and in reality this mix is very particular to you/me. No-one in the world has had this same mix and therefore has the same view of the world and the same needs. Marketing companies through the ages have tried to get round this by producing various categorisation frameworks such as Acorn and other Goedemographic coding systems to try and reduce the complexity and fit us into a ‘pigeon hole’ - typically using education, location and earnings as metrics. Although historically this technique has proved useful I am not sure how robust these techniques are in today’s’ online, web enabled world, although I guess that is the subject of a future post.

So getting back to Other Peoples’ Shoes. This technique forces, usually a group of 8 - 12 people, to take on the persona of a specific group of people - usually identified by behaviours rather than wealth or other factors such as education etc. I tend a simple two-by-two matrix for this exercise which gives four persona’s to work with. The dimensions you use are up to you and will be dependent on your situation. For this example I am using people’s attitude online services and whether they have a positive or negative attitude to life.

This approach gives four behaviour types to work with - Recalcitrants, Connectors, Mouse Potatoes and the New Enlightened. Each of these types would demonstrate different ways of interacting, have different values and different habits. The first thing to do is to craft the story of a typical individual in this group - who would they be, how would they live, what would they do and more importantly how would they interact with others.

Once this has been done the next stage is to connect these personas with your situation, issue or problem and then look at what that would mean to this group. What would it mean to them? How would they interact? What would they value?

Clearly I have only skimmed the technique and given you a taste of what is possible but hopefully using this approach would provide some new insight into your problem, issue or future. If you are interested in discussing further or have a different approach that you think would be of interest get in touch.

Please comment below…

The new company will hold more than one-third of the shares of both Japan Post Bank and Japan Post Insurance, giving it the right of veto on important issues at shareholders meetings. The government will possess “over one-third or even over half” of the shares of the new general company, and its involvement in the postal system will become stronger.

A draft of the plans will be compiled in January, and bills on the changes will be presented at a regular Diet session. There are no plans to set a deadline for the sale of shares of the three companies.

The move is a big step backwards for postal privatisation, which was originally aimed to bring full privatisation through the sale of all shares of the group’s two financial companies, and it will allow the government to participate in management.

When the former Japan Post public corporation was privatised in October 2007, it was split into a holding company, Japan Post Holdings, and four service companies. It has been argued that the split resulted in a lower standard of service. As a result, a new organisational structure and business model have been discussed between the ministers, vice ministers, and parliamentary secretaries from the Financial Services Agency and the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.

By realigning the postal system into three companies and with the two financial companies forming consignment contracts with the parent company, postal delivery workers and post office employees from the parent company will become able to handle savings and insurance. As a result, postal delivery workers will be able to withdraw pension benefits from the savings accounts of elderly people in depopulated areas at their request and deliver the money to them, and nationwide service that had been restricted to postal delivery will extend to cover savings and insurance.

“Our bank is now evaluating opportunities to tie-up with the postal department to increase our microfinance base in the rural areas of Maharashtra,” a senior HDFC Bank official told PTI.

The official also said that even if the postal department keeps for itself a 3% spread, credit could be extended at not more than 15% interest rate, and the post-offices could lend to the borrower directly.

The government of India has also set up an inter-ministerial group to explore the chances of allowing India Post to set up a savings bank for the same.

“The network of more than 1.5 lakh offices across the country (more than twice the number of all the branches of the entire banking system) has turned out to be perhaps the most valuable resource of the Department of Posts to utilise this service,” the official said.

India Post has already tied-up with National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) for extending micro credit in Tamil Nadu.

The Millennial generation – those who have high expectations, have never known a world without computers and a very different view of life, work and society are making an impact in the workforce as they start to climb the corporate ladder. This generation are highly networked have little loyalty and a propensity to seek out the best ‘deal’ whether that be in terms of a career, a camera or a bank account.

This generation have no loyalty to mail as a medium as they have no history of receiving ‘quality’ mail and have grown up in a world where high volumes of direct mail. The question is, as this generation become householders and get to significant positions in industry and commerce what will their view of mail be – will they see any value in it, will they see the possibilities or will they view the mailing industry as irrelevant?

The article continues:

According to DHL, the new system will also help improve transportation, sortation and delivery for all parcels and packages throughout the country. The company pointed out that at present over 40% of Irish buildings have non-unique addresses, which can cause practical challenges when it comes to collection or delivery.

The new system also offers advantages to a broad array of other services including utility providers, the emergency services and research agencies.

E-commerce in Ireland will also be a beneficiary of the new system, DHL said, noting that many e-commerce operators require a postcode before a transaction can be completed, and without a postcode, Irish consumers can often find that they cannot make the purchases they want online.

“It is over four years now since it was first announced that a postcode system would be developed for Ireland and I welcome Minister Ryan’s renewed commitment to press ahead with this important infrastructural project,” said McCarthy.

“Ireland is one of the few developed countries without a postcode system and this has put us at a disadvantage to our EU partners when it comes to moving goods throughout the country in an efficient manner.

“The postcode system will make it easier to identify individual addresses for companies such as DHL and will facilitate faster and more accurate deliveries. I am confident that in time the postcode will become an important feature of our economic infrastructure and ultimately it will support the development of Ireland’s competitiveness.”

Although the alternative technology channels are seen to be more environmentally sound the reality is that often their impact is unseen but significant. McaFee recently undertook to calculate the environmental impact of an email and came out with the figure if 9 grams of CO2 per email – when this is compared with a typical letter which is somewhere between 20 and 25 grams of CO2 it can be seen that physical mail is actually not that bad. The question is how do we convince consumers and businesses of this – are we too late to get the message across?

Is it too late in the day to change the mind of the consumer as to the environmental credentials of the mail or are there things that we can do as an industry to show the benefits of mail as a communications medium. What sort of things should we be doing and who should be doing it – is this down to companies or should there be an industry wide response?