Postal Digest – mail industry news from Italy, France, Austria and Norway

A round-up of more of the latest news headlines from around the postal world…

Poste Italiane marks International Women’s Day

Poste Italiane has been celebrating the contribution of its female employees as part of International Women’s Day, which takes place today.

The Italian postal operator has 74,000 female employees, comprising 53% of the workforce, which the company said was one of the highest proportions of women employees among Italian businesses, where the average is around 47%.

Among the company’s 40,000 mail carriers, 17,000 are women, it said. The history of women in Poste Italiane dates back to 1875, but few women worked in the mail service prior to World War II, when there was a significant increase as male employees entered military service.

Double parcels win for Austrian Post

Austrian Post has won two significant new customers for its parcel business, in deals that should increase its parcel volumes by around 300,000 items a year.

The company said it is now providing delivery services for Austria’s largest safety equipment manufacturer Haberkorn Group and electronics retailer Niedermeyer GmbH.

“We are proud to welcome two more well-known companies as new business customers,” said Peter Umundum, a board member at the Post. “With performance and advanced logistics infrastructure, this shows that the Post is highly competitive in the domestic business-to-business parcels market.”

Swedish firm to provide security systems for La Poste

The Gunnebo Security Group has won a EUR 6m contract to provide systems to improve the security and efficiency of cash handling at France’s La Poste.

The Göteborg-based firm said installation set to include more than 2,000 safes are planned to take place in the second quarter of 2012. Equipment will be produced at the Gunnebo plant in Bazancourt, France. La Poste safety and investigations manager Hervé Lafranque said the investment was part of efforts to improve security at all 17,000 French post offices.

Gunnebo said its local production capability may have helped win the La Poste contract. Per Borgvall, the Gunnebo president and CEO said his company invested in production process improvements in 2011. “Without them, we should not have been able to meet the customer’s demand,” he said.

Norway Post to consolidate IT contracts

Norway Post has decided as part of its cost-cutting efforts to bring together its staggering 200 different IT contracts that are currently out with 150 different suppliers.

It is now in the process of preparing tenders for a new IT platform using far fewer suppliers, which it believes will offer “significant savings compared to the current situation. Potential suppliers are now being pre-qualified, with expectations that tenders will be advertised later this year, for signing in early 2013 and implementation in 2014.

The new contracts are set to be worth several billion kroner (NOK 1bn = EUR 135,000), and will include contracts for Norway Post and its Bring Cargo unit, including subsidiaries and operations overseas. “Reduced operating costs will make it possible to develop new functionality that is important to create competitive advantage,” said Norway Post project manager Sven Langerak.