Author: Archive

First Latin American Mail and Express event delivers success in Rio

Posted by | Dec 8, 2006 | |

Senior delegates from more than 20 countries throughout the Americas and elsewhere gathered in Rio at the beginning of December for the first ever World Mail & Express event to be held in Latin America. They were treated to a fascinating two days of debate, discussion and networking at the Sheraton Hotel in Rio de Janeiro, with an international array of podium speakers sharing their experiences and ideas for the industry’s future.

Senior executives from conference host sponsors Empresa Brasileira de Correios e Telegrafos expressed themselves delighted with the success of the whole event. After Brazilian Post President and CEO Carlos Henrique Almeida Custodio had opened the summit by welcoming everybody to Rio, a succession of key speakers entertained those present with their perspectives on competing and winning. With countries such as Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Mexico and the USA also represented on the podium, delegates were treated to a range of views and experiences from across the region. International viewpoints were also pooled by speakers from elsewhere, including Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain and the UK, with sharing best practice and lessons learnt very much to the fore.

Delegates were also interested to hear evidence of the low market share (compared to their international counterparts) amongst national operators in South America. Outside Brazil and Chile particularly, it is clear that private mail operators collectively have much larger shares of the letter delivery market than do the national posts.

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TNT picks Malaysia for Asian debut of archive services

Posted by | Dec 8, 2006 | |

TNT has chosen Malaysia for the Asian debut of its archive services, with an initial investment of RM1 million in related equipment and software.

TNT Malaysia and Brunei managing director Gerry Power said TNT was the first international express company to launch a business records management service in Asia, designed to archive and manage medical records, business records and legal documents format for any length of time.

According to him, TNT Archive Services are useful for sectors that are especially documentation-heavy, including financial institutions, legal and professional services, government and manufacturing.

The new service was launched Friday by Penang Chief Minister Tan Sri Dr Koh Tsu Koon, together with the official opening of Penang’s TNT Global Express Centre, located in the Bayan Lepas Free Industrial Zone here.

Speaking at a press conference, Power said if customers required any documents, TNT will deliver them within the same day or the next business day.

Built at the cost of RM8 million, the 22,000-square foot facility is part of the continuing investment in Malaysia by TNT under its RM15 million expansion plan for 2006.

Power said the centre is life science-ready for the safe handling of time and temperature-sensitive clinical specimens such as blood, vaccines and drugs which played an important role for hospitals and laboratories, and also able to handle dangerous goods.

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Royal Mail recruits ‘Address Detectives’ as it prepares for festive postcode challenge

Posted by | Dec 8, 2006 | |

Royal Mail has taken on more than 3,000 “address detectives” as it prepares to handle 400 million poorly addressed and written Christmas card and letters during the busy festive period.

And it has added a series of new features to its online postcode finder as it encourages people to make sure that they put the correct address on the envelope and include the postcode.

Royal Mail expects to deliver more than two billion items over the festive period but estimates 400 million cards and letters will not be able to be read by its automated sorting machinery either because the postcode has not been included, the item has been poorly addressed or the handwriting style is difficult to read.

But more than 3,000 “address detectives” have been recruited for the festive season to support the 1,400-strong team who will decipher the addresses of items that cannot be read automatically so that the letters can still be processed by the sorting machinery rather than by hand.

Alex Batchelor, Royal Mail’s Marketing Director, said: “Mail volumes almost double on peak days in December and it is important that people properly address their Christmas cards and use the postcode. Letters and cards that have clearly written addresses and a postcode can be read by our machines and handled 20 times faster than by hand.

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TNT giving generously

Posted by | Dec 8, 2006 | |

TNT has once again been named as one of the UK’s most caring companies with the news that TNT Express Services figure prominently in a list of the country’s most generous givers to charitable organisations.

The company features in an elite group of 141 companies that donate at least one per cent of their pre-tax profits to worthy causes. This qualifies each company to feature in the ‘PerCent Standard’ – a list of top corporate benefactors complied by the Business in the Community organisation.

The recognition is designed to encourage commercial organisations to embrace the principles of Corporate Social Responsibility and put something back into the communities in which business and industry operates.

Tom Bell, Managing Director of TNT Express Services in the UK & Ireland said: “I am immensely proud of our leading, and sustained, role in making a positive contribution to communities the length and breadth of Britain.

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Customer analysis software lifts Iceland home delivery

Posted by | Dec 8, 2006 | |

Iceland has netted a return on investment within months of implementing a customer analysis and market visualisation system that is enabling it to improve its marketing and home delivery service.

The supermarket has used GMAP Consulting’s Microvision software to analyse data on regional marketing gathered between October and December last year and help it shape campaigns in the run-up to Christmas.

Iceland customer data insight manager Sarah Kirwan explained that the company has been able to assess the success of different combinations of marketing media in different areas. She said: “We do a lot of regional marketing and we wanted to look at how spend has affected performance.”

The software is also being used to profile the type and location of customers using its home delivery service, so that it can target further stores where the service is most likely to succeed.

According to Kirwan, the software has paid for itself within months through improved sales, although it also allows the retailer to better control cost.

“It is mainly about increasing sales,” she explained. The software can also look at home delivery data in terms of cost management.

She added that no stores have yet withdrawn the delivery service as a result of the analysis.

In addition, Kirwan says the maps that the software can create to visualise sales by geography are proving a useful addition to its normal performance reports.

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EU postal reforms: Germany wants agreement by June

Posted by | Dec 7, 2006 | |

Germany, which will take over the revolving EU presidency for the first half of 2007, plans to reach an agreement between member states on postal liberalisation by the end of June, diplomatic sources told Agence-France Presse.
A European diplomat said Germany has the ‘ambitious goal’ of getting the highly sensitive text approved at a meeting of European ministers in June.
The proposals will also have to be approved by the European Parliament.
On October 18, the commission announced moves to free up the market for letters in Europe, following on from the commission’s 2002 directive on parcels and letters over 50 grams.
Currently, historical operators still hold national monopolies on letters weighing less than 50 grams in Europe, also called the ‘reserved area’.
Germany is seen as one of the member states that has gone furthest with liberalisation of postal services.
In October, Klaus Zumwinkel, chief executive of the Deutsche Post, said ‘Liberalisation that allows healthy competition is the only way forward. We are ready to embrace it’.

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USPS expands mail-sorting technology

Posted by | Dec 7, 2006 | |

Technology that successfully boosted postal efficiencies in the processing, distribution and delivery of letter mail will soon be applied to the sorting of flat mail such as large envelopes, magazines, catalogs and circulars.

Known as the Flats Sequencing System program, the initiative was approved Dec. 6 by the by the U.S. Postal Service’s board of governors at its monthly meeting.

FSS will allow the sequencing of larger mail pieces in delivery point order. Flat mail is one of the most labor-intensive mail categories to process because of variations in size, thickness and address label placement. Allowing the sequencing of larger mail pieces in delivery point order will reduce the time carriers need to prepare mail for delivery. Carriers currently must manually sequence this mail before leaving the office for their routes.

The FSS equipment is designed to sequence flat mail at a rate of approximately 16,500 pieces per hour. Scheduled to operate 17 hours per day, each machine will be capable of sequencing 280,500 pieces per day to more than 125,000 delivery addresses.

The first phase of the program calls for an initial order of 100 FSS machines to be deployed to 33 postal facilities beginning in the summer of 2008.

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USPS and APWU reach contract agreement

Posted by | Dec 7, 2006 | |

The U.S. Postal Service and the American Postal Workers Union, AFL-CIO, have reached a tentative four-year contract agreement.

Upon ratification by union members, the agreement will run through Nov. 20, 2010, and affect approximately 272,000 career employees in the clerk, maintenance and motor vehicle crafts.

APWU president William Burrus called the new agreement “outstanding” and said it would be presented to the Rank-and-File Bargaining Committee on Dec. 7.

Upon the committee’s approval, specific terms of the agreement will be announced. The committee must approve a tentative agreement before it can be sent to union members for a ratification vote.

The USPS and the APWU formally opened national contract negotiations on Aug. 29. This year was the first time new contracts were negotiated separately at the same time with all four of the postal service’s largest unions.

Negotiations continue with two other unions, the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association and the National Postal Mail Handlers Union.

Negotiations with the National Association of Letter Carriers were not successful. The two parties will now enter the dispute resolution process, which may include binding interest arbitration that could begin next spring.

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