The European Mail Manifesto
The European Mail Manifesto
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Direct marketers angry at loss of Postwatch voice
The consumer champion’s success in defending postal users’ interests against Royal Mail’s market dominance has made it popular with direct mailers. One of the direct marketing industry’s leading voices, Edward Mutton, director-general of the Institute of Sales Promotion, has accused the Government of plotting to gag the watchdog.
He points out that promotional marketers are “very big spenders on mail”.
In October, consumer minister Ian McCartney announced plans to provide consumers with a single point of contact for a range of consumer issues. Consumer Voice, he said, would pull together the National Consumer Council, Energywatch and Postwatch into a single body which would be a “powerful and effective advocate” for consumers. It will also save money, the DTI argues – around GBP10.5m a year.
However, the direct marketing industry believes that Postwatch has done an excellent job for businesses, the biggest mail users in the UK. Royal Mail’s top 100 customers produce approximately one-third of its GBP6bn annual revenue.
Alex Walsh, head of postal affairs at the Direct Marketing Association (UK), says that the future of Postwatch will be on the agenda for this week’s meeting of Postwatch’s trade association forum. He accepts that the UK’s big business-mail users could form their own lobby group, but says any such body would be unlikely to have the same weight and visibility that Postwatch has.
Key steps to DM/postal services: Time to deliver
Although Royal Mail still dominates the UK’s postal services market, deregulation has triggered strong growth in competition. Private operators have signed access agreements to allow mail they have collected and sorted to be fed into Royal Mail’s network for delivery.
Royal Mail made 1.2 billion access deliveries in the past year, compared to just 87 million the year before. In the five months to August 2006, access volumes continued to swell, and the latest figures from regulator Postcomm show that access deliveries now account for 10.5 per cent of Royal Mail’s total letters volume.
Royal Mail’s launch on 21 August of its Pricing in Proportion charging structure, reflecting that size and not just weight will determine a mailing’s delivery costs, has given companies further food for thought. For those considering a switch from Royal Mail to a rival access operator, there are now many more issues to consider. And there is certainly some confusion.
“In my experience, the big mailers aren’t confused because they have experts in their business who understand it, and can look at a new player when it comes along,” says Triangle Management Services’ associate director of mail Geoff Lambert. “But once you come down below the top 100 or 200 mailers, it’s true that people haven’t quite been able to understand what’s going on because they don’t have the expertise in-house.”
Pall-ex signs up new Northern Ireland member to its network
Pall-Ex is set to strengthen its network further in Northern Ireland following the appointment of new member Reid Transport. Based in County Antrim, Reid Transport is one of Northern Ireland’s leading logistics companies.
Established in 1980, it recently re-located to a 75,000 sq ft purpose built logistics centre outside Ballymena to provide a faster and more efficient service to its customers. The company has an impressive fleet of over 60 vehicles ranging from Sliding Roof Euroliners and Refrigerated Trailers to Low-loaders.
It was specifically chosen to become the latest member of Pall-Ex – the UK’s leading “hub and spoke” palletized freight operator – because of its location close to Northern Ireland’s motorway network and its reputation for quality.
Adds Stephen Wallace, Group Sales Manager at Reid Transport: “We have been looking for some time to give our customers total UK coverage with their consignments and after meeting with Pall-Ex quickly realised that their network offered the most effective solution possible to our requirements.
Read MoreGLS buys market leader ABX Belgium
GLS Group is taking over ABX Belgium Distribution NV/SA. This makes GLS number 1 on the Belgian B2B parcel market. Today, the Belgian railroad company, SNCB/NMBS – the mother company of ABX Belgium Distribution – and GLS signed the agreements.
GLS is taking over the parcel and general cargo business of ABX Belgium Distribution, which generates revenues of approximately 90 million euros per year (Financial year 2005). Parcel business accounts for about two-thirds of the revenues. More than 650 employees work for ABX Belgium at a total of nine locations (including a hub in Brussels), providing service for approximately 8,000 customers – to service them, 560 vehicles are in use.
While ABX Belgium Distribution mostly handles shipments in the Benelux region, with only a small percentage of exports, GLS is positioned as a parcel service provider that operates throughout Europe. “Today’s transaction means we will be able to combine GLS’ European competence with ABX Belgium Distribution’s regional strength”, explains Rico Back, CEO of GLS B.V., Amsterdam. “For GLS, attaining market leadership in Belgium means that the network in central Europe is being decisively strengthened. For ABX Belgium Distribution, the link to the GLS European network will result in new growth opportunities.”
Security further enhanced by video monitoring
The trans-o-flex Group has introduced a video monitoring system at its network locations in Germany, aiming to further increase the security of the goods it transports. Specialised cameras made by Mobotix have been installed. They monitor certain handling zones at the sites operated by the trans-o-flex system partners and register at all times which goods are moved where, and when. “By integrating this system we are again reinforcing our preventive security structure,” says Werner Haas, Managing Director of trans-o-flex IT Service GmbH. The high-quality recordings made by the Mobotix system, combined with the intelligent positioning of the cameras, significantly raise the stakes for potential wrongdoers and assist the clarification process in cases of theft or damage. “Along with our existing security precautions, the camera technology is a primary element of the trans-o-flex security programme,” adds Haas.
Installation in one month, flexible extension planned
“Within a month, we had installed the Mobotix D10 cameras at trans-o-flex throughout Germany and taken them into service,” explains Markus Grünwald, Managing Director of the Mobotix system partner Uniserve GmbH. “That was only possible thanks to the flexible and uncomplicated integration of the Mobotix cameras into the company’s network.” The picture material generated by the cameras is stored locally in NAS (network attached storage) servers at the network locations. The administration, maintenance and evaluation of the cameras, on the other hand, is centralized. This is helped by incident-controlled recording: camera recording is only activated when there is movement within the pre-defined picture frames. This means that there is no superfluous recording, reducing the time and effort required for evaluation and placing less burden on the data network.
“The Mobotix system enables us to keep a detailed visual record of the goods we handle on behalf of our customers, on an as-needed basis. The flexible scalability means we can easily extend the camera coverage to further sites,” concludes Werner Haas. “We are also planning to use additional cameras in future to monitor the access ways to and from our sites.”
U.S. Postal Service expands mail-sorting technology
Technology that successfully boosted postal efficiencies in the processing, distribution, and delivery of letter mail will soon be applied to the sorting of what the Postal Service refers to as “flats”- large envelopes, magazines, catalogs, and circulars.
Known as the Flats Sequencing System (FSS) program, the initiative approved today by the Postal Service Board of Governors allows the agency to move forward with plans to employ sophisticated equipment to sort flat-mail pieces for letter carriers, who now 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.
Phase I 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.
Empost's global courier destinations touch 225
Reinforcing its position as one of the top courier companies in the Middle East, Empost, the UAE’s national courier company, now covers 225 destinations around the world including Australia, the American continents, Europe, Far East, Indian Sub Continent, Africa and all the Middle East.
‘We have upgraded our coverage and infrastructure to cover more than 225 destinations within 72 hours as a testament to our customer-centric ethos. We have partnered with several reputed organisations to ensure consistency, speed and reliability of services. Empost is currently undergoing tremendous expansion in line with our strategic plan of providing full-fledged courier and logistics services catering to the various needs of our expanding customer-base.’
The expansion into new networks has been prompted by the sharp demand for Empost’s services among the large expatriate population in the UAE and also from the business community, which relies on Empost for any dispatch of documents, certificates, letters, parcels or other items.
Empost offers a broad range of sector-specific courier services such as the Jawaz service, which collects and delivers passports and other consular documents to customers’ home or office, and Health Pack, a service which ensures timely delivery of medical documents to customers. Other Empost services include Ameel, Ezi Mail, Litedox and Ezi Pack.
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