Author: Archive

Postcomm consults on a redirection service for the competitive mail market

Posted by | Aug 14, 2006 | |

Every year, around 1.3 million households and businesses use Royal Mail’s redirections service, and there are approximately 800,000 redirections “live” on the company’s books at any one time.

In the fully competitive market, where rivals of Royal Mail are also able to offer their own collection and delivery services, redirection arrangements need to be broadened to allow those rivals to redirect mail, and today Postcomm began consulting on how this could be achieved within the constraints of data protection rules.

The sharing of redirections information that residential customers and sole business traders provide to Royal Mail is classified as “personal data” under the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA), and any solution needs to comply with data protection rules. Postcomm is proposing changes to ensure personal data is handled properly and has established a memorandum of understanding with the Information Commissioner, who has specific responsibilities for the promotion and enforcement of the DPA, setting out how the two regulators would cooperate if UK data protection rules are broken.

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Japanese Inventors Develop Home Delivery Service Pay-By-Card Method

Posted by | Aug 14, 2006 | |

Takayuki Yamagami of Kyoto, Japan, and Takahiko Kurisu of Tokyo, have developed a pay-by-card method and a pay-by-card system for home delivery service.

According to the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: “A home delivery contractor enters into an affiliation contract with a credit card company and also enters into a merchandise price collection consignment contract with a merchandise seller. If a consumer orders merchandise with the merchandise seller on the Internet, then the merchandise seller makes a request to the home delivery contractor for home delivery. Upon receipt of the delivered merchandise, the consumer passes to the home delivery contractor a credit card of the credit card company who has entered into the affiliation contract with the home delivery contractor, whereby the home delivery contractor settles the price for the merchandise with a portable card reader device.”

The inventors were issued U.S. Patent No. 7,086,590 on Aug. 8.

The patent has been assigned to Sagawa Express Co. Ltd. of Kyoto, and JCB Co. Ltd., Tokyo.

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TNT to invest USD 1 million in Saudi Arabia

Posted by | Aug 13, 2006 | |

The company has recently opened nine additional depots, which also serve as walk in centres, in Jeddah, Riyadh, Dhahran, Madinah, Tabuk, Khamis Mushayt, Jubail, Yanbu and Buraidah. A further 22 are planned in other major cities across the country within the next 18 months.

‘Our ambition is to expand TNT’s nationwide coverage, offer an integrated product range and, by providing extra support and facilities to our customers and become the third largest domestic express player by 2015,’ said Taha Al-Harazy, Country General Manager, TNT/SAB Express.

‘We will expand in a phased manner, which would enable us to cater to the needs of medium and large scale customers demanding end-to-end logistics solutions. The aim is to make TNT more accessible within the Kingdom and our recent ISO9001 and ISO14001 certifications are official recognitions that we are doing this with the highest quality possible.’

‘Saudi Arabia is strategically located and bordered by eight countries, serving as a gateway to the Middle East. Therefore it is vital for a company wanting to develop its regional business to have a strong presence in the Kingdom,’ added Al-Harazy.

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UK Royal Mail chips in to track missing post

Posted by | Aug 13, 2006 | |

Royal Mail is using the new wireless tracking technology, radio frequency identification (RFID), to try to improve its lamentable record for safe delivery of post.

Last year, more than 14m letters were lost or damaged and 7 percent of mail was not delivered on time, making it increasingly difficult for the Royal Mail to sell itself as a service for businesses to use. Royal Mail plans to try to identify the “black holes” into which lost post disappears and also discover the whereabouts of the bottlenecks that clog up the system.

Until the arrival of low cost RFID chips, there has been no cost-effective technology that would allow the Royal Mail to track postage flow. But RFID uses a microchip with a unique number tag that can be scanned to identify unique items.

Selected envelopes are now being identified with RFID tags and put through the system so that they can be scanned by an RFID reader when they reach their destination to record an exact arrival time. This is far cheaper than using global position (GPS) tags, which are monitored by satellite.

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DHL witnesses huge growth with retail expansion plan

Posted by | Aug 13, 2006 | |

DHL’s service points are convenient, accessible and user-friendly retail outlets designed with the key attributes of accessibility and convenience. They offer significant advantages to customers including a full range of packaging and simplified pricing to fulfil a variety of service requirements.

DHL has recently opened four new service points in the UAE as part of its commitment to be the most widely available express logistics provider in the country.

‘Being easy to do business with, is part of our strategy and our new service points ensure customers can deal with their shipments while they shop. Our goal is to facilitate customers’ lives by providing easy accessibility. The locations of upcoming and existing service points reflect the projected 180 per cent increase in the number of shopping centres in the country.’

The new service points, located at Deira and Sharjah City Centres, Mall of the Emirates and Dragon Mart, represent a major step in DHL’s ambitious retail expansion plans with shipments up 40% and further increases expected. The recently opened service points are part of 21 existing sites in the UAE, with others scheduled to be opened soon.

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Firms sign courier service contract

Posted by | Aug 12, 2006 | |

G4S Courier Kenya has partnered with DHL Express to provide courier services to upcountry customers.

Company managers say the new service is cheaper and easily available in all the 120 G4S outlets countrywide. G4S, formerly trading as Securicor is one of the leading security firms, while DHL is a leading international courier company.

“The DHL-G4S partnership allows customers to ship documents that weigh up to 250 gms (30 pages) and below for economical flat rates that are zonal based,” said Mr Angello Kiuma, general manager G4S Courier.

Speaking during a visit to their Malindi outlet on Thursday, Kiuma said the product would only be available at G4S upcountry offices.

“Parcels will be packaged as an envelope similar to the Africa Document, but will have a sticker reading DHL-G4S Economy Ship on it,” he said.

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Post Office set to join broadband bandwagon

Posted by | Aug 11, 2006 | |

The Post Office could be set to join the broadband revolution, after reports yesterday said it was set to move into the crowded market for high-speed internet access.

“We look at lots of opportunities in the market, and broadband is naturally one of those things you would look at, but there’s absolutely no decision,” spokesman David Simpson said.

Telecoms analysts suggested that the Post Office, which already offers a fixed-line telephone service in conjunction with Cable & Wireless – HomePhone – in direct competition with BT, was poised to announce the move.

The battle for broadband customers has intensified in recent months. BSkyB launched its own high-speed internet product last month and, in April, Carphone Warehouse entered the fray by offering its “free” broadband service Talk Talk as part of a bundle with line calls and rental.

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USPS SENDS CONFUSING SIGNALS ON SERVICE STANDARDS AND MEASUREMENTS

Posted by | Aug 11, 2006 | |

The following is a Postal Perspective from PostCom Vice President Kate Muth. The views expressed are solely the author’s. PostCom welcomes the responsible expression of alternative views from other individuals or organizations.

It’s a good thing the Postal Service isn’t running a railway line. It sure has been sending some confusing signals to its customers lately.

Speaking at the Mailers Technical Advisory Committee meeting recently, PMG Jack Potter said he wants to be as transparent as possible when it comes to providing service. “We are competing with Internet and electronic systems and having that transparency is critical if mail is going to be relevant.” The idea of measuring the mailsteam and allowing people to view it is critical to the success of the industry, Potter said.

And yet, the recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on service standards and performance measurement said the most important impediment to progress toward implementing delivery performance measurements for all major mail types is “the lack of management commitment and effective collaboration with the mailing industry to follow up on recommendations for improvements and to resolve issues between USPS and mailers.”

The GAO report says, “A USPS senior vice president told us that USPS had no plans for implementing additional measures of delivery performance. A second USPS senior vice president explained that although some pieces of mail may be tracked as automated equipment reads barcodes on the mail, enabling more information for management and diagnostic purposes, these pieces are unrepresentative, and USPS has no plans for using mail tracking data to develop representative measure of delivery performance. As for major types of mail that are not measured, USPS has publicly reported that it has no system in place for measuring service performance for Standard Mail on a system-wide basis and currently has no plans for the development of such a system.” Likewise, the official said USPS had no plans to develop representative measures for bulk First-Class Mail.

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