Author: Archive

Senior marketers in Royal Mail reshuffle (UK)

Posted by | Oct 29, 2008 | |

Mail has undertaken a major restructure of its commercial and marketing departments as part of an effort to take a more “customer-led” approach.
It has promoted Luisa Fulci, director of commercial pricing and policy, to the new role of director of marketing services. She will now lead a four-strong team, including Tom Hings, who has retained his role as Head of Brand Marketing and Communications.
Mark Thomson, previously Director of Sales and Customer Services, has also moved to the new position of Media Director. He heads a team of five and oversees Royal Mail’s advertising mail service.
Fulci and Thomson will report to Strategy and Commercial Director, Alex Smith.
Royal Mail is currently recruiting to fill the new role of Director of New Ventures, Fulfilment Director and Thomson’s previous position of Director of Sales and Customer Services.
The changes follow a consultation process undertaken by Royal Mail, where senior staff were asked to reapply for their jobs.
The review of the organisation started just weeks after Marketing Director Alex Batchelor announced his departure from the postal operator. He is now Vice-President at satellite navigation specialist TomTom.

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DHL slashing European IT jobs

Posted by | Oct 29, 2008 | |

DHL is halving the number of IT staff it employs and despatching the jobs to Prague in the Czech Republic.
DHL IT Services will cut 400 jobs across Europe and the UK. But at the same time it will add 200 people to its service centre in Prague. DHL opened its Czech data centre in 2003 and was mulling a full move of IT functions as long ago as 2004.
An internal email seen by The Register said the company would move hosting and support service, collaboration services, service desk workers and development services to the Czech capital.
European countries where jobs will be lost are: Austria; Belgium; Czech Republic; Denmark; Estonia; Finland; France; Hungary; Iceland; Ireland; Italy; Latvia; Lithuania; Luxemburg; Netherlands; Norway; Poland; Slovakia; Slovenia; Sweden; Switzerland and the UK.

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DHL goes green with e-billing service

Posted by | Oct 29, 2008 | |

DHL is hoping to cut its carbon footprint by offering customers an e-billing service.

DHL plans to eliminate more than a third of the 18 million paper invoices it sends to European customers every year by 2010. The firm will do this by offering customers an e-billing option, whereby users login to an online portal to view and receive information about their invoices. As a result, the courier expects to save the equivalent of 2,400 trees and 600 tonnes of C02 a year.

DHL has already begun using e-billing in Europe, and expects to continue its existing success.
“The success of our e-billing project has already delivered significant environmental savings but this is a drop in the ocean compared to what we intend to achieve in the near future,” said Brian Thumwood, DHL’s E-Billing Manager for Europe.

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Federal Court of Justice grants protection for "Post" brand

Posted by | Oct 29, 2008 | |

The registered trademark “Post” will continue to be protected by law. This follows a ruling by the German Federal Court of Justice (BGH) in which it upheld an appeal by Deutsche Post against the revoking of its “Post” trademark.
Almost 85 per cent of German consumers associate the term “post” with Deutsche Post.
Competitors of Deutsche Post had filed opposition to registration of the brand and in April 2007 they were successful in this endeavor before the German Federal Patent Court.
The decision by the Federal Court of Justice overturns that ruling.
The term “Post” was registered with the German Federal Patent and Trademark Office in 2003 as a so-called word mark of Deutsche Post. The background to this registration was a report which found that 84.6 per cent of consumers associated the term “Post” with Deutsche Post.
In June of this year the Federal Court of Justice ruled in two specific cases on how protection of the “Post” trademark should be interpreted in practice. They ruled that use of the term “Post” by competitors of Deutsche Post was only admissible in cases where they provided appropriate additional information in their business correspondence or advertising.
It was not, however, admissible to combine the word “Post” with other distinctive elements such as the color yellow or the post horn symbol which would increase the risk of confusion with the Deutsche Post brand.

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TNT opens first "green" depot in the Netherlands

Posted by | Oct 29, 2008 | |

TNT is today opening its first CO2 emission-free depot in Veenendaal, the Netherlands. The official opening is to be attended by Harry Koorstra, member of TNT’s Board of Management and Group Managing Director Mail The depot is the first in a series of “green” buildings to be used by TNT as part of its worldwide environmental programme, Planet Me. The global mail and express delivery company aims to cut the CO2 emissions of all of its buildings, totalling three million square metres of real estate in over sixty-five countries.
The building produces its own energy in a sustainable way. More than 300 solar panels collect sunlight and convert it into energy.
The depot was designed in close collaboration with the VolkerWessels construction company. TNT required the building to be CO 2 neutral in operation.
The combination of techniques and measures in one business site allows energy savings of over 70 per cent compared with a traditional depot. VolkerWessels expects other end users of sustainable business premises to choose the same solutions. TNT’s green depot has been operational since mid-October and functions as a mail distribution centre for Veenendaal and its surroundings.

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Australia Post slashes 700 applications by half

Posted by | Oct 28, 2008 | |

AUSTRALIA Post has kicked off an ambitious technology transformation program that’s poised to slash 700 applications by half, starting with about AUD 112 million (USD 72 million) allocated for mainly SAP-related projects.
Reducing applications for retail, parcels and logistics is the key to lowering Australia Post’s tech costs
Australia Post chief information officer Wayne Saunders said the expenditure comprised three main components, including a massive SAP enterprise resource planning system upgrade.
SAP financial and asset management applications are among the products being used at the 35,000-employee outfit, which includes 860 people in the IT department.
The remaining IT budget was split between a track-and-trace project and a four-year enterprise agreement with SAP.
The new system is believed to improve Australia Post’s parcel tracing capabilities, especially for lost items.
The track-and-trace system was built using SAP’s core event management engine and was expected to launch in mid-2009, Mr Saunders said.
Australia Post completed a SAP enterprise agreement in mid-2008.
Australia Post has about 700 applications to manage that service three parts of the business: post, retail and parcels, and logistics.
Reducing the number of applications is key to lowering the cost of technology.

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Swiss Post: Profit CHF 496 million below 2007 figure

Posted by | Oct 28, 2008 | |

In the first three quarters of 2007, Swiss Post generated Group profit of 496 million Swiss francs. This is CHF 203 million below the year-back figure. The decline is due primarily to higher fuel prices, growth- and inflation-induced additional expenditure and value adjustments on financial investments. Swiss Post expects its full-year result to be down on the previous year.
In the first nine months of 2008, Swiss Post generated Group profit of 496 million francs (2006: 699 million francs). This is CHF 203 million or 29 pct less than in 2007, which was a record year. All product-carrying Group units posted a decline. Growth- and inflation-induced additional expenditure, higher staff costs and value adjustments on financial investments were responsible for the lower profit figure. In addition, cuts in press subsidies and the parallel operation in the “Reengineering Mail” (REMA) project resulted in higher costs. PostFinance had to make writedowns totalling CHF 95 million on its financial investments. CHF 67 million of the writedowns relate to fixed-income investments and the remaining CHF 28 million to equity investments. Thanks to its risk-conscious investment strategy, the loss amounts to only around 0.2 pct of the total investment portfolio (see also PostFinance press release of 22 October).

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Regional postal heads review progress of inter-GCC express mail service 'Gulf Express'

Posted by | Oct 28, 2008 | |

Postal heads from Arab countries meeting in Qatar for the 21st postal high committee meeting gave the green signal for the implementation of Gulf Express, an improved express mail service for GCC countries.
The officials, who included under-secretaries of postal ministries and directors-general of posts, reviewed the business plan submitted by the Riyadh-based newly appointed manager of the project and asked for an operational plan.

The meeting also decided that the Gulf countries will henceforth take part in international stamp exhibitions under the name of the ‘GCC Countries Group’, in an effort to promote Arab solidarity and philatelic excellence.

Among the other topics was a review of the proposed pan-GCC logistics company owned by GCC postal organizations.

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