Author: Archive

The Italian perspective

Posted by | Feb 29, 2008 | |

As Royal Mail closes post offices, its counterpart in Italy is expanding and moving into profit by adopting a strategy that Royal Mail bosses might wish to consider.

The Italian postal turnaround offers an example of go-ahead enterprise in a country that, on the whole, is mired in gloomy predictions of decline, low growth, stagnation and instability. How has this unlikely miracle been achieved? Massimo Sarmi, the chief executive of Poste Italiane, is reluctant to boast, let alone to offer advice to Royal Mail – but at his office near the Trevi Fountain he offers a vision of the post office as a “one-stop shop” that not only delivers mail but is also a bank offering financial services, such as loans, bill payments, money transfers, online retail mail order, insurance, secure e-mail, pre-paid internet cards, even mobile phones.

“In the past five years there has been a revolution,” he said. “Take something like medical care. You can use the post office online network to make an appointment with your doctor, who then notifies the local pharmacist of the medical supplies you need, which are then dispatched automatically to you in the mail. All you have to do physically is turn up at the surgery to be examined.”

The key, in other words, is diversification in the internet age, using the post office’s existing – and on the whole, trusted – nationwide infrastructure. The post office has a network that other agencies cannot match, reaching into far-flung areas of the Italian peninsula. Mr Sarmi has even flown to Kosovo to open a branch post office for the multinational forces there.

Poste Italiane, which has 14,000 offices and 150,000 employees, loses hundreds of millions of euros a year on its mail services. Increasingly, however, mail is a public service subsidised by more profitable ventures. The same goes for rural post offices. Far from being cut, a hundred have been added over the past five years.

Mail accounts for less than a third of revenues. The rest, Mr Sarmi said, comes from services that did not exist when he took over six years ago, let alone a decade ago. The Italian post office now has a corporate logo in yellow and blue and a fast website in Italian and English.

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New Russian Post CEO targets modernisation as losses rise

Posted by | Feb 29, 2008 | |

The new head of Russian Post, Andrej Kazmin, has unveiled a package of measures to modernise the vast postal service and make it more competitive following increased losses last year. But privatisation is not on the agenda.

Priorities will be to offer a wide range of services, to improve the profitability and quality of mail services, to expand financial services and to modernise the IT and infrastructure, Kazmin said at a two-day high-level meeting of the Russian Ministry of Communications and Information Technologies earlier this month.

Russian Post said it increased mail volumes by 14 pct and parcel volumes by 25 pct last year. Its EMS express shipment volumes increased 42 pct in comparison with express market growth of 37 pct. The company’s 2007 revenues increased by 23 pct due to the higher volumes. However, Russian Post ended 2007 with a loss of RUB 5.8 billion (EUR 158.94 million) compared to a RUB 4 billion deficit (EUR 109.61 million) in 2006.

According to Kazmin, Russian Post’s main goals for 2008 include improving the enterprise’s economic efficiency, providing standard delivery of correspondence and freight to and from any part of the Russian Federation at available tariff rates, establishing modern infrastructure and developing financial services within the postal service system.

In terms of the growth factors and prospects for this year, IT is seen as an important factor for the development of postal services. In 2007, Russian Post extended computer technology with a 35 pct rise in the number of terminals at post offices. In addition, it opened over 3,000 Internet public access outlets increasing their total number to 23,000, the Russian Post said.

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BCC Software to Launch Track N Trace MailDelivery Monitoring Service Option

Posted by | Feb 29, 2008 | |

BCC Software, a BÖWE BELL + HOWELL has set a release date of March 3 for Track
N Trace™, its newest offering. This service option will provide users with comprehensive information and unprecedented specificity regarding the delivery progress of their mailing jobs.

Track N Trace uses the new USPS Intelligent Mail barcode to supply BCC customers with maildelivery monitoring information as part of the USPS OneCode Confirm ™ program. When Track N Trace is activated via a proprietary interface built into BCC’s Mail Manager 2010 presorting and listmanagement software, each mailpiece in the designated job is tagged with a unique identification number stored in the IM™ barcode on the address label.

Those IDs are then logged when the mailpieces are scanned as they move from one postal facility to the next on the path to their eventual delivery destination.

OneCode Confirm sends that scan data to a secure BCC Web site that may be retrieved at any time by Track N Trace subscribers looking for uptodate delivery details for part or all of a job. The scan data, updated on BCC’s servers several times each day, may be accessed in the form of userspecified reports that can be downloaded into a variety of presentationfriendly formats.

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TNT France to launch ecological IT solutions and new delivery service

Posted by | Feb 29, 2008 | |

TNT Express France has launched a new operational system for its IT network adapting more ecological and cost-saving methods in order to limit the environmental impact of its IT activities. In addition, the company has launched a new delivery service “12:00 Express” for shipments within France to be delivered next day before noon.

The current IT model applied at TNT operates in a traditional way with two systems, the “active” one in use and the “inactive” one in a sleeping modus that can be set in if the first system breaks down.

The new optimized system is equipped with two smaller systems that are both active. Thanks to the high quality of the equipment provided nowadays by the suppliers, this solution makes it possible to offer the same service in terms of the quality and reliability at a more favourable price.

Another advantage of the new system is the considerable reduction of the environmental impact in every stage of the projects including production, transportation, installation, energy consumption, maintenance and recycling of additional and inactive equipment.

This project is part of the TNT environmental programme “Planet Me” launched worldwide in 2007.

Meanwhile, TNT France has launched a new delivery service “12:00 Express” for shipments to be delivered nationwide next day before noon.

This service will go into operation in the beginning of April this year for all the shipments between 0 and 30 kg.

TNT assures a complete coverage of the market with 86 pct of the French companies using the delivery service before noon.

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City Link starts work on new distribution centre

Posted by | Feb 29, 2008 | |

Nationwide parcels operator City Link has started work on a new 37,500ft2 parcel distribution centre in Norwich. The facility, at the Broadland Buisness Park, will become a hub for City Link’s services throughout East Anglia and replace its current distribution centre in Norwich.

Nick Long, depot general manager at City Link, says: “Broadland Business Park is an excellent location for us.”Being so close to the A47, we can get to all of the area’s main routes quickly, easily and efficiently, without any traffic problems, which means we can further improve our service to our customers.”

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Rentokil in profit warning after City Link fails to deliver

Posted by | Feb 29, 2008 | |

Rentokil Initial is facing calls for a break-up of the company after a disastrous profits warning prompted a sell-off of its shares and the departure of its chairman Brian McGowan.

Rentokil said problems at its City Link parcels delivery business would result in the company producing significantly lower profits in 2008 and warned it had not yet got to grips with the crisis.

The profits warning – the third such warning in less than a year – also raises serious questions over the future of Doug Flynn, the Rentokil chief executive, who was parachuted into the company in May 2005 by Mr McGowan.

Mr Flynn said he would remain with Rentokil because stepping down at the same time as his chairman would leave the company rudderless. He accepted that Rentokil’s new chairman, once appointed, might believe he was no longer a credible chief executive for the group.

The alert over the outlook for Rentokil follows a profits warning in December, also linked to problems at City Link. Back then, Mr Flynn said the company was surprised by lower-than-expected demand from businesses shipping parcels to consumers in the run-up to Christmas. Yesterday, however, he conceded the difficulties at City Link had been much more fundamental.

Rentokil is still trying to get a clear picture of the extent of City Link’s problems, but said yesterday it had failed to properly integrate two acquisitions. It has also lost customers after attempting to migrate local franchises on to a national structure and had been forced to compensate customers for service failures.

However, Mr Flynn said he would not be panicked into talks with suitors or a strategic review. “The performance from City Link was unacceptable,” he said. “I will continue to have an open mind about these issues. But I’m not sure [a break-up] is necessarily going to be the answer.”

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DPD Lithuania sales grow by 33 pct in 2007

Posted by | Feb 29, 2008 | |

DPD Lithuania has announced that its sales increased by 33 pct to LTL 52.3 million (EUR 15.15 million) in 2007. This year the company expects a higher sales increase of 35 pct.

DPD Lithuania managing director Vytautas Kudzys said that the company plans to open a new terminal, invest in new technologies that will accelerate working processes and implement solutions for reducing ecological problems.

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Robinson engages DHL supply chain services (Malaysia)

Posted by | Feb 29, 2008 | |

DHL Exel Supply Chain has entered into a three-year contract with an option for a two-year extension to support retail group Robinson & Co with total warehousing and distribution services in Malaysia.

“Entrusting our supply chain management to DHL’s capable hands will allow us to focus on core competencies as we forge ahead with our efforts to leverage on our strengths to expand our presence in Malaysia,” said Robinson’s general manager for finance and administration, Shia Yew Peck, in a statement release via DHL yesterday.

DHL will provide logistics and supply chain solutions to all retail entities managed by Robinson in the country. These include the first Robinson store at The Gardens, Mid Valley, two Coast as well as two Trucco standalone stores at the Pavilion and Bangsar Village, four Marks & Spencer outlets at Suria KLCC, One Utama, The Gardens, Mid Valley City and Sunway Pyramid, and two Fat Face stores at The Gardens, Mid Valley and Bangsar.

The supply chain solutions include inbound management, picking, sorting, tagging, packing, distribution and professional inventory management.

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