Author: Archive

DHL Express France to test environmental vehicles

Posted by | Jan 16, 2008 | |

DHL Express France has announced plans to start testing a new highly ecological vehicle in Lyon in cooperation with manufacturer Renault Trucks and the local network of urban communities ‘Grand Lyon’ in order to measure the impact of the truck on the environment.

These tests are part of the European research programme FIDEUS (Freight Intelligent Delivery of Goods in European Urban Spaces) which aims at developing new concepts of transportation in urban areas to minimize the emissions.

The aim of the tests is to validate regulations covering safety, noise reduction and CO2 emissions as well as to check its operating efficiency.

This vehicle will be tested in real-life conditions by a DHL Express driver who will carry out a cycle of tests as part of his usual route when picking up and distributing DHL shipments in the city centre.

The Renault Trucks prototype is equipped with an advanced electronic measurement system and has special equipment allowing it to reduce heavy noise and polluting emissions. It also includes a telematics system informing the driver when he enters an urban area so he can activate the noise and pollution reduction system.

Since 2005, FIDEUS has brought together the players of the automotive industry, transport and logistics sectors and the cities of Hanover, Lyon and Barcelona as well as various authorities. FIDEUS is co-financed by the European Commision’s programme of research and development of sustainable ground transportation.

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FedEx Significantly Improves Less-Than-Truckload (LTL) Services

Posted by | Jan 16, 2008 | |

FedEx Freight has improved its service in key U.S. markets and FedEx National LTL now provides long-haul shippers with improved on-time service reliability after re-engineering its network, FedEx Freight, an operating company of FedEx Corp. announced today.

FedEx Freight is a provider of regional next-day, second-day and extended LTL freight services, and has cut transit times in half ” from two days to next day ” from the Las Vegas area to Oakland, San Jose, Sacramento, Bakersfield and other large cities in Central California, and from Vancouver, British Columbia into the U.S. Pacific Northwest.

FedEx Freight has accelerated delivery from three days to two days in many other cities. Overall, FedEx Freight has helped its customers who depend on fast-cycle logistics by improving service standards in more than 1,000 U.S. lanes in the past year.

FedEx National LTL, provider of long-haul LTL services, has adopted a strictly scheduled line-haul operation to enhance reliability. Like FedEx Freight, FedEx National LTL employs advanced information systems that support internal planning and provide shipment visibility to customers. These improvements benefit customers with planned inventory replenishment. FedEx National LTL was created in September 2006 when FedEx acquired the business assets of the former Watkins Motor Lines.

In addition to expanding its domestic portfolio through FedEx National LTL, FedEx Freight is enhancing its Canadian service offerings with FedEx Freight Canada.

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Hongkong Post and China Post-Shenzhen Post Bureau launch Hong Kong-Shenzhen Direct Mail Service

Posted by | Jan 16, 2008 | |

Hongkong Post and China Post-Shenzhen Post Bureau today (January 16) jointly launched the Hong Kong-Shenzhen Direct Mail Service.
The service has been introduced in response to market demand for more efficient communication between Hong Kong and Shenzhen as a result of the increasingly prosperous social and economic interaction between the two places. Business enterprises of both regions can use the new service to develop cross-border business opportunities.
The implementation of the Individual Visit Scheme and the Mainland and Hong Kong Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA) since 2004 has made the Mainland the biggest tourism market of Hong Kong. According to the statistics of the Hong Kong Tourism Board, there were 14 million Mainland visitors in 2006, within which Shenzhen contributed 47.2 pct, or more than six million visitors. The business as well as consumer demand for leisure, entertainment and shopping has continued growing, bringing tremendous business opportunities to business enterprises of both regions.
To introduce the new service, Hongkong Post and China Post-Shenzhen Post Bureau today jointly held a seminar on “How Direct Mail Can Help Companies Grasp the Cross-border Business Opportunities with Mainland China” at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre followed by the Agreement Signing Ceremony.

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Nokia factory closure could hit DHL jobs (Germany)

Posted by | Jan 16, 2008 | |

Jobs may be lost at DHL due to the closure of a Nokia mobile phone production plant at Bochum in north-west Germany.

The Finnish company announced yesterday it will shut down its Bochum factory due to high operating costs and transfer production to Finland and lower-cost sites in Romania and Hungary. Some 2,300 employees will lose their jobs.

But a further 2,000 jobs at a range of Nokia suppliers and sub-contractors in the region are also in danger, according to German media reports. The locally-based Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung reported that DHL is considering lying off staff as a result of the factory closure.

“When the Nokia factory closes, then it may be that jobs at DHL disappear as well,” a DHL spokesman cited. Some 200 DHL staff work directly with Nokia, and are responsible for shipping mobile phones to various destinations.

Nokia is an important international customer for DHL Express which handles transportation and delivery of the high-value mobile phones in various markets around the world.

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DHL considers U.S. future

Posted by | Jan 16, 2008 | |

Deutsche Post will likely unveil plans for its problem-plagued DHL business in the United States on March 6, say analysts.

When the German parent company releases its earnings report, losses are expected for the express unit which lags behind UPS and FedEx in the U.S. market.

In December, Bear Stearns called for the German parent company to “back away from U.S. domestic express.” In last month’s report, Bear Stearns analyst Andrew Beh called on Deutsche Post management to “reconsider its strategy to become a global express operation offering international and domestic service in all major markets under an integrated brand and service umbrella.”

This month another investment analyst, Morgan Stanley, also made a rare direct call for a DHL pull out, saying Deutsche Post needed to make the move in order to make its own financial projections.

Deutsche Post and DHL say they remain committed to their U.S. operations.

“The U.S. is an important market in our commitment to offer a truly global service network,” DHL said in a statement. “As the world’s leading Express and Logistics company, the U.S. is strategically important to the Group both as a stand-alone market and as a high-performance extension of our global service platform.”

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DHL Ireland profits plunged 200pc in 2006

Posted by | Jan 16, 2008 | |

The Irish wing of distribution giant DHL endured a profit fall of more than 200pc in 2006, despite a marginal increase in turnover to EUR 163m.
Figures just filed with the Companies Office show the earnings plunge was largely linked to exceptional costs, including EUR 1.354m for redundancy and relocation costs.
Those costs were linked to DHL’s 2007 move to a new distribution centre in north Dublin.
One of Ireland’s largest private distributors, DHL employed 795 people at the end of 2006, down from 843 the previous year.
The company achieved sales of EUR 163m for the year, up from 2005’s result of EUR 157m. Operating profit, however, tumbled from EUR 5.417m in 2005 to EUR 2.885m in 2006, on foot of higher costs.
A higher interest and tax bill put further pressure on the company’s bottom line, which ultimately delivered profits of EUR 1.16m for the year, down from EUR 4.468m the previous year.
The company’s directors noted the year’s performance was “in line with expectations and in line with overall performance of the Irish market”.
The accounts also detail a EUR 20.2m loan which was advanced to DHL in 2006 by ultimate parent company Deutsche Post AG, and a EUR 559,000 pension refund which will be treated in the 2007 filings.
During the year, the company’s four directors saw their own remuneration drop by more than 18pc to EUR 346,000, while average staff costs rose by about EUR 1,500 to EUR 47,500.
DHL Ireland closed the year with equity shareholders funds of EUR 12.1m, up from EUR 10.3m in 2005, and retained profits of more than EUR 10m.

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US Postal Service needs more autonomy

Posted by | Jan 16, 2008 | |

The U.S. Postal Service is hurt more than it is helped by its status as a government entity, the Federal Trade Commission said in a study released on Wednesday.
Federal constraints, such as restrictions on the postal service’s ability to manage its labor force and configure its network, increase its costs by an estimated USD 330 million to USD 782 million a year, the FTC found.
The FTC report recommended that Congress reduce constraints on the postal service, narrow the scope of its monopoly, and make the postal service’s competitive products division a separate corporate entity.
The service does enjoy a monopoly on the delivery of items such as personal letters, bills and advertisements.
The postal service also benefits from being exempt from certain state and local requirements such as taxes and licensing, it said. The FTC estimated the value of these implicit subsidies range from USD 39 million to USD 117 million a year for the postal service’s competitive products operations.
Overall, the FTC said the postal service’s government- related benefits and restrictions hurt the entire competitive mail industry by distorting the market.
Legal constraints cause the postal service to use more resources to create its products, but the higher costs are partially masked from consumers by the service’s legal advantages.
These distortions mean more resources are used to produce the current volume of mail products than is necessary.
The postal service, which handled 212 billion pieces of mail and earned nearly USD 75 billion in fiscal 2007, has struggled in recent years because of increased competition from commercial rivals such as FedEx Corp and United Parcel Service Inc and because of the growing use of the Internet.

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Royal Mail offers chocolate mailpacks (UK)

Posted by | Jan 16, 2008 | |

Royal Mail is stepping up its efforts to get companies to use direct mail by creating a new personalised mailpack made entirely of chocolate.

The pack aims to demonstrate to businesses the benefits of enhancing brand communications by engaging more senses through direct mail initiatives with its own chocolate mailing.

It includes an engraved personalised message and a brochure with a heat-sensitive cover. The ‘chocolate letter’, created by Proximity London, demonstrates the sensory experience of direct mail, and also gives examples of best-practice sensory direct mail from around the world.

The campaign follows Royal Mail’s partnership with Brand Sense, the sense branding specialists, to develop a solution which will enable brand managers to connect with customers to engage three or more of the senses through direct mail.

The “chocolate letter” pack is being sent to senior marketers at 1,000 of the top UK businesses and their creative agencies. It aims to demonstrate how direct mail is more effective than any other channel in engaging all five senses by creating emotional and more profitable connections with customers.

Royal Mail head of media development Antony Miller says: “Direct mail has for a long time been typecast as a predominantly response driven marketing medium by many. So, with this campaign we really wanted to shatter this misconception and demonstrate the flexibility of the medium by showing how it can enhance brand engagement and build deep and meaningful relationships with consumers.”

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