UPS Business Monitor 2007 – Canada
UPS Business Monitor 2007 – Canada
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Postcode profiling
A postcode can tell you a lot about your customers but too many retailers ignore this valuable source of demographic information
Most online businesses are content to grab email details for customers and use this as the basis of their subsequent email marketing, while a few others take it one step further and use the email address along with purchase information to slice-and-dice their lists. However there’s a host of information available from the users postcode that many retailers just throw away.
There are a host of statistical packages available to companies trading online which provide information on website visitor activity. These can show invaluable data such as number of visits, referring sites, keyword searches used, and hits by week, day and hour. However, without the use of lengthy surveys at point of purchase, which may put some buyers off, there is no way of finding out useful customer information.
Customer profiling and location planning consultancy Cartogen
(www.cartogen.co.uk) have come up with a solution to this problem. The Brighton based consultancy is making detailed consumer profiling available to Ecommerce businesses throughout the UK. Cartogen’s advanced systems can provide demographic, lifestyle and behavioural information based solely on postcode.
Cartogen uses Eurodirect’s CAMEO profiling system which assigns every UK postcode to one of ten groups and, within those, 57 categories. Available information includes brand preferences, leisure activities, newspaper readership and holiday destinations along with a wealth of other geodemographic and financial data. Standard information such as age, sex, housing type and income are also available. All that is required is the customer postcode, which is supplied with every transaction.
Cartogen’s service has helped a number of offline businesses in their customer profiling and marketing processes, clients including Shell Gas and Yates’s Wine Lodge, and now the company plans to change the way online retailers use their customer data.
For an annual fee companies can have their customer database profiled on a monthly basis. The service is described as “very affordable”.
Read MoreUPS names new District Executive
Jill Schubert, a 27-year veteran of UPS, has been named the Vice President of operations for the company’s Minnesota District. In her new role, Schubert will be responsible for more than 5,000 employees and 30 facilities throughout the state.
Schubert most recently managed UPS’s South Illinois District.
Schubert began her UPS career in 1980 as a driver helper. In 1981, she began progressing through a variety of jobs in the Rocky Mountain District. She was promoted in 1999 to air division manager, later serving as a package division manager. In 2002, she moved to the Missouri District as a package division manager before joining UPS Supply Chain Solutions in 2004.
Schubert succeeds Romaine Seguin, who has accepted the position of South Europe District Manager based in Milan.
Read More"Mail of Russia" receives payments to collector agency
“Mail of Russia” has begun reception of payments which are carried out by physical persons by means of the postal order “CyberMoney”, to the address of the Joint-Stock Company “Sequoia Credit Consolidation”. It is spoken about in the joint report of the companies.
The given service is accessible in all post offices of Russia. “Sequoia Credit Consolidation” will inform the borrowers who will have an opportunity to pay off the duty through “Mail of Russia”, additionally.
“Mail of Russia” is the network of federal mail service including 84 branches, 42 thousand departments of mail service. The company renders services in all territory of Russia, including cities and rural settlements. Incomes in January-June, 2007 in comparison with the parameter of the similar period of the last year have increased up 26 pct and have exceeded 30mlrd rbl. The pure loss of “Mail of Russia” in 2007, on preliminary data, will make 5.7mlrd rbl.
The Joint-Stock Company “Sequoia Credit Consolidation” – collector agency – works in the Russian market since 2004. The company renders banks, not bank credit organizations, insurance, telecommunication companies the service on return of clients’ – physical and legal persons- debts, works in 30 cities of the Russian Federation, in 12 from which its branches are opened.
Read MoreAustrian Post and trans-o-flex set course for expansion in Europe
Austrian Post and its German logistics subsidiary trans-o-flex will continue pursuing an expansion course in Germany and Europe, with the intention of acquiring additional companies. This was announced by Anton Wais, Chairman of the Management Board of Austrian Post, and Klaus J. Heinz, Speaker of the Management Board of trans-o-flex, speaking at a joint press conference in Frankfurt today.
Enhancement in the value of the trans-o-flex brand
“trans-o-flex offers an ideal strategic platform for the further international expansion of Austrian Post”, Anton Wais says in commenting on the joint strategy. “We will further exploit the success of trans-o-flex as a brand and increase its value. We affirm our complete support for the company and its management in their efforts to continue pursuing the business strategy which has been mapped out, attracting customers through innovative industry solutions and quality leadership”, he adds. As a consequence of the acquisition of a 74,9 % stake in trans-o-flex at the end of 2006, Austrian Post has been able to considerably strengthen its Parcel & Logistics Division, promote the market entry into the B2B parcels segment in Austria (shipments among companies), and accelerate its international expansion efforts. The formal closing of the transaction involving the acquisition of the companies “Van Osselaer Pieters Colli Service” (VOP) in Belgium and “Dedicated Distribution Services” (DDS) in the Netherlands first took place on October 1, 2007. “These firms will be integrated into EURODIS, the European distribution network of trans-o-flex, as soon as possible, as a step towards strengthening the network”, Anton Wais says. VOP and DDS are former trans-o-flex subsidiaries, which had been acquired by DHL in the interim.
Unique selling proposition: clear-cut sectoral focus and combined freight
“With these partners, trans-o-flex will be able to decisively expand its market position in the Benelux region, which is very important for our customers”, adds trans-o-flex CEO Klaus Heinz. “Together we will profit from the above-average growth in international mail volumes”. In the light of tough competition in the European logistics market, trans-o-flex will continue its strategy of achieving “controlled, profitable growth”, consistently taking advantage of the company’s distinguishing features. trans-o-flex is the only large logistics provider with a clear-cut focus on particular branches. In addition, as a provider of “combi-freight” services, it is able to offer customers extremely flexible service under one roof, through the combined transport of good either as parcels or pallets. The company’s core branches are the pharmaceutical, health care, cosmetic, consumer electronics and home entertainment industries with special logistics requirements. “We are the undisputed market leader for the pharmaceutical and health care sectors, and want to stay the number one”, Heinz says. “With our latest innovations, we clearly demonstrated how we even intend to expand our market position”.
Innovation on behalf of the pharmaceutical industry
trans-o-flex recently launched a new service which makes it the very first logistics company enabling its customers to meet the increasingly stringent legal requirements pertaining to the transportation and storage of medical products. The “ThermoControl” premium service, available starting in November, will enable drug manufacturers for the first time to fulfil the stipulations contained in the new German Ordinance on the Production of Pharmaceuticals and Active Substances (AMWHV), requiring the ongoing monitoring and documentation of critical parameters. Specially-designed equipment measures and records temperature and air humidity throughout the entire transport process. Two light emitting diodes optically indicate whether or not the selected temperature range has been kept. If, for example, the temperature range has been exceeded or fallen below, the goods will
DHL relocates in Kandy
DHL Keells (Pvt) Ltd, Sri Lanka’s leading express and logistics company, has relocated its Express Centre in Kandy. Strategically located at D. S. Senanayake Vidiya, this facility sports a trendy new look and feel, and is modelled after the concept of a walk-in retail outlet where customers can drop off their shipments.
The Kandy Express Centre offers a range of products and services including Jumbo Box and Express Pallet targeted at a rapidly expanding retail customer base. It is a convenient, accessible and user-friendly outlet targeted at individuals, tourists and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Kandy and surroundings areas in central Sri Lanka, the company said.
DHL’s expanding network in Sri Lanka currently includes Colombo, Kollupitiya, Ja-Ela, Mt. Lavinia, Biyagama, Kandy, Kurunegala and Nugegoda. Dudek added that the Sri Lankan retail customer base has always given exciting growth opportunities.
During the last four years, DHL Keells (Pvt) Ltd. has made a considerable investment towards the development of its infrastructure and facilities in Sri Lanka. Among them is the purpose-built Euro 2 million (Rs 260 million), 40,000-square-feet facility at Vauxhall Street in Colombo which houses 130 staff for both the administration and operations arms of DHL Express in Sri Lanka, as well as a 24/7 call centre.
We plan to expand this service coverage into key cities across Sri Lanka, especially tourist spots, as we see the potential of new customers in tourists, mid and high end Sri Lankan customers, as well as SME customers.” Dudek said.
Read MoreFedEx warns over slowdown
Fred Smith, the chief executive of FedEx, the logistics giant, has warned that global growth will not be enough to counter a US slowdown, raising doubts over corporate America’s ability to export its way out of a sluggish domestic economy.
The warning from Mr Smith, a respected business leader whose company is both a gauge and a beneficiary of globalisation, will deepen investor pessimism over the prospect that the world economy could “decouple” and survive a US downturn unscathed.
In an interview with the Financial Times in which he also indicated he would like his successor to come from within FedEx, Mr Smith dismissed suggestions that the rapid pace of economic development in emerging markets would offset a US slowdown.
“Growth elsewhere helps cushion the shock but nothing can displace a slowdown in the US,” he said. “I don’t care how optimistic people are about China or anything else, [the US] is still 25 per cent of the world’s economic activity so when it slows down it is going to have an effect.”
Three weeks ago, FedEx issued the second profit warning in a month, citing flagging demand for US freight and escalating fuel costs. The announcement confounded investors’ predictions that a weak dollar and resilient economies in the rest of the world could help multinationals buck a domestic downturn.
Read MoreAlgérie Poste has chosen Bull to modernize and make more secure its information systems
As part of the program of reforms undertaken by the Algeria Post Office (Algérie Poste) to improve and extend the services it offers, modernizing its information systems and making them more secure has become an increasingly vital imperative.
To achieve these aims, Algérie Poste has chosen to work with Bull – the European information systems architect to support the company in upgrading its information systems, and so successfully strengthen its policy of delivering ever more innovative solutions for its customers, with their constantly evolving requirements.
As one of Algérie Poste’s partners of choice, Bull has once again strengthened its position with the recent delivery of a highly-available hardware and software platform based on its NovaScale 7320 range of servers. This high-performance platform enables operations relating to the full range of Algérie Poste’s services to be processed uninterrupted, in real time.
With this new platform, Algérie Poste’s is able to offer new services to its customers, including, in particular: the possibility of opening a new CCP (postal check) account at a local post office, with no need for a preliminary application to the national postal order center; decentralization of CNEP (banking) operations, which are now available in all post offices; widespread computerization of all postal establishments with the aim of moving towards the development of an IPS (International Postal System) service, giving customers the possibility of tracking the movements and delivery of their mail via the Internet, as well as enabling the creation of a single, multipurpose kiosk.
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