Author: Archive

FedEx switches partners in Russia

Posted by | Aug 7, 2007 | |

FedEx has dropped its Russian partner Emex and signed a new Global Service Partner (GSP) contract with transport group Major. Russia is developing into a more important market for FedEx.

The new Russian GSP is Major Express, the express division of the freight transport group Major and founded in 2003. The Major group, created in 1998, is represented all over Russia with 90 regional offices and 2,500 sites, and offers a wide range of freight transport by road, rail, air and sea. According to information on its website, Major is an exclusive partner of air freight forwarder Expeditors, gained an ISO 2001 certificate in 2006 and joined FIATA and IATA in February 2007.

FedEx would work with Major and also other Russian transport firms to broaden its network in the country.

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DHL (Bahrain) appoint new Country Manager

Posted by | Aug 7, 2007 | |

DHL has announced the appointment of Nour Suliman, an industry veteran, as the new Country Manager.

Suliman will take the responsibility of driving the efforts toward developing the service portfolio offered by DHL. Addressing a press conference in Riyadh, Suliman spoke at length about his new mission and said: “I’m honored to move to the biggest and one of the fastest growing markets in the region. Certainly my new position will bring about its own challenges of the Saudi market, which is completely different from other markets of the world in terms of business, its volume, customer needs and high-rhymed growth”.

After joining the customer service department at DHL in Bahrain in 1978, Suliman held several senior management positions in different DHL locations including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE and Bahrain.

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Allied Capital Announces Buyout of Worldwide Express

Posted by | Aug 7, 2007 | |

Allied Capital Corporation announced today that it has completed the buyout of Worldwide Express Inc., (“WWEX”), a leading reseller in the U.S. of DHL express and ground shipping services to the small and medium-sized business market, with a USD 15.7 million subordinated debt and equity investment. Management of WWEX also made a significant debt and equity investment alongside Allied Capital. Third party lenders provided all of the senior financing and the majority of the subordinated debt for the deal.

Worldwide Express is the largest master franchisor of DHL shipping services in the U.S., with approximately 150 franchisees serving over 60,000 small business customers nationwide. The reseller model is used by DHL to penetrate the highly fragmented small and medium-sized business (SMB) market with a direct, high-touch sales strategy. WWEX supports this strategy by providing its franchisees access to over 200 days of sales and marketing training per year, recruiting and operational support, in addition to localized service, customized billing solutions, and pricing discounts to its customers.

Fidus Partners served as advisor to WWEX in the transaction.

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FedEx targets double-digit growth in Central and Eastern Europe

Posted by | Aug 7, 2007 | |

FedEx Express is targeting double-digit growth in Germany and the rest of its Central and Eastern Europe region, and does not exclude further acquisitions to achieve its goals, senior executives told CEP-Research. The integrator will continue to focus on international air express and does not plan to enter the German domestic market, however.

“We are on an expansion path. We want to be the preferred partner for international time-definite shipments,” said Michael Mühlberger, FedEx Express Vice President Operations Central and Eastern Europe, in an interview. He was speaking after the press conference to announce the transfer of FedEx’s Central and Eastern Europe hub from Frankfurt to Cologne in 2010.

FedEx had invested strongly in Eastern Europe in recent years, setting up own organisations in Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary and launching own flights to the three countries, he noted. In other countries, it is represented by Global Service Partners (GSP).

In future, FedEx wanted stronger links with these partners. “For those partners where we are convinced about their quality, we want to bind them with strong contracts or through acquisitions,” Mühlberger said. Following the recent acquisition of Hungarian partner Flying Cargo, however, no other acquisitions were currently pending, he stressed.

FedEx was seeing a trend for some industries that had set up production in countries such as Poland and the Czech Republic to respond to rising cost levels there by moving further east towards cheaper countries such as Romania, he noted.

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MailExpress Secures USD 15 Million Series B Funding

Posted by | Aug 7, 2007 | |

MailExpress, Inc., the leading provider of services focused solely on expedited mail, today announced that it has closed its series B round of funding for USD 15 million. XAnge Capital led the financing, which includes additional investments from first round investors CMEA Ventures and Logispring. MailExpress will use the investment to complete the nationwide network and technology rollout needed to handle the dramatic growth in demand for its expedited mail services.

The funding comes on the heels of the company having just announced the opening of its seventh new facility of 2007, an operation in Atlanta. Additional facility openings are planned to meet continued growth in demand for its services, which helps companies to realize faster speed, higher accuracy, increased flexibility and lower cost than First Class Mail. As a result, clients representing corporate marketers, ad agencies, financial services firms, as well as direct distributors of lightweight parcels have been drawn to the business improvements they can realize through MailExpress. This growth prompted follow-up investments from Logispring and CMEA Ventures.

Marcel Timmer, a Partner at investor Logispring, commented, “We are very pleased with the success that we believe MailExpress will continue to enjoy. It demonstrates the power of combining cutting-edge technology with long standing operating models, in a collaboration between strong entrepreneurs and domain-focused investors.”

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DHL recognized for industry-leading customer service at ‘Contact Center Awards 2007’

Posted by | Aug 7, 2007 | |

DHL Japan was honored with the Silver Award at the ‘Contact Center Awards 2007’, an industry peer recognition program for and by businesses for outstanding contact center initiatives. Organized by RIC Telecom’s Computer Telephony magazine with the support of e-Partners, the Awards have been held annually since 2004.

DHL Japan won the Silver Award for its case study The Road to Becoming ‘A Center that Guarantees Every Incoming Call is Answered’, which also garnered a Productivity Award for activities contributing to productivity enhancement. This is the second year DHL Japan has won a main award at the ‘Contact Center Awards’, as well as the third consecutive year it has received a Category Award, following selection for the Productivity Award in 2005 and the Profit Award in 2006.

DHL Japan was recognized for the process leading up to its achievement of the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) established for each of its contact centers. These KPIs include answering at least 90 pct of all calls within 10 seconds, and maintaining a hang up rate — the percentage of all incoming calls abandoned by the caller before communication with an operator is established — of no greater than 0.1 pct of all incoming calls that ring for more than 15 seconds.

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US e-retail sales have climbed 23 pct in a year

Posted by | Aug 7, 2007 | |

The comScore report on US e-commerce spending for Q2 2007 showed that non-travel (i.e. retail) e-commerce grew by 23pct compared to one year ago, reaching some US$27.2 billion.
Over the same period, online travel spending increased by only 14pct to USD 20.3 billion, and total US e-commerce spending climbed an average of 19pct to reach USD 47.5 billion during the year. fmansilla This article is copyright 2007 TheWiseMarketer.com).
E-retail rebounding

According to Gian Fulgoni, chairman for comScore, “Retail e-commerce rebounded solidly in the second quarter after a modest start to the year. After posting 17pct growth year-on-year in Q1 2007, retail e-commerce sales grew by 23pct year-on-year in Q2 2007, continuing to match the growth rates seen over the past couple of years.”
The top-gaining e-commerce category in Q2 2007 was video games, consoles & accessories, which jumped by 159 pct on the strength of Nintendo Wii and PlayStation 3 sales. Sport & fitness also saw substantial gains (up 58 pct), followed by consumer electronics (up 51pct ) and event tickets (up 44pct ).
US e-spending forecast

Total US online consumer spending reached USD 170.8 billion in 2006, with non-travel spending accounting for USD 102.1 billion of that. Based on the first-half growth rates for 2007, total US online consumer spending is forecast to reach a milestone of USD 200 billion in 2007.
“Even factoring in the moderate growth rates from Q1 2007, we are currently on target to break the USD 200 billion mark in 2007,” explained Fulgoni. “However, in the past, we have seen growth rates accelerate as the year progresses, culminating with the online holiday shopping season, so the USD 200 billion forecast may even turn out to be a conservative estimate.”

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New deal for British Gas bill and prepayment customers at the Post Office

Posted by | Aug 7, 2007 | |

Post Office Ltd and British Gas have signed a new deal running to the end of December 2010, which allows British Gas customers to continue to benefit from the convenience of paying for and towards their Gas and Electricity at Post Office branches.

The agreement will enable five million British Gas customers to pay for their quarterly bills by cash, cheque or debit card at any of the UK’s 14,000 Post Office branches. Around 99 per cent of the UK population lives within three miles of a Post Office branch.

Customers can also continue to save towards their quarterly bill by making regular payments using their British Gas payment card in Post Office branches. Furthermore British Gas customers can also continue to credit their gas prepayment meters at all Post Office branches and, at 7,500 branches equipped with the Post Office pay station terminal, add credit to their electricity key meters.

Over 24 million people visit the Post Office each week and last year there were 270 million bill payment transactions made for a wide range of utilities and local councils. Five million British Gas customers pay their quarterly bills at the Post Office every year and a further one million pre-pay towards their bill. It’s free to pay almost any bill at the Post Office.

In addition to paying bills, customers can access a wide range of other services at their local Post Office, such as banking and financial services including free cash access over the counter, travel services including travel insurance, passports and commission-free currency, and mail and postal services.

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