Author: Archive

Post Office broadband service to be launched under deal with BT

Posted by | May 17, 2007 | |

The Post Office will launch a broadband service later this year under a strategic partnership with BT Wholesale, it was announced today.

The agreement marks a key step in the Post Office’s drive to expand its range of services and products to generate new revenues to support the branch network by helping replace lost income from a decline in its traditional business.

“The agreement provides the platform to enhance the Post Office’s existing HomePhone service while offering customers some of the best deals in the market for both voice and internet broadband services.”

Under the four-year deal, BT Wholesale will provide an integrated range of telephony and broadband services.

It builds further on the Post Office’s growing range of new services and products, including car and home insurance, Instant Saver accounts, the Post Office credit card and personal loans, as well as increasing sales of foreign currency and travel insurance.

The first benefits from the agreement will be unveiled next month when Post Office HomePhone launches a new price and service package that will strengthen further its existing competitive offering. HomePhone has already won 400,000 customers with the lowest line rental prices of any major provider if payment is by direct debit, along with itemised billing, and discounts against favourite numbers.

Work is already underway by the Post Office to launch a broadband service in the autumn that will compete head to head with the major players in the market.

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Berlin mayor presents DHL GoGreen parcel to Bill Clinton

Posted by | May 17, 2007 | |

During the Large Cities Climate Summit in New York City on May 16th, Klaus Wowereit, Mayor of Berlin, met with former President Bill Clinton to present him with a DHL GoGreen carbon-neutral parcel containing cultural gifts from Berlin. The parcel was among more than a dozen that DHL transported to New York City from Berlin using its unique GoGreen service. DHL is the first logistics provider to offer customers the option to help offset emissions stemming from their shipments by paying a small voluntary fee. The DHL verified Carbon Management system guarantees that the money is invested in internal and external carbon-reduction projects such as alternative fuel vehicles, solar cells and reforestation projects. Launched in Europe in late 2006, DHL intends to expand the GoGreen service to other regions including the United States over the next few years. President Clinton was the principal speaker at the Climate Summit that evening.

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2,500 UK Post Offices will close

Posted by | May 17, 2007 | |

As expected Alistair Darling has confirmed there will be 2,500 compensated post office closures over the next 18 months. This will leave a post office network by spring 2009 of about 11,800 post offices.

Millie Banerjee, Chair of the watchdog for postal services, Postwatch, gave the following reaction to the news:

“This will not be a popular decision. But there is a broad consensus amongst those who have been considering the future of post offices that quite severe pruning is necessary if the remaining network is to be sustainable.

“Fewer customer visits and losses of over GBP 200 million a year meant action was needed. It is welcome that the government has confirmed today that financial support in excess of GBP 1.5 billion will be available up to 2011.

“We wanted the government to take a decision and to provide the missing strategic guidance. It is now down to Post Office Limited to work with Postwatch, MPs, local authorities and customers to implement the decision and to maintain as far as possible customer access to post offices services. We welcome the introduction of 500 alternative post offices in place of their bricks and mortar counterparts. These alternative mobile, part-time or co-located solutions provide local access at far less cost.

“Customers will be concerned to know if their local office is under threat. At this early stage no-one knows which offices will be proposed for closure. An announcement will be made once the closure consultation plan and timetable are finalised.

“I am sure customers will recognise that it is better for closures to be planned rather than unplanned: Unplanned closures could have led to some areas having no access at all to post office services.

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GBP 1.7bn investment to keep Post Office network national

Posted by | May 16, 2007 | |

Investment, stronger protections for local communities and more outreach services are at the centre of the Government’s GBP 1.7 billion proposals to maintain a national Post Office network and put it on a sustainable footing for the e-mail age.

Responding to the wide consultation undertaken since the December 2006 statement, Trade and Industry Secretary Alistair Darling has announced the Government has strengthened further the protections for customers in rural and remote areas and widened the areas that will qualify for special protections for deprived urban communities.

With widespread acceptance that the current size of the network is unsustainable and losses rising to GBP 4 million every week, despite an annual subsidy of GBP 150 million and total investment of GBP 2 billion since 1999, it will be for Post Office Ltd to draw up local area plans within the national framework. That will be done with input from local authorities, MPs, the consumer protection body Postwatch and subpostmasters, for consultation with local people.

Postwatch will also monitor future decisions on the shape and size of the network to ensure Post Office Ltd continues to comply with the national framework.

In the longer term, the Government is working on proposals to devolve greater responsibility for future decisions on post offices to a local level, and will investigate what role local authorities and the devolved administrations could play in decisions on future services and funding.

The strategy announced today does not include decisions on individual post offices. These will be taken by Post Office Ltd after their local area consultations.

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Federal Government hires Dutch firm to manage NIPOST

Posted by | May 16, 2007 | |

The Federal Government has engaged the services of Nethpost Consult of The Netherlands to reposition Nigeria Postal Service for profitability and viability over the next two years.

Postmaster-General of the Federation, Malam Ibrahim Mori Baba whose address was read by Mr. Enoch Ade Ogun at the NIPOST South Eastern zonal awards hosted by the Abia State postal territory yesterday, explained that with the development, the organization would no longer tolerate indolence and frivolity on the part of staff.

According to him, there is therefore the need for every staff to redouble his/her efforts in making NIPOST dream a reality and implored them to rise up to the challenges.

He noted that the reform policies of the Federal Government of divesting from public corporations, including NIPOST, has made it imperative for the organization to look inwards for survival, adding that the NIPOST management in conjunction with consultants engaged by the Bureau for Public Enterprises (BPE), has painstakingly commenced the systematic restructuring of the services of the organization in order to reposition it towards realizing its full potentials.

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Remote post offices could avoid the axe

Posted by | May 16, 2007 | |

Post offices in some of the most remote parts of Britain could be spared from closing in a late rethink by ministers.

But the move, understood to help areas of Scotland in particular, will lead to suspicions that Labour is trying to revive its battered fortunes in Gordon Brown’s homeland.

Alistair Darling, the Trade and Industry Secretary, will confirm tomorrow that about 2,500 post offices will have to shut over the next 18 months.

Mr Darling is expected to tell MPs that, with many branches struggling to attract any business, the current UK-wide network of more than 14,000 post offices must be slimmed down to about 12,000.

He is poised to confirm the scale of the closure programme, first outlined last December, despite presiding over a consultation process that produced more than 2,500 responses.

Mr Darling will attempt to soften the blow by confirming a compensation package likely to be worth on average pounds 60,000 for each branch that has to shut.

He will also confirm that as part of a pounds 1.7 billion investment between now and 2011, there will also be an annual subsidy of pounds 150 million to help the remaining post offices most at risk.

Even after tomorrow’s announcement, people in particular parts of the country will have to wait up to 18 months to find out if their branch is doomed under lengthy local consultation processes to be overseen by Post Office Ltd.

But last night, Government sources hinted that in one concession, Mr Darling, who also represents a Scottish constituency, would issue amended guidance to protect branches from closure in more inaccessible parts of the UK.

A well-placed source suggested last night that the Highlands of Scotland in particular would probably benefit from the change.

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Japan Post expects FY 2006 profit on mail service instead of loss+

Posted by | May 16, 2007 | |

Japan Post said Wednesday its mail service will likely register a net profit of several billion yen for the year through March, up from the 27.9 billion yen loss projected last November.

The black-ink figure is expected to top the 2.6 billion yen profit booked in the preceding year, thanks to increased turnover of the parcel delivery service and cost reductions, the public postal corporation said.

The fiscal 2006 earnings results will be announced May 23 after data has been finalized, according to Japan Post.

The mail service posted a net loss of 71.4 billion yen in the six months through September, as regular mail traffic decreased while personnel and other costs rose.

The service typically sees strong revenue in the second half of a business year because of delivery of New Year cards.

But Japan Post disbursed considerable costs, including investment in computer networks in preparation for the postal system privatization due to start in October. This led the company last November to expect the mail service to plunge into the red.

However, parcel deliveries increased and privatization costs were curbed in the second half of the fiscal year, enabling Japan Post’s mail service to stay in the black for four years in a row since the establishment of the corporation.

The postal savings business is expected to have suffered a sharp profit fall in fiscal 2006 after it made a substantial profit in the previous year from equity investment.

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TNT to cooperate with independent study of reorganisation plans

Posted by | May 16, 2007 | |

TNT NV will cooperate with an independent study of plans for a major reorganisation, the company said.

The study was requested by several labour unions and a works council within TNT post that are seeking clarification on the restructuring, one of the largest in Dutch history.

Acknowledging that ‘it is common for social partners to get a ‘second opinion’ study done on complex and thorough reorganisations’, TNT said the Boston Consulting Group would carry out the independent investigation, which is expected to reach completion in June.

Last month TNT faced the possibility of a rare showdown with ‘shocked’ unions after announcing plans to cut between 6,500 and 7,000 jobs from its total global staff of 80,000.

The company, which is restructuring amid increased competition, had previously said 11,000 jobs would go.

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