Author: Archive

German postal workers protest market opening

Posted by | May 14, 2007 | |

Some 30,000 German postal workers protested in Berlin on Monday against the planned opening of the country’s postal services market to competition on January 1, 2008.

The Deutsche Post workers came from across the country to protest against opening the local market, a year before the planned liberalisation of the entire European postal market.

A spokeswoman for Germany’s Ver.di trade union, Cornelia Hass, said it was demanding that the German market be opened at the same time as those in the rest of the continent.

Ver.di has warned that doing so earlier could lead to the loss of jobs.
Deutsche Post holds a monopoly on the delivery of letters weighing less than 50 grammes.

After earlier waves of postal liberalisation in 1997 and 2002, the markets for the delivery of packages and letters weighing more than that are already open to competition.

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Parcelforce Worldwide extends its parcel redelivery service using advanced self-service technologies from Eckoh

Posted by | May 14, 2007 | |

Parcelforce Worldwide has significantly extended the scope of its contract with BT and Eckoh, one of Europe’s leading providers of outsourced automated solutions, with a series of innovative enhancements to its parcel redelivery service.

The new and enhanced service builds upon the automated speech recognition solution for redeliveries developed by Eckoh and BT and implemented by Parcelforce Worldwide earlier this year.

The extended redeliveries service will see Eckoh take responsibility for Parcelforce Worldwide’s entire end-to-end redeliveries support service, which includes management of the front end web interface, as well as co-ordinating customer instructions with Parcelforce Worldwide’s delivery depots and customer contact centres. With further developments planned for later this year, customers will soon have the convenience of making payments for additional service options, such as requesting a redelivery on a Saturday or to a different address, using a fully automated telephone based payment system.

The fully hosted service will provide a high level of consistency across all contact channels, whether web or telephone based. The overall solution utilises Eckoh’s extensive speech recognition expertise and self-service technology platform, but also leverages Eckoh’s substantial web design and deployment heritage, which now forms an integral part of the enhanced solution.

Eckoh expects to manage in excess of 1 million calls on behalf of Parcelforce Worldwide during 2007.

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MRS Distribution joins PalletFORCE

Posted by | May 14, 2007 | |

The West Lothian depot of transport company MRS Distribution Ltd has joined PalletFORCE, one of the country’s fastest growing palletised distribution networks, in the long-term interests of the company and its customers.

This is the first time that MRS has been part of a network, a decision driven by business development needs. “Sustainable business from Scotland is hard to find,” explains Commercial Director Ian Wilson, “and we needed a route to get our customers’ smaller consignments into England. Joining a network was the obvious answer.”

MRS Distribution was founded in 1975 and became a limited company in 1983. The company has 350 employees based at 13 locations across the UK.

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Postbank growth continues

Posted by | May 14, 2007 | |

In the first quarter of 2007, Deutsche Postbank AG improved further. Despite fiercer competition, it generated a pre-tax profit of EUR222 million, 7.2% up year-on-year. Adjusted for one-off costs, e.g. from the integration of BHW and VAT increase, the pre-tax profit rose by 13.9% to EUR246 million. The cost-income ratio improved by 1.8 percentage points to 69.4% against the comparative quarter in 2006. In the classical banking business, i.e. without Transaction Banking, the ratio declined by as much as 2.5 percentage points to 67.3%. The return on equity before tax rose from 16.1% to 17.0%. In the first three months, the Postbank Group gained more than 260,000 new customers, 17,000 more than in the first quarter of the previous year. It is thus on track to reach its objective of a million new customers in 2007.

The balance-sheet related revenues (net interest income, net trading income and net income from investment securities) moved up by 4.0% to EUR674 million in comparison to the equivalent quarter in the previous year. Net interest income rose by 5.2% to EUR543 million. Net trading income and net income from investment securities at EUR61 million and EUR70 million respectively remained stable against the equivalent quarter of the previous year.

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Total Online Sales Expected To Hit USD 259 Billion In 2007

Posted by | May 14, 2007 | |

As the Internet grows up, computers have moved over to make room for clothing at the top of the sales list. According to the first part of The State of Retailing Online 2007, the tenth annual Shop.org study conducted by Forrester Research, Inc. (Nasdaq: FORR) of 170 retailers, Americans last year spent more online on clothing than they did on computers for the first time in history. The report found the apparel, accessories, and footwear category reached USD 18.3 billion in 2006 and is expected to hit USD 22.1 billion in 2007. This year, 10 percent of all clothing sales are expected to occur online.

The report suggests that the apparel and accessories category has experienced strong sales because of an influx of new companies and liberal shipping policies such as free shipping on returns and exchanges. Additionally, apparel and accessories retailers are integrating new technologies onto their sites including rich imaging, where customers can zoom and rotate merchandise or see the item in different colors before buying, all of which eases the mind of a customer who is hesitant to purchase apparel online.

Computer hardware and software, long the frontrunner for nontravel online sales, moved into second place in 2006 at USD 17.2 billion, followed by sales of autos and auto parts (USD 16.7 billion) and home furnishings (USD 10 billion).

According to the report, 2007 online sales (including travel) are expected to rise 18 percent to USD 259.1 billion. Sales excluding travel will reach USD 174.5 billion. This strong growth will come off of an impressive performance in 2006. Online sales last year rose 25 percent to USD 219.9 billion. Excluding travel, online retail sales rose 29 percent to USD 146.5 billion, representing six percent of total retail sales in 2006.

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US magazine selects Postal Service Public-Sector 'Employer of the Year'

Posted by | May 14, 2007 | |

The nation’s first and only career-guidance and recruitment magazine for people with disabilities who are at undergraduate, graduate or professional levels has named the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) Public-Sector Employer of the Year.

In its current issue (Spring 2007), Careers & the disABLED magazine says the Postal Service received the award “for its progressive efforts to recruit, hire, and promote people with disabilities” and was selected as one of the top five employers for whom readers would most like to work or believe is progressive in the hiring of people with disabilities.

The Postal Service has many programs designed to ensure that all employees have an equal opportunity to compete in every aspect of employment. Careers & the disABLED magazine highlighted one in particular, Video Remote Interpreting (VRI) and Video Relay Service (VRS). These video interpreting services enable employees who are deaf or hard-of-hearing to communicate with supervisors, co-workers and others in real time as an alternative to on-site interpreters or text-based telephone systems. The VRI and VRS systems are now available to more than 1,100 deaf and hard-of-hearing postal employees.

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UPS Shareowners elect Board and reappoint Deloitte & Touche

Posted by | May 14, 2007 | |

Shareowners of UPS elected a Board of Directors for a one-year term and ratified the appointment of Deloitte & Touche LLP as the company’s independent registered public accountants.

Ten directors stood for election to the Board of Directors and all were overwhelmingly elected. The appointment of Deloitte & Touche to serve as the company’s independent auditors for 2007 also was ratified.

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US mail campaign "Have You Seen Me?" to announce changes

Posted by | May 14, 2007 | |

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), the United States Postal Service (USPS) and ADVO announced changes to the “Have You Seen Me?” mail program. Beginning May 14, photos of America’s missing children will be larger, in full color and prominently featured on page four of ADVO’s ShopWise mail circular. Previously, the photos were smaller and printed in black and white on a detached address label, familiar to most Americans as the white Missing Child Card they receive in the mail.

As a direct result of leads generated by the “Have You Seen Me?” program, 144 missing children to date have been safely recovered. According to NCMEC, photos are the number one tool parents and law enforcement officials have in their search for missing children. By featuring recent or age-progressed photos of missing children and their alleged abductors, the program empowers the American public to help safely recover missing children.

“ADVO has the power to reach 114 million American homes every month. Our expansive reach is why this public service program works. After more than 20 years of success, we’re excited to see this program evolve,” said Rob Mason, ADVO President. “These enhanced photos provide even more hope that these children will be found and reunited with their families.”

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