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An Post's next-day delivery rate falls to 72%

Posted by | May 11, 2007 | |

Just 72 per cent of the standard mail handled by An Post last year reached its destination by the following day, according to figures published yesterday by ComReg.

This represented a decline of one percentage point on 2005 and is well below the 94 per cent next-day delivery target agreed by the State group with the regulator. The statistics also showed that 97 per cent of all mail was delivered within three working days, below the 99.5 per cent target set by ComReg.

In addition, just 70 per cent of mail posted in Dublin for delivery around the State reached its destination the next working day. This was down three percentage points on 2005.

The only positive for An Post came from figures for the final quarter of last year, which included the busy Christmas season, when next-day delivery service levels were up three points on the previous year.

News of the performance drew a sharp response from consumer representatives. Ann Fitzgerald, executive chair of the National Consumer Association, said she viewed the “poor service with concern”. She said the agency was seeking a meeting with ComReg to discuss the issue.

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DHL investigates the use of biodiesel for its fleet in the UK

Posted by | May 11, 2007 | |

A UK division of the international DHL logistics group, DHL Exel Supply Chain, has started to investigate the possibility of operating its delivery vehicles using 100% biodiesel.

DHL has undertaken this project in partnership with JD Wetherspoon and Argent Energy UK, a producer of biodiesel. The project will involve recycling and re-processing cooking oil, previously used to cook meals in Wetherspoons pubs, for further deliveries back into the pub estate.

Test runs on an initial trial vehicle will begin end of May to prove the feasibility and assess maintenance and operational requirements before rolling out the program to the wider distribution fleet.

Bill Bacon, National Account Director from DHL Exel Supply Chain said: “We are committed to being an environmentally responsible business and are always looking at innovative ways to create sustainable supply chains. This is a superb example of everyone’s collaboration into exploring new technologies and alternative fuels that could potentially lead the way into long term sustainability. As the leading provider of contract logistics services we have a responsibility to set best practise solutions to reduce the carbon footprint of our vehicles.”

Andy Hunter from Argent Energy, said: “We specialize in producing biodiesel by recycling by-products of other industries, specifically tallow and used cooking oil which are both by-products of the food industry. Our stringent quality assurance procedures ensure that all our output is of the highest quality and that we can produce biodiesel to customers’ precise specifications. More and more businesses are looking at ways to reduce their carbon footprint and we are delighted that our expertise has been called on in this innovative project.”

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Sharp suit with an iron hand in a woolly glove

Posted by | May 11, 2007 | |

The Guardian photographer is trying to make Adam Crozier relax. He tells him to loosen his shoulders and Crozier, sitting stiffly and gripping a Royal Mail mug, makes an effort to shrug a little. The photographer asks him to stand. “If you can get your back against the wall,” he says. Crozier does as he is told and looks like he is facing a firing squad.

I had first met Crozier some 12 years earlier, on the day he and Tamara Ingram were named joint chief executives of the advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi. Maurice and Charles Saatchi had just walked out and taken most of the senior staff and some of the biggest clients with them. Crozier was just 31 and looked even younger. The more energetic Ingram did much of the talking. Against the odds, they held the business together. She went on to carve out a successful career in advertising and now manages the USD 1bn Proctor & Gamble advertising account. But Crozier was the one to step further into the public eye. He was chairman of the Football Association at 36 and chief executive of the Royal Mail by 39.

It is an odd career path on paper – Crozier admits with a laugh that his CV might suggest he is someone who doesn’t know quite what he wants to do. But there are common threads. Each has involved periods of painful upheaval. A business studies student might call it change management. Each of them has also been high profile – he was a familiar fixture behind former England coach Sven-Goran Eriksson during FA press conferences – but still the spotlight makes him shudder. “I hate it,” he says in his soft Scottish accent. “Absolutely hate it. The bizarre thing about the last three jobs I’ve done is that I don’t like [the public profile] at all. I will go to enormous lengths not to do public things – because it is just not me.”

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Royal Mail fears exodus

Posted by | May 11, 2007 | |

The exodus of big business from the Royal Mail could see as many as one in five letters being handled by competitors such as Dutch group TNT and the UK Mail arm of courier group Business Post, it has emerged.

Senior Royal Mail executive Stephen Agar has admitted latest figures show that about 12.5% of the post was lost to the competition last year.

But with major customers continuing to ditch the Royal Mail at alarming rates, Agar said that figure could rise to 20%.

The defection of companies with major bulk billing operations to Royal Mail’s rivals has become increasingly embarrassing for the former state postal monopoly.

Earlier this year, the £8m-a-year BBC TV licensing operation took its postal needs to UK Mail, following an earlier decision by the Department of Works and Pensions to switch its £12m-a-year contract to the same operator.

That followed the decisions, recently revealed by the Evening Standard, of BT and British Gas group Centrica to move to TNT for their mail needs, together worth GBP 150m over three years.

Most of the mobile phone companies, banks and utilities have also decided to quit Royal Mail, citing price and quality of service.

Royal Mail chief executive Adam Crozier, pictured, today defended the business’s ability to handle competition.

‘We’ve gone through the process [of market liberalisation] that BT went through over 25 years,’ he said. ‘We’ve concertinaed it into three.’

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Online billing use is trending up

Posted by | May 11, 2007 | |

AT&T Inc. is counting on the latest postal rate increase to spur consumers to start using online billing services such as its own AT&T eBill service.
The company is pointing to a recent report by Forrester Research that it says demonstrates a trend in that direction in the market. The report predicts that the number of online billing users will grow by 63 percent to roughly 60 million households across the United States during the next five years.

“Customers are quickly realizing that online billing is a convenient and secure way to pay bills and a great way to simplify and streamline their payment process and needs,” says Jan Harralson, vice president, AT&T. “Customers are making it the preferred choice over the old fashioned, more time-consuming and costly method of writing a check, adding a stamp, mailing the bill and filing a paper copy.”

Harralson notes that more than 4 million AT&T customers currently use AT&T eBill to pay their bills online. The increase in customer adoption is due to the many benefits that online billing offers, he adds, including 24-hour, secure online access to current statements, payment options, and archived account histories.

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GLS ups profits, eyes Europe, express growth

Posted by | May 10, 2007 | |

GLS, Royal Mail’s European parcels company, again grew rapidly last year and is planning to expand in Southern Europe and broaden its portfolio with more express services, according to CEO Rico Back.

In 2006, the parcel logistics operator increased revenues by 8.7% to EUR 1,595 million and improved its operating profit (EBITA) by 15.4% to EUR 179.4 million, he told the German transport newspaper DVZ in an interview. Volumes grew by 6.9%, including an increase of 20.1% in cross-border shipments.

In the financial year ending March 31, 2006, GLS increased operating profits by 37% to GBP 100 million (EUR 146.8 million), its revenues rose 13.6% to GBP 1,037 million (EUR 1,522.6 million), and volumes grew 14% to 293 million parcels. GLS said in May 2006 that it aimed for turnover of EUR 1.6 billion in 2006/07.

Back said that he aimed to strengthen GLS’ business in Italy and Spain this year. In Italy, the operator is currently represented through a franchisee. Back recently told German media that GLS is in talks to acquire a Spanish company. A start-up business is planned in Romania.

The GLS chief executive also said that the operator planned to expand its express services this year but did not provide any further details. GLS launched a small air express operation last autumn, linking Germany and the UK, and said that this would be extended to more European countries.

Back told the DVZ that GLS had no plans to enter the German mail market once it was liberalised due to the dominance of Deutsche Post and mail substitution by electronic communications. “There is no growth there. That is why the mail market is unattractive really,” he said.

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QAS Launches QuickAddress Geocode to Enhance Business Data

Posted by | May 10, 2007 | |

QAS, an Experian® company announced the launch of a new data set solution, QuickAddress Geocode. QuickAddress Geocode references the PSMA’s* G-NAF (Geocoded National Address File), producing latitude and longitude coordinates for physical addresses. The key objective of this new solution is to provide the ultimate source for actual, physical address data.

The new data set solution is designed for and targeted at businesses which need sub-metre accuracy of addresses, such as telecommunications, government, insurance and transport organisations. For example, telecommunications companies can use this new data set to meet the needs of new compliance and legislation agreements, as well as locate service and fault breakdowns; government departments can use the new technology to assist in funding justifications, while emergency services can utilise the solution to verify exact locations for faster response times; insurance organisations can use QuickAddress Geocode to identify risk zones and allocate certain premiums; while logistic and transport companies can enhance their services through the use of QuickAddress Geocode to ensure the efficient delivery of goods and services.

Specific benefits of QuickAddress Geocode include verification and validation of physical addresses, spatial analysis, such as flood or bushfire zone impacts, and facilitation of map and visual presentation of address data.

Brendan O’Reilly, managing director Asia Pacific, QAS, states that the new data set solution is designed to benefit all areas of Australian business. “The QuickAddress Geocode solution gives companies access to pinpoint-accurate address data, enabling them to locate exact addresses very quickly, identify potential risk areas, and gain a visual representation of the address data. We anticipate the QuickAddress Geocode solution will be readily accepted in the Australian market.”

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German publishers interested in Sunday deliveries of Deutsche Post

Posted by | May 10, 2007 | |

German magazine and newspaper publishers are interested in the plans of Deutsche Post, the German postal service operator, to begin delivering on Sundays. The company has announced plans for a pilot project together with the publishers of ‘Spiegel’, the German weekly news magazine; the pilot phase, which will last for three months, is to begin in Dusseldorf on June 3 and in Hamburg on August 19. Around 30,000 copies of the magazine are expected to be delivered. If the pilot phase is successful, the project will then be extended to the whole of Germany.

German publishing group Burda says that it will have its magazine ‘Focus’, the closest rival of ‘Spiegel’, delivered on Sundays if Deutsche Post decides to make these services permanent. The publishers of German daily newspaper ‘Suddeutsche Zeitung’, who are considering the launch of a Sunday edition, are also interested. German publisher Axel Springer Verlag, which currently has a virtual monopoly on the market for Sunday deliveries, says that it intends to defend its position on the market.

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