Author: Archive

Postal Service to invest USD 24 Mn in its modernisation

Posted by | Apr 25, 2007 | |

The Angolan National Post and Telecommunications Firm will invest USD 24 million until the year 2012, in the rehabilitation and modernisation of about 160 of its centres, throughout the country.

The information was given to Angop over the last weekend, in Dondo, northern Kwanza Norte Province, by the company`s administrator for the technical area, José Manuel de Almeida, who also informed that this investment is part of the institution`s steering plan, being implemented since 2004, aimed at improving their service to the public.

Under this plan, he said, nine provincial centres have already been rehabilitated and equipped, including the setting up of Internet services.

Two other centres are to be inaugurated, namely in Malanje and Huambo provinces.

José de Almeida revealed that the plan includes the signing of contracts with the Savings and Credit (BPC) bank, turned to the opening of counters to attend pensioners in areas that do not have banks and that depend on the postal and telecommunications service.

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Brazilian court suspends Correios night mail tender

Posted by | Apr 25, 2007 | |

A Brazilian commercial court has suspended a tender process by the country’s public postal operator, ECT (Empresa de Correios e Telegrafos), for night air mail services saying the bidding process was fraught with “consistent indications of irregularities“.

ECT launched a tender process for its overnight mail deliveries since its current contracts with Skymaster and Total airlines are about to run out. The court claims the BRL 132.7 million (EUR 49.7 million) contract is 60% over-valued and has suspended the tender while it seeks explanations from Correios executives.

There have been wide-ranging spate corruption allegations in Brazil over the over-valuing of public contracts and bribes paid to civil servants to secure them. ECT is one of the organisations under the spotlight, though it denies any wrongdoing by its employees.

Postal officials have been explaining to judge Raymond Path the complexities of its mail contracts, which are measured against aircraft use and the varying loads and load capacities on flights. ECT is now awaiting the verdict of the court on whether the tender procedure can be continued, albeit modified, or a new one should be launched.

The Brazilian press reported last year that ECT, tired of years of allegations over its outsourcing contracts, is considering launching its own air mail service through leased aircraft which might also, it believes, cut costs.

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DHL partners with Sandler & Travis Trade Advisory Services

Posted by | Apr 25, 2007 | |

DHL and Sandler & Travis Trade Advisory Services Inc. (STTAS) have announced their partnership to provide customs and trade compliance services. STTAS will work closely with DHL to provide operational services, including overall business process enhancement, tariff classification, compliance with government supply chain security initiatives, free trade agreement optimization, and customs training, to DHL’s importer/exporter clientele.

Earlier this month DHL announced the completion of its DHL Global Trade Services suite with the formation of its Trade Advisory Services division. The mission of DHL Global Trade Services is to assist both first time and experienced international shippers with facilitating cross-border trading. By offering trade advisory services and working with STTAS to provide technical expertise and operational consulting services, DHL completes its vision of offering a complete package of services to meet the demands of an increasingly complex international trade environment.

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U.S. Postal Service ramps up R&D of new technologies

Posted by | Apr 25, 2007 | |

The U.S. Postal Service is meeting its performance challenges head-on with a USD 51 million contract with Serco Inc., Vienna, Va., for engineering support services, including support for research and development of new technologies. The contract also provides for technical, project management and IT services, as well as quality assurance consulting work and testing and evaluation of future mail-processing equipment.

According to Walter O’Tormey, vice president, Engineering, the contract represents the Postal Service’s efforts to continually enhance and develop technologies that improve operational efficiencies and customer service and drive down costs.

“Being at the cutting-edge in mail-processing technology has enabled the Postal Service to greatly improve productivity and customer service in the past, and it will continue to do so in the future,” said O’Tormey. “The acquisition of these technical support services will help us do just that.”

The two-year base contract has four two-year options, bringing the potential contract value to USD 260 million over 10 years.

An independent federal agency, the U.S. Postal Service is the only delivery service that visits every address in the nation, 146 million homes and businesses, six days a week. It has 37,000 retail locations and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to pay for operating expenses, not tax dollars. The Postal Service has annual revenues of USD 73 billion and delivers nearly half the world’s mail.

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Adam Crozier calls for more efficiency

Posted by | Apr 25, 2007 | |

Adam Crozier spoke to Jeff Randall on BBC 5 Live on Sunday night about the changes at Royal Mail in more recent years.

He said that Royal Mail had suffered from lack of investment by previous governments and that meant they were technically lagging behind as well as not being as efficient as they need to be.

However he said there was no point in dwelling on what should or should not have been done and they needed to get on with the job of modernisation and providing an efficient service. He said that Royal Mail is bringing in new products to widen the scope of the services they provide and to help Post Offices but 14,000 are private businesses and far too many are creating massive losses for Royal Mail.

On High Street closures he said that many of them have very high rents and are unsustainable. Money saved by transferring service to WH Smith can be spent on other crown post offices.

Crozier said automation was really the key to efficiency as many posties are presently spending 40% of their time sorting.

On pay, he said postal workers are currently paid 25%-30% more than competition. All Royal Mail directors are also having a pay freeze this year.

He believes that business is likely to benefit from deregulation but domestic customers are unlikely to benefit and in the longer term prices would have to rise to meet the cost of the service. However, they are achieving most targets set and Special Deliveries achieve a 99% next day delivery figure.

Postcomm said that they think regulation has been fair and that Royal Mail has made huge strides.

Howard Webber (Postwatch) said they would be concerned if the cost of stamps rose any more and that reliability and security was the most important factor to customers. He said the quality of service has improved significantly over the last three or four years.

Nick Wells of TNT Post said he did not see the present market situation as ‘cherry picking’ Royal Mail business and instead referred to VAT which he said was a stumbling block. Currently Royal Mail is exempt from charging it but TNT have to charge VAT to their customers.

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Adam Crozier calls for more efficiency

Posted by | Apr 24, 2007 | |

Adam Crozier spoke to Jeff Randall on BBC 5 Live on Sunday night about the changes at Royal Mail in more recent years.

He said that Royal Mail had suffered from lack of investment by previous governments and that meant they were technically lagging behind as well as not being as efficient as they need to be.

However he said there was no point in dwelling on what should or should not have been done and they needed to get on with the job of modernisation and providing an efficient service. He said that Royal Mail is bringing in new products to widen the scope of the services they provide and to help Post Offices but 14,000 are private businesses and far too many are creating massive losses for Royal Mail.

On High Street closures he said that many of them have very high rents and are unsustainable. Money saved by transferring service to WH Smith can be spent on other crown post offices.

One postman asked how much more efficient can a postman be? Crozier said automation was really the key to efficiency as many posties are presently spending 40% of their time sorting.

On pay, he said it was clearly a difficult time for Royal Mail and it needed to be competitive. Postal workers are currently paid 25%-30% more than competition. All Royal Mail directors are also having a pay freeze this year and that finding a way to reward workers for being efficient is something they are trying to organise. If not, they will lose more business and more jobs.

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trans-o-flex signs up Iberian partner

Posted by | Apr 24, 2007 | |

German express group trans-o-flex announced that it has recruited a partner in Spain and Portugal for its Eurodis network – the family-owned, Madrid-based logistics business, Redur.

Redur, headquartered in Algete, near Madrid, started delivering trans-o-flex shipments to Spain and Portugal earlier this month and will also cover the Balearic and Canary Islands.

The Spanish company, which had revenues of over EUR 140 million last year, has a 450,000 sqm logistics centre at Algete and a further 48 network locations and 14 warehouses.

Founded in 1967, it has a fleet of over 1,000 vehicles and 1,600 employees, and transports parcels and pallets, priding itself on its IT competence and offering tailormade solutions, said trans-o-flex in a statement.

“These factors, plus the high priority placed on quality, make Redur ideal for a partnership with us,” says Klaus J. Heinz, trans-o-flex CEO.

“We only want the most reliable partners in our EURODIS network – that’s how we can ensure that our services are offered throughout Europe at a consistent level of quality.”

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The bill with wrong address

Posted by | Apr 24, 2007 | |

One wonders why the India Post Amendment Bill has been mooted. It is just not worth the effort. And it doesn’t matter if the bill gives monopoly rights to the government carrier in a certain weight category, or if it forces private courier companies to charge many times more than India Post. In the first place, this is simply a restrictive trade practice. From a business perspective India Post is simply picking a lemon.

Consider their argument for seeking a monopoly right to carry letters and documents that weigh less than 150 grammes. DoP believes that it alone services the universal service obligation (USO) because it has thousands of branch offices in the rural areas where there are no courier services. It loses Rs 700 crore annually to run these branch offices. In doing so, DoP incurs extensive losses on almost every product that it delivers. So why is it hankering to do more of the loss-making business? If DoP actually gets to implement what it is looking at then its losses will compound.

The situation might actually be worse. This segment has been growing at a slower pace when compared with the express parcels and logistics segment. According to the latest survey conducted by the universal postal union (UPU), almost two thirds of public operators across the globe are anticipating a drop in the proportion of income generated by the letter post, with the proportion of income generated by parcels & logistics and to a lesser extent by postal financial services set to increase accordingly. Compared to express parcels and logistics, projected to grow at almost 25% over the next three years, the letters and post segment is projected to grow at only 8% to 10%. It is intriguing, then, why India Post still wants to create a strong foothold in this segment while its cousins abroad—Deutsche Post and US Postal Service—are focussing largely on parcels & logistics services.

DoP has cited international examples to strengthen its case for retaining exclusive privilege. While most countries allow the official postal department to reserve certain segments of the postal business, the international trend is toward opening up the postal sector. The European Union has made it mandatory for its members to open up the postal sector by 2009. Japan also plans to completely privatise Japan Post, a state-owned entity, by 2007.

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