Year: 2006

Business Post expects FedEX contract changes

Posted by | Dec 18, 2006 | |

Business Post Group PLC has warned that following the acquisition of ANC Holdings by FedEx Corp, it has has been informed of FedEx’s intention to terminate its contract as ‘Global Service Participant’ in the UK.

Business Post said the nature and timing of the exit of the contract is yet to be agreed, but ‘we expect the contract to be terminated by September 2007.’

The FedEx contract currently represents 6 pct of group revenues, it added.

The company went on to say that it does not expect any impact on profits for this financial year, adding that ‘once the nature and timing of the contract exit has been agreed, we will give guidance on the profit impact for future years.’

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Sagawa Express and China Postal Bureau tie up for delivery service

Posted by | Dec 18, 2006 | |

The Sagawa Express Co. group, a Japanese delivery company, announced Monday that it has signed an agreement with a subsidiary of China Post to launch a parcel delivery service covering the entire Chinese market.
Sagawa Global Express Co. the international courier arm of Sagawa’s holding company, SG Holdings Co. will join forces with China Courier Service Corp., a subsidiary of State Postal Bureau, Sagawa said in a statement. The companies signed an agreement Dec. 7, according to the release.
The tie-up will enable the companies to share their delivery and pickup networks in China and Japan and the service will target corporate customers, it said.
The partners will start a trial service for parcels to Japan in late December in Shanghai and expanding it to Beijing and Guangzhou later, according to Sagawa. As for parcels to China, the companies plan to formally begin delivery next spring following a trial, it said.
The partnership would be the first between a foreign courier company and China’s state postal service, Japanese daily Nihon Keizai Shimbun said.

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UK postage price changes from April 2007

Posted by | Dec 18, 2006 | |

Royal Mail confirmed today that the price of a First Class stamp for a standard letter weighing up to 100g will rise by 2p to 34p from 2 April 2007, in line with the four-year price control set by postal regulator Postcomm in March 2006.

The price of a First Class stamp for a large letter up to 100g will rise by 4p to 48p.

The price of a Second Class stamp for a standard letter up to 100g will rise by 1p to 24p. The price of a Second Class stamp for a large letter up to 100g will rise by 3p to 40p.

Lorna Clarkson, Royal Mail’s Director of Commercial Policy and Pricing, said: “Now that the UK mail market is open to full competition, it is essential that Royal Mail’s prices more closely reflect the true cost of collecting, sorting and delivering around 80 million items of mail a day to 27 million addresses across the UK.

The price of business mail services will rise at a lesser rate than stamped mail. First Class franked mail and items carrying a printed postage impression (PPI) will attract a 2p discount for items up to 100g. The same discount will also apply to Second Class franked and PPI mail.
Prices will continue to decrease for heavier weight items, which will support the growth of the online retail market. Royal Mail is also offering business customers discounts for machineable mail, and the thresholds for volume discounts have been lowered for some business mail services to enable more customers to benefit.

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IBM unveils new RFID software

Posted by | Dec 18, 2006 | |

IBM has announced new technology that more easily allows organisations securely share and analyse real-time data generated by radio frequency identification (RFID) tags.

The new WebSphere RFID Information Center technology is based on a recently completed EPCglobal RFID standard called EPCIS, which provides a standard way to securely communicate the data created by sensors and RFID tags.

Using the IBM platform, the data can also be integrated with existing business information and shared with trading partners.

The IBM WebSphere RFID Information Center platform has already been successfully deployed by Unilever, the e-customs project ITAIDE in Europe, and pharmaceutical distributor AmerisourceBergen.

Shay Reid, AmerisourceBergen vice-president for integrated solutions, said, “AmerisourceBergen sees tremendous potential in the IBM WebSphere RFID Information Center, which will be a key component to meeting track and trace regulatory requirements in California.”

Reid said the platform would become the data backbone in a pilot programme that will enable AmerisourceBergen to improve its service by quickly authenticating products and transactions through direct data exchange with pharmaceutical manufacturers.”

RFID Information Center receives data from RFID middleware, which aggregates, filters and interprets data directly from the readers.

RFID Information Center then stores, manages and enables sharing of all or portions of the data with various business applications across the enterprise, and with trading partners.

More information on the platform is available here: http://www.ibm.com/software/data/masterdata/rfid/

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Royal Mail hires 3,000 'address detectives'

Posted by | Dec 17, 2006 | |

Its one of the most frantic jobs before Christmas: making sure your greetings cards are sent in plenty of time. But the scribbled addresses on cards in the final post are proving to be a big problem for the Royal Mail.

The service has this year been forced to hire an extra 3,000 workers to decipher bad handwriting on an estimated 400 million poorly labelled packages and envelopes. Bad spelling, illegible handwriting and neglecting to include the postcode have been highlighted as reasons for post not arriving at its intended destination.

The 3,000 extra staff, known as “address detectives”, will be based at Plymouth, Stockport, Stoke and Doxford, in Northumberland, and will join 1,400 permanent staff members who decipher addresses that cannot be read by the Royal Mail’s automated sorting machines.

Letters and parcels with addresses that cannot be sorted by hand by address detectives in sorting offices are scanned into computers and emailed to colleagues, who run internet searches to determine where the mail should be sent.

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Postal department to unveil franchising plans

Posted by | Dec 16, 2006 | |

To cut losses and increase its reach, the Department of Posts has recently unveiled plans for franchising postal services. For this, the Department will soon launch a pilot project in 100 cities across India. The franchises will be tested for financial viability, i.e., whether they can be self-supporting if not profit-generating, without affecting the Department’s existing network. Ten of the cities earmarked for the project are in Gujarat, said Chief Postmaster General of Gujarat Circle Vijayalaxmi Sheth. ‘‘We have identified ten spots for franchises and will be inviting applications for the same shortly,’’ she said.

‘‘Parties who apply for a franchise will be required to have passed Class XII. Postal pensioners who own a computer and have a premise in place would be given preference. There are also some mandatory requirements like a character certificate, a bank guarantee of Rs 10,000 and a ready business plan. Those who meet the specified requirements will then be imparted training before the open their postal franchise outlet,’’ she said.

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Poste Italiane to end 2006 in the Red

Posted by | Dec 15, 2006 | |

Italian state-owned postal services company Poste Italiane expects to book a profit in 2006, ending for a fourth year in a row in the red.
The information was released by Italian national audit office Corte dei Conti. Poste Italaine closed 2005 with a net profit of 248.5 mln euro (USD326.9 mln). The net worth of the company was at 352.7 mln euro (USD463.9 mln) at end-2004.
The net financial debt of Poste Italiane stood at 3.333 bln euro (USD4.384 bln) at the end of 2005 compared to 3.265 bln euro (USD4.295 bln) at the end of 2004. The net financial position/net financial debt is calculated as the difference between a company’s financial debts and liquid assets.
[Editor’s note: Poste Italiane closed the first half of 2006 with a net profit of 379 mln euro (USD498.5 mln), surging by 72.6 pct compared to the 220 mln euro (USD289.4 mln) registered for the respective period of 2005, ANSA said on October 6, 2006. Operating profit of the company went up by 43.6 pct year-on-year to 811 mln euro (USD1.067 bln), while revenue stood at 8.8 bln euro (USD11.6 bln), of which 4.9 bln euro (USD6.445 bln) generated by traditional activities.

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Cerberus-Led Bidder Group Becomes New Owner of BAWAG P.S.K. – Invitation extended to Austrian Post to acquire a stake in the bank

Posted by | Dec 15, 2006 | |

Austrian post welcomes quick decision to more intensively use the 1,334 post branches and 535 post partner offices to safeguard the interests of Austrian customers
Austrian Post welcomes the quick decision on the part of the Austrian Trade Union Federation to sell BAWAG P.S.K. to the bidder group led by Cerberus, which also consists of Generali and Wüstenrot. Cerberus has expressed its interest to further develop BAWAG P.S.K., and to pro-actively exploit the advantages provided by Austrian Post’s distribution network.

The new owner has made a clear commitment to dynamically expand the financial services business and positioning of BAWAG P.S.K. as a “universal bank for private customers and medium-sized businesses“ with attractive products and services. Another designated aim is to attract new customers and expand the financial institution’s market share by means of more pro-active, aggressive marketing activities carried out in cooperation with Austrian Post.

Austrian Post currently offers financial services products of BAWAG P.S.K. via its own branch network, for which Austrian Post derived an income amounting to EUR 96m in the year 2005. Austrian Post is pursuing the goal of further expanding the financial services offered at its 1,334 company owned branches and 535 post partner offices in Austria.

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