Tag: Domestic

Royal mail response to Postcomm price control proposals

Posted by | Aug 9, 2007 | |

Commenting on Postcomm’s proposals on a review of Royal Mail’s price control, Royal Mail’s Marketing Director, Alex Batchelor, said:

“Royal Mail knows that if we are to succeed in a very tough and open market we urgently need to modernise and become more efficient. Royal Mail is losing business to rivals whose costs and prices are lower than ours because they have the modern technology Royal Mail urgently needs to install. We have already made progress and have shown we can deliver the great quality of service our customers expect. What we must do is to move forward at pace to use the GBP 1.2 billion loan which the shareholder – the Government – has made available to modernise the letters operation with new technology to give it world-class productivity. That’s the focus for Royal Mail.

“Our costs are too high and the simple fact is that our prices are being undercut by rival postal operators and that’s resulting in one letter in every five this current financial year being handled by rivals.

Mr Batchelor added: “We absolutely reject suggestions from Postcomm that we have not capitalised on growth opportunities in the postal market. Despite intense competition, Royal Mail is delivering around 60% of all items bought online and we continue to develop new products and services to support this sector.”

Royal Mail is studying the Postcomm proposals carefully and will respond formally in due course.

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Postcomm's statement of policy in relation to financial penalties

Posted by | Aug 8, 2007 | |

Postcomm has decided to revise its statement of policy in relation to financial penalties (‘statement of policy’).

Under the Postal Services Act 2000, Postcomm has the discretionary power to impose a financial penalty on a license holder that has contravened – or is contravening – one or more of its license conditions. Postcomm must prepare and publish a statement of policy, in relation to imposing a penalty and the amount of that penalty.

Postcomm published its current statement of policy in February 2002. Since then, Postcomm has imposed four financial penalties on Royal Mail and there have been a number of significant changes in the postal services market, including the full opening of the market in January 2006 and the adoption of a new price control for Royal Mail in April 2006. Postcomm said, at the time the statement of policy was introduced, that it would consider revising the statement in the light of experience in its application. Postcomm has decided that it should consult now on revising its statement of policy.

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Nigeria: With free enterprise, the postal sector can compete with telecom

Posted by | Aug 8, 2007 | |

IS modern technology a threat to traditional postal service providers? Well, Mallam Ibrahim Mori Baba, Post Master-General and CEO of the Nigeria Postal Services, (NiPOST) thinks so, but believes the post remains a vital ingredient of communication in modern business enterprise.

In a bid to get the Nigerian postal system in sync with modern business trends, the government is in the process of enacting a new Postal Reforms Bill that would apparently give the body greater authority and control in the business of mails delivery. Private courier providers already see the new bill as a threat to their corporate existence, although details of the new bill still with the National Assembly since the regime of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, have not been officially made public.

Mr. Isaac Orolugbagbe, former Chief Executive of Red Star Express (FedEx) believes the new reforms policy bill is a way to the total annihilation of private investment.

Mr. Orolugbagbe believes that like the telecom reforms in the early days of President Obasanjo’s government that now allows Nigerians to make telephone calls so easily, the postal sector too could rake in good fortunes for the country. He noted that reforms in the telecom sector have brought about huge Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into the country.

Initially, the government of President Obasanjo had hoped to commercial NiPOST, but the agency charged with the responsibility, Bureau of Public Enterprise, BPE deferred that operation, opting rather for outright privatisation.

Mr. Orolugbagbe, believes his greatest achievements as Chief Executive was moving the company from annual revenue base of N 250 million in 1997 to over N 2 billion in 10 years. He noted that the company started with a share capital base of N 3 million in 1992. “The company actually needed N 60 million to start operation, but at the end we just made do with N 3m and today, it is now a household name.”

Red Star recently entered into working alliance with the American Federal Express (FedEx) courier boosting its annual financial statement with additional USD 3 million.

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Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC), Senate postal subcommittee discuss service

Posted by | Aug 6, 2007 | |

The Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) chairman Dan G. Blair stressed the need for service standards and performance measures that are transparent and accountable when he appeared in front of the Senate postal subcommittee August 2.

Blair talked about the steps PRC is taking to implement modern service standards as required by Title III of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act.

The PRC filed two advanced orders on its site regarding its modern service standards and the process to implement it, according to Nanci Langley, d irector of public affairs and government relations at the PRC.

In a joint statement to the PRC, the Alliance of Non-Profit Mailers and the Magazine Publishers of America said: “When the Postal Service makes structural changes to a rate design and thus has no billing determinant data that matches the altered rate design, the volume weights used for the new, altered rate structure should be based on a mail characteristics study for the same time period as the billing determinant data used to calculate average revenue per piece under the existing rates.”

The two organizations advocate pricing flexibility for competitive products.

The act requires the Postal Service to consult with the PRC on development of regulations establishing service standards due by December, as well as report to Congress on their implementation, due by June 2008.

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