Tag: Europe

DHL keeps large pallets in order (UK)

Posted by | Jul 8, 2008 | |

DHL has installed a pallet measuring system from Mettler Toledo Cargoscan at its International Gateway in London Colney to improve efficiency.

The system is designed specifically for large pallets, helping to ensure they are accurately weighed, measured and scanned.

Angus MacDougall, manager at DHL’s International Gateway, said: “While measuring smaller parcels is standard practice in the transport and logistics industries, measuring large pallets is often very difficult using conventional technology, so their dimensions often have to be manually measured and recorded. This is obviously a time-consuming process and is not cost-effective.”

The CSN840 Pallet unit is able to handle around 200 pallets an hour and claims to work with almost any kind of pallet, including those with dark or glossy surfaces, processing each one in less than five seconds.

The operator has full control of the system and is able to see a graphical interface showing the measuring process in real time, as well as all historical data on-screen. The system also allows invoicing to be carried out more quickly.

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Ex Royal Mail marketer Batchelor set for TomTom position (UK)

Posted by | Jul 8, 2008 | |

Former Royal Mail Marketing Director Alex Batchelor is to resurface at sat-nav brand TomTom later this year as Chief Marketing Officer.

Batchelor’s departure from Royal Mail in June followed a board-level restructure that led to Group Strategy Director Alex Smith taking on overall marketing responsibility as Strategy and Commercial Director. Batchelor is to take up the role at TomTom in September.

Prior to leaving Royal Mail, Batchelor is understood to have been a keen advocate of a partnership deal with London 2012, a tie that could yet materialise. One of his final decisions was to retain Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO and Proximity London on its ad and direct accounts respectively.

In the UK, TomTom uses the strapline ‘Find your way the easy way’.

The Dutch brand has sold 20m products over the past four years, although shares dipped last month following rumours of declining UK sales.

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Regulator forces Deutsche Post to improve competitors' access to mail hubs

Posted by | Jul 7, 2008 | |

The German grid regulator Bundesnetzagentur said it has forced Deutsche Post World Net AG. to improve competitors’ access to its letter-sorting facilities, mainly by extending their opening hours.
German postal regulation allows Deutsche Post’s competitors to use the former monopolist’s mail distribution infrastructure for services they offer only partially themselves.
This includes the collection and pre-sorting of mail that is than being processed by Deutsche Post.
A spokesman for the German mail services and logistics company said new regulations are an acceptable compromise.

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France declines comment on La Poste IPO target

Posted by | Jul 7, 2008 | |

The French government declined on Monday 7th July to comment on a report that a possible partial privatisation of La Poste could raise 2 to 3 billion euros (USD 4.7 billion) to help prepare one of the bastions of state ownership for competition.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s Chief of Staff lifted a taboo on changing the ownership of the postal service, one of the country’s biggest employers with 280,000 staff, on Sunday by saying the idea of a stock market listing “deserves interest”.
The move would form part of France’s efforts to prepare itself for the liberalisation of the European postal market by 2011.
“We have no comment because La Poste has not put forward a proposal yet,” a finance ministry spokesman said.
“A flotation is one of the options being studied,” a spokeswoman for La Poste said, but said a proposal had not been made formal.
The tentative flotation plan, first reported in Le Monde last week, has angered unions already involved in sporadic strikes to defend pension rights and the 35-hour working week.
The Sud-PTT postal union said it would be “the end of the public postal service” and that a similar step taken by France Telecom had merely saddled it with massive debts.
French daily Echos said on Monday that La Poste, which generated sales of 20.8 billion euros in 2007, was looking to sell 20 percent of its share capital in a possible flotation that would value it at more than 10 billion euros.
Sarkozy’s Chief of Staff Claude Gueant warned on French radio on Sunday of the consequences of failing to respond.
“If we do nothing, very clearly it will be the German post or the Dutch post that will distribute mail in France,” he said.
France’s post office derives 56 percent of its revenues from mail services and 23 percent from its low-fee banking subsidiary La Banque Postale.
Any move towards privatisation would require changing the legal status of the French postal service, a delicate political operation that would involve turning it into a public limited company or “societe anonyme” instead of a civil service branch.
The government says any changes would not threaten La Poste’s public service status.

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Royal Mail and La Poste Privatisation Plans

Posted by | Jul 7, 2008 | |

Both the UK and France are looking at the possibility of part-privatisation of their state-owned postal services although postal unions and some MPs are likely to resist any attempts to privatise, in part or in whole.

In the UK, there is growing concern that the funding of the universal service is being undermined by what some see as an over-zealous drive to introduce competition into the market. The CWU (communication workers union), which repesents the majority of postal workers at Royal Mail, has already hinted at the possible withdrawal of it’s contribution to Labour Party funds if the present government continues to back what it describes as a ‘slash and burn’ policy on postal reform. The union’s present view is that Royal Mail is being run down as an excuse to privatise it.

The European Commission has taken a rather ‘loose’ approach to deciding how the USO could be maintained in a deregulated European postal market by saying that it was up to individual countries to decide how it should be funded. Some argue that in a somewhat grand plan to liberalise postal services quickly, it has effectively ‘passed the buck’ on the USO. Last year saw demonstrations in Berlin from unions concerned about the USO and the impact on jobs.

Neither the UK or France has made any firm committment to privatisation yet, but the idea is likely to find favour with both governments as a way to ease problems in a more competitive market. Directors at France’s La Poste, are said to be keen on the idea of an IPO that would involve 20 percent of the company’s total capital, said to be worth around 10 billion euros.

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