Tag: Europe

French wary over German postal push

Posted by | Jan 11, 2007 | |

European commissioner for the internal market, Charlie McCreevy confirmed that the final remaining monopoly of the deliveries market maintained by national postal companies, for letters weighing less than 50 grammes, should end by 2009.

French President Jacques Chirac said in a speech to rural constituents last weekend that France would “oppose any initiative which would lead to undermining the quality of the public postal service”.

With around 330,000 staff, La Poste is the second biggest employer in France after the French state itself. But unlike other large national monopolies it has not restructured itself to deal with new competitive challenges.

On the services directive, France could rely on strong support from Germany to mitigate the effects of liberalisation. But Berlin has made getting progress on postal liberalisation one of its priorities for the internal market during its presidency. Germany has reformed its own postal service and will end Deutsche Post’s monopoly for items under 50 grammes at the end of 2007. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in a recent interview that unless other EU countries were to follow suit it would put Germany at an “unacceptable competitive disadvantage”.

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New Network Director for the Post Office

Posted by | Jan 10, 2007 | |

Retail executive Paula Vennells, who has worked with many of the UK’s leading consumer brands, has joined the Post Office® in the key role of Network Director.

She brings with her a wealth of experience from a range of companies including the Whitbread Group, Argos, Great Universal Stores, Sears, Dixons Stores Group, Reed International and Lunn Poly.

Paula, who also joins the Post Office Executive Team, said: “I’m very pleased to be joining the Post Office and to be taking on a central role in a network that serves 24m customers a week.”

She will report to Post Office Managing Director Alan Cook, who said: “I’m delighted to welcome Paula. She has the skills and background that make her ideally equipped for the job.”

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Spain's Nacex expands Portuguese services

Posted by | Jan 9, 2007 | |

Spanish express company Nacex is improving its distribution in Portugal by expanding daily services and increasing geographical coverage to cover the whole country, including the islands of Azores and Madeira.

The three mainland services consist of next-day, door-to-door delivery before 10.30, within a 30km radius of one of its now 24 agencies spread across the country, and before 13.00 or 19.00 within a 100km radius.

Delivery times to Madeira vary between 24 and 48 hours, and transit to the Azores is estimated at 72 hours. The island services have the same tariff as the Portugal 10.30, subject to weight supplements.

Nacex has been part of Grupo Logísta, which also has subsidiaries in France, Italy and Portugal, since 2002, and only first formed 11 years ago.

Since then the carrier has expanded and now says it can deal with 60,000 items an hour through 275 agencies, 18 Spanish hubs, 1,170 vehicles and over 2000 staff.

Nacex is the sixth leading express company in Spain, behind DHL, Seur, MRW, TNT and Mex, according to the trade magazine Logística, Paquetería y Almacenaje.

In 2005, the company increased revenues by 21.5% on the previous year to EUR 164 million and, in the first quarter of 2006, registered a 12% rise in volume of items transported compared to the same period in 2005.

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Siemens wins 55 million euro order from Royal Mail

Posted by | Jan 9, 2007 | |

Siemens Industrial Solutions and Services Group (I&S) has won a 55 million euro order from Royal Mail, the British postal service provider, to upgrade its Integrated Mail Processor Systems (IMP) for standard letter sorting. The systems will be fitted with new letter flow and reading equipment which will increase throughput by up to 20 percent. Conversion work is due to be completed by October 2008.

The IMP sorting systems from the I&S Postal Automation Division were put into operation between 1996 and 2002 and form the foundation of automatic letter processing at Royal Mail. The systems can perform the entire letter processing functions – such as preprocessing, reading, coding and sorting – in one process operation. Installing the Advanced Color Recognizer system will make new reading technology functions possible. This will enable more letters to be channeled into automated preprocessing and thus reduce manual handling. There will also be further improvements to the letter facing and reading processes. The separation of first and second class mail will become simpler and more efficient. Moreover, the recognition of postage stamps, meter marks, barcodes and electronic stamps will provide automated revenue protection.

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Government department snubs Royal Mail over GBP12m postal contract

Posted by | Jan 9, 2007 | |

The Communication Workers Union (UK) yesterday attacked the decision by the Department for Work and Pensions to award a GBP12m contract for post services to UK Mail, a leading rival to Royal Mail.
The union said it was disappointed that, at a time when the Department of Trade and Industry was finalising plans for investment in Royal Mail’s postal services business, other departments were giving work traditionally done by the state-owned former monopoly to private sector rivals.
The union’s general secretary, Billy Hayes, said: “This is a prime example of how disjointed departments in government are. Instead of using private postal services it is essential that the government understand they have a moral and social responsibility to the network and by not using the service themselves it does not exude confidence to the British public in a government-controlled institution.”
At a time when the DTI was conducting a review of the postal service, it was vital other departments did not make rash decisions which could affect its future, the union said.
A DWP spokesman said it had been urged by the government’s spending watchdog, the National Audit Office, to look at the way it bought postal services to see if it could achieve efficiency savings. The decision to award the contract to UK Mail, a subsidiary of Business Post, followed that review and would save the department about GBP2m over the 13-month life of the agreement.

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