Tag: Finland

EU’s Postal Directive changes the requirements of national postal services

Posted by | Jan 31, 2008 | |

The postal directive approved on 31 January by the EU Parliament will open postal operations within the EU to full competition. The directive will become effective from the beginning of 2011, and in 2013 in some transitional-period countries. The new postal directive will guarantee nationwide mail delivery on five days of the week in the future. The tariffs of letter mail sent by consumers will also be uniform regardless of the locale.

Restrictions to competition were removed from Finnish legislation in the early 1990’s. Itella has been among the postal companies who have supported the EU-wide opening of the postal market.

According to Itella, the new directive now accepted may change the principles that have been held important in Finland concerning uniform services provided throughout the entire country. It has been the requirement of the Finnish Parliament to secure the provision of uniform postal services throughout Finland without separate funding systems.

In the new directive, a competing post company cannot be required to deliver mail five days per week, which has until now been required by law in Finland. In the future, such obligation can only apply to a company responsible for a general service obligation, i.e. Itella in Finland. Only a company operating in the largest cities, delivering letters from large sender companies, e.g. every other day, can price the delivery cheaper than the current rate. This means that the funding base for providing basic postal services may become significantly narrower.

It is possible that the directive will lead to regional segregation of prices, with mail sent to the largest cities being cheaper than that sent elsewhere. This has already happened in Sweden and in some other countries.

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EU to vote on mail monopolies

Posted by | Jan 30, 2008 | |

The European Parliament is expected to approve a plan today to dismantle remaining national monopolies for postal delivery by 2011, allowing cross-border competition in a sector that has until now been closely guarded by national operators.
A group of nine new EU member states, Greece and Luxembourg will get the option of an additional two-year grace period to prepare for a full opening of the delivery of letters under 50 grams (1.75 ounces) – the last category where national postal companies face no rivals – under the plan to be voted on by European Union lawmakers.
A universal public service ensuring every European – not just in big cities but also in remote areas – gets at least one delivery and collection a day, five days a week, even after rival companies move into the market, will be guaranteed and can be subsidized by governments if it is loss-making.
The issue of outside competition for domestic mail-carriers is a heated one in many EU countries. While parcel and package deliveries have already been liberalized across the 27-nation bloc, national governments may still reserve the market for delivering letters under 50
The postal reform – first considered more than 15 years ago – is part of a drive to liberalize the EU services market. The plan could lead to job losses in the 88 billion euro sector that employs more than 5 million people.
Full liberalization of the sector should lead to more reliable and better-quality mail deliveries, according to EU officials.
Many countries have been slow to open up their postal market to competition. Only Sweden, Britain, Finland have scrapped all legal monopolies. Germany has also allowed cross-border competition, but the government has set a minimum wage for postal workers.
Ninety percent of European mail is sent by businesses, and this is where most new entrants are likely to target new, lower-priced services – ignoring unprofitable consumer services in remote or rural areas.

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Itella Information expands to Poland

Posted by | Jan 16, 2008 | |

Itella Group is expanding to Poland. Itella Information has signed an agreement on acquiring the business operations of BusinessPoint S.A, a Polish company specialising in printing and document management. The deal is conditional, requiring e.g. the approval of the Polish competition authorities. Vendors are the owners of the company and they will continue in Itella’s service.

BusinessPoint is one of the largest service providers in its field in Poland, posting net sales of approximately EUR 15 million in 2006 and employing a staff of 100 permanent employees.
– For some time now, Itella Information has been investigating the possibilities of expanding into the Polish market. In Poland, the outsourcing of printing and document management operations is only in its initial stages, and expansion into new, growing markets in Poland is a natural direction for Itella Information’s growth, comments Heikki Länsisyrjä, business group director at Itella Information.
– This deal allows us to create even more innovative services for the Polish market. Itella Information is an experienced service operator in the field of information logistics, and we can benefit from that experience and develop new services, particularly in the fields of e-invoicing and e-transactions, says Jacek Zaremba, Managing Director of BusinessPoint S.A.

Besides companies in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Germany and the Baltic countries Itella Group operates also in Russia where Itella opened a logistics centre last year. Poland will be the tenth country where Itella operates.

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Nokia factory closure could hit DHL jobs (Germany)

Posted by | Jan 16, 2008 | |

Jobs may be lost at DHL due to the closure of a Nokia mobile phone production plant at Bochum in north-west Germany.

The Finnish company announced yesterday it will shut down its Bochum factory due to high operating costs and transfer production to Finland and lower-cost sites in Romania and Hungary. Some 2,300 employees will lose their jobs.

But a further 2,000 jobs at a range of Nokia suppliers and sub-contractors in the region are also in danger, according to German media reports. The locally-based Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung reported that DHL is considering lying off staff as a result of the factory closure.

“When the Nokia factory closes, then it may be that jobs at DHL disappear as well,” a DHL spokesman cited. Some 200 DHL staff work directly with Nokia, and are responsible for shipping mobile phones to various destinations.

Nokia is an important international customer for DHL Express which handles transportation and delivery of the high-value mobile phones in various markets around the world.

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Itella and the Finnish Government partner up in invoice processing

Posted by | Dec 17, 2007 | |

Last spring, Itella Information Oy won a competitive tendering round for the Government’s invoice processing services. The new contract, valid as from 1 December 2007, facilitates more extensive cooperation between Itella Information Oy and the Finnish Government. The State Treasury’s goal is to receive all of the Government’s incoming purchase invoices as e-Invoices by the end of 2009. The same applies to the majority of sales invoices.

In order to meet this target, cooperation with Itella is essential, says Kristiina Seppälä of the State Treasury.

– On an annual basis, this involves over 2.7 million incoming invoices and 13.2 million outgoing invoices. As regards the outgoing invoices, the major annual invoice batches comprise the Finnish Vehicle Administration’s approximately 6.7 million vehicle tax letters and over 5 million television fees by the Finnish Communications Regulatory Authority. Some 89 per cent of the invoices sent out by the Government are targeted at consumers. As to the Government’s incoming invoices, almost 70 per cent arrive in electronic format already, of which around 30 per cent do so as e-Invoices.

Itella digitises purchase invoices arriving at the bureau on paper, including them directly in the bureau’s purchase invoice recycling system, where the material is available for immediate use. With the help of Itella Information, various state offices can adopt completely electronic, efficient processes in information processing, which results in considerable savings for taxpayers. Electronic processes involve significant improvements in the efficiency of operations, thanks to the omission of manual work stages, fewer mistakes and faster information processing.

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