Business attitudes towards cross-border sales and consumer protection Analytical report
Business attitudes towards cross-border sales and consumer protection Analytical report
Read MoreTag: Germany
Environmental concerns lead Deutsche Post to RFID
Deutsche Post World Net has launched a project to develop passive RFID tags incorporating a small, rewriteable display for use on mail containers. The D-RFID tags, as they’re called, will be used as part of an RFID application under development to track DPWN’s 6 million yellow shipping containers. The company utilizes the crates to hold the 70 million letters that pass through its 84 distribution centers each day.
DPWN currently throws away about 500 million of these paper labels per year. Printing 500 million labels annually is still the cheapest way for it to label the reusable plastic bins, however, so the company initiated a project called Pariflex (Passive RFID with Flexible Bistable Display) to eliminate this environmental waste. D-RFID tags are high-frequency passive RFID tags with displays powered by the tags, which draw their energy from the magnetic field of the RFID interrogator.
The Pariflex project got rolling in October 2005 and will run until September 2008, funded with euro2.5 million (USD3.3 million) from the German Federal Ministry and Research (BMBF). The companies involved will also contribute to the budget if government funds don’t cover expenses, said Gerhard Stönner, DPWN’s head of engineering in the mail division and a manager of the D-RFID project. So far, the partners have developed demonstration tags with the full functionality needed by the application, though these tags contain batteries.
Read MoreDeutsche Post's Appel sees service division saving 400-500 mln eur by 2009
Deutsche Post AG’s new service division will bring about savings of around 100 mln eur this year and 400-500 mln eur per year by 2009, management board member Frank Appel told Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
‘By 2009 this division will cut the company’s costs by 400-500 mln eur annually,’ Appel said.
Meanwhile, ver.di secretary Wolfgang Abel told daily Hamburger Abendblatt that the trade union expects Deutsche Post’s planned consolidation of its parcel and mail operations will result in 800-1,000 job cuts.
He added that the cuts will mostly effect administrative and executive positions.
Deutsche Post did not confirm the trade union’s figures, however a spokesman said that there will be job cuts, the newspaper reported.
Read MoreDeutsche Post CEO Zumwinkel threatens to launch price war in 2008
Deutsche Post AG chief executive Klaus Zumwinkel told journalists his company is prepared to make drastic price cuts in the German mail market should it lose significant market share to rivals when its virtual monopoly on letter delivery expires in 2008, the Financial Times Deutschland reported.
‘If I lose too much market share, then I have some price cuts in reserve that will certainly throw our competitors into disarray,’ Zumwinkel said in New York.
The chief executive did not provide further details on the possible price cuts.
The newspaper said that Deutsche Post currently controls about 90 pct of the German letter delivery market. This business last year accounted for 30 pct of Deutsche Post’s total revenue and almost half of its profits.
However, rivals such as TNT, Pin and a range of local delivery services are eager to expand their presence in the German market.
The newspaper said that TNT and Pin want to gain a 10 pct share of the German letter delivery market within the next five years.
Read MoreDeutsche Post reaches deal with union to merge domestic parcel and mail operations
German postal service provider Deutsche Post AG said Tuesday it reached a deal with its main union to merge its domestic mail and parcel delivery operations.
The company will transfer its package and parcel business from its express unit to its mail corporate division, putting oversight for both under one board member. Pending board approval, the transfer could be complete by next month.
The company said the move will let it improve service for its German customers, including package tracking and better delivery times, and add Euro2.6 billion (USD3.4 billion) to the division’s revenue, bringing it to about Euro15.5 billion (USD20.5 billion) annually.
Shares of Bonn-based Deutsche Post fell 0.1 percent to Euro32.21 (USD42.66) in Frankfurt.
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