Velocity News, October 2006
TNT in doorstep delivery revolution.
Ziegler takes the Eezehaul route.
Expressworld couriers present at birth.
Seabourne’s Dutch connections.
Promotions spot on-time.
Tag: Germany
GO! expands its European network to Switzerland
Swiss express carrier NES has joined the GO! European network and will represent the brand throughout the Alpine country as GO! Switzerland.
The German express and logistics group, whose full name is GO! General Overnight Service GmbH, said it would be using Niederbipp-based NES’s 160 vehicles, 10 depots nationwide and 50 employees to transport national and interantional parcels.
“As one of the leading and most important express services, NES AG is an ideal partner for us,” explained Ralf-Hans Dierks, CEO of GO! Germany.
“Using the same high quality standards and product range, we will expand the national and European express and document despatch and be able to multiply our parcel volume.”
Dierk said Switzerland bore “enormous potential” for GO! and its European network and that the company was planning to expand further its international product range.
“We will not only extend our European system, but also strengthen our position among the leaders on the express market”, he added.
Read MoreDHL's new European hub 'progressing well'
DHL has released a statement confirming that construction work at its European hub, which began at the start of 2006, is progressing well and is on schedule.
“The Leipzig/Halle hub will be a vital element within our company. Along with Hong Kong in Asia und Wilmington in the United States, it will be one of the three most important transfer locations in DHL’s global network,” Zumwinkel said. DHL plans to create 3,500 jobs by 2012.
A total of 400 DHL employees are already working at the evolving hub, where structural work is almost finished. The hub will consist of a 48,000 square-metre distribution centre and an approximately 23,000 square-metre hangar. Installation of the operational equipment is scheduled to begin soon. Costing more than *70 million, the Dutch company Vanderlande will install sorting technology in the next few months.
DHL is also expanding its flight operations at the Leipzig/Halle airport. The current air routes to and from Brussels, Cologne/Bonn, Warsaw, Kattowitz, Danzig, Nuremberg, Ostrau, Prague in the Czech Republic and East Midlands in England have been expanded to include Kiev. Copenhagen and Bergamo, in northern Italy, will be added as shipping airports on October 30, 2006. Following this, a total of 12 DHL planes will use the central German airport Monday through Friday.
Read MoreFrance's La Poste prepares for battle
A recent report to the French Senate on the state of La Poste made depressing reading.
In 1996, it said, the German and French post offices had been more or less on a par. Eight years later, the turnover of the German post office was double that of France’s; its profits were eight times bigger, and internal investment was three times as high.
On top of that, the quality of the German service was improving, with a next-day delivery rate of 90per cent, compared to 75per cent in France.
The difference, of course, was that Germany had privatised and reformed its postal service, while France’s venerable public institution, complete with 330,000 staff and 17,000 bureaux, had stayed stock still.
Last week La Poste’s management unveiled a 700m euro (GBP470m) investment plan -designed to equip the company for the future. The 100,000 postmen and women are to have pocket computers and GPS monitors; there will be 12,000 bicycles with pivoting seats as well as 400 electronic bikes; and staff will take on other jobs like reading gas meters.
The message is clear: once again a French state mammoth is being prepared for the Brussels steeplechase.
Read MoreMomentum grows for major postal operators backing EU liberalisation plan
On the eve of the debate over postal opening, Deutsche Post (Germany), Posten AB (Sweden), Suomen Posti Oyj (Finland), TNT (The Netherlands) and Royal Mail (UK) are joined by Charlie McCreevy, Commissioner for Internal Market and Services, Jürgen R. Thumann, President of the Federation of German Industries (BDI), and Paul R. Kleindorfer, Professor at INSEAD and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
In this joint event taking place in Brussels today, the group intends to demonstrate that full market opening must take place in 2009 to allow postal operators to benefit from changes that are shaking the global communications market. It must be seen as an opportunity to restructure organisations for increased operational, service efficiency and customer-orientation. Furthermore, a modern and flexible universal service to the benefit of residential and small business users can be maintained in an open market.
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