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Parcelforce moves back into profit
Parcelforce has just about moved into modest profit after a decade of losses. It reported a profit from operations in the second half of the financial year, although for the year it lost GBP13m on a turnover of GBP298m. The loss is an improvement on last year when Parcelforce lost GBP54m. Turnover increased by 5.6%. ‘The business‘s radical restructuring, with a focus on express, time guaranteed services for customers is paying off,‘ says Allan Leighton, Royal Mail chairman.
Read MoreParcelforce IT boosts productivity
Parcelforce Worldwide has improved driver productivity by 20% after rolling out route planning and scheduling software. Parcelforce also cut route planning time for its 2,000-vehicle operation by 90% after replacing a system based on Excel with software from Paragon. The company, which delivers 150,000 parcels a day, uses the software to allocate work to routes and calculate efficient route sequences. This helps it plan driver start and finish times, mileage, the number of drops and driver and van utilisation. Eddie McBride, project manager at Parcelforce, said, “Improving driver productivity by 20% has enabled us to reduce the number of drivers and the number of vehicles we need to use to achieve the same, if not higher, levels of service.”
Read MoreOrkney and Shetland Islands’ MP demands action on parcel charges
Opening up parcel deliveries to competition has been a disaster for the people in remote communities who rely most heavily on them, a Liberal Democrat MP complained today. Alistair Carmichael, who represents Orkney and Shetland, called for Government action to protect the islanders from inflated charges for often almost non-existent services. And he warned that any moves to privatise the Post Office’s letter delivery service would create further problems and force more people to move to overcrowded urban areas. Party colleague Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) said it was unacceptable that state-owned Parcelforce charged islanders twice the usual rate for a service that was a day slower. He called for the firm to be made subject to the same universal service obligation as Royal Mail.
Read MoreUK Royal Mail trio pay the price for postal failure
Royal Mail boss Adam Crozier will this week dismiss three key figures from his front-line management team in an aggressive response to a recent slump in service standards. Crozier has also tightened his personal grip on the company by installing himself as chairman of the committee which has day-to-day responsibility for the running of Royal Mail. Sources close to Royal Mail said marketing director Paul Rich, logistics chief Paul Bateson and Parcelforce boss Vanessa Leeson had been removed from the management board, leaving it with eight members. Former Football Association boss Crozier has also replaced Royal Mail’s executive deputy chairman, New Zealander Elmar Toime, as chairman of the committee following rumours of a difficult working relationship between the two men. In May, Crozier took day-to-day control of Royal Mail’s letters business from Toime.
Among the directors who remain on the management committee are Post Office chief executive David Mills, finance chief Marisa Cassoni and human resources director Tony McCarthy.
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