Consignia, the rebranded UK post office, is following in the footsteps of French cousin La Poste in outsourcing its 40,000-vehicle fleet serving the Royal Mail and Parcelforce. It is likely that other UK large vehicle fleet operators will follow suit and decouple their non-core transport operations as haulage costs look set to rise. Lex Transfleet expects the outsource
trend to gather pace.
GERRY Smith, the managing director of Consignia’s services group, forecast
yesterday that flogging off the 40,000 Royal Mail and Parcelforce vehicles
would bring “significant cost savings and efficiencies.” But those benefits will not be for Post Office staff or the vast bulk of its
customers.
THE ROYAL Mail and Parcelforce yesterday put their entire 40,000-
strong vehicle fleet up for sale in a move denounced by unions as further
evidence of the creeping privatisation of postal services. Consignia, the group formerly known as the Post Office, said its
preferred option was to form a joint venture in which it would retain a 51 per
cent stake. But a spokesman added that an outright sale of the fleet remained
an option.
Consignia is building a new customer portal around web services software from ebusiness platform company ATG.The company, formerly the Post Office, rejectedalternative packages from IBM, BEA and Broadvision.The portal, yet to be named, will launch in the autumn and is designed to give Consignia’s potential 20 million online customers a single point of access to services available from Royal Mail, Parcelforce Worldwide and the Post Office.
Read MoreM-box, an integrated home delivery fulfilment service aimed at high-street retailers, emerging e-tailers and manufacturers, hit the ground running at its launch in June with pledges of support from some of the biggest guns of industry. They include Express Dairies, which has taken a stake in the business, and Birds Eye Wall’s, which says it plans to use the service for home delivery trials.
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