Tag: Royal Mail

GLS Germany upgrades vehicles for more safety

Posted by | Jul 10, 2008 | |

GLS is equipping all its new lorries with special reflection markings for safety reasons in order to increase the visibility of vehicles in road traffic during night.

To minimize this risk, the company is pasting up the backside or long side of trailers and trunks with retro-reflecting stripes on purchase or varnish renewals. Up to now, the EU directive 2007/35/EG does only apply to newly produced vehicles in Germany. With effect from 2011, all vehicles over 7,5 tons will have to be equipped with reflecting markings. In some states of the EU like Italy and Poland, this is already obligatory for all heavy vehicles.

“As we purchased new transport vehicles in Germany last year, we equipped them with reflecting material straight away”, said Klaus Conrad, managing director of GLS Germany. “High quality of transport services should not negatively impact the road safety. With the retro-reflecting markings we increase the visibility and thus minimise the risk”, he added.

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Royal Mail goes hands-on (UK)

Posted by | Jul 9, 2008 | |

Royal Mail is finalising contracts with a range of suppliers for the provision of handheld devices to track letter and parcel information.

By the end of this summer, more than 25,000 staff handling items tracked by special and recorded delivery will use the devices, which are intended to speed up and modernise postal processes.

The devices will enable Royal Mail van drivers to capture signatures at the point of delivery. The data will then be transmitted over a wireless network, allowing customers to check via the web whether or not items have arrived at their destination.

Royal Mail is in the final stages of making contractual adjustments with the pool of partners chosen to carry out the project.

While contracts await final sign-off, suppliers are understood to include hardware specialist Intermec and systems integrator CSC.

Training will be done in-house and will begin in the weeks prior to the implementation.

Some 70,000 staff who deliver items by foot or bicycle will continue using a paper-based system to record signatures and delivery times, but the devices will roll out to all postal delivery workers in the future.

Trials for the handheld computers began late last year.

The project is the first stage of Royal Mail’s GBP 1.2bn IT-based infrastructure upgrade and will underpin a series of customer-focused initiatives.

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One letter in four comes via Royal Mail rival (UK)

Posted by | Jul 8, 2008 | |

Rivals to Royal Mail now handle one in every four letters and are poised to increase volumes further, The Times has learnt.
It is understood that Royal Mail now carries out the full process of collection, sorting and deliver of three out of every four letters posted, as against four out of five last year. This follows an exodus of blue-chip bulk mailing customers to rival operators such as TNT and Business Post.
More customers may have been pushed to quit Royal Mail after last year’s industrial action despite competitors still having to use Royal Mail’s infrastructure and postal staff for the “final mile” delivery.
Royal Mail’s business could shrink further if rivals continue to grow. TNT, one of its two main competitors, expects to handle 2.4billion items of mail this year. Business Post, which does not make specific forecasts, said it expected to exceed that amount. Last year TNT handled 1.8billion items out of a total annual postbag of 20billion and Business Post
TNT’s prediction of a 33 per cent increase in mail volumes comes as the company is building up local business as well as targeting large national customers such as utilities and banks. Nick Wells, Managing Director of TNT’s UK mail business, said the business was putting resources into five regional centres.
Royal Mail is paid by rivals for the “last mile” delivery. It claims it is paid too little although its competitors say that its prices are too high.
The loss of business to rivals comes as a review commissioned by the Government looks into the future of the state-owned group. There are growing worries from Royal Mail, Postcomm, the industry regulator, and the main postal union, that Royal Mail is facing dire financial problems.
The Hooper review into Royal Mail is scheduled to set out recommendations to the Government. The regulator has said that Royal Mail needs an injection of private equity. But even if stakeholders backed such a move, it is not clear what interest there would be from private equity because of Royal Mail’s huge pension deficit. It currently stands at GBP 3.4billion but could double after an actuarial review.

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Ex Royal Mail marketer Batchelor set for TomTom position (UK)

Posted by | Jul 8, 2008 | |

Former Royal Mail Marketing Director Alex Batchelor is to resurface at sat-nav brand TomTom later this year as Chief Marketing Officer.

Batchelor’s departure from Royal Mail in June followed a board-level restructure that led to Group Strategy Director Alex Smith taking on overall marketing responsibility as Strategy and Commercial Director. Batchelor is to take up the role at TomTom in September.

Prior to leaving Royal Mail, Batchelor is understood to have been a keen advocate of a partnership deal with London 2012, a tie that could yet materialise. One of his final decisions was to retain Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO and Proximity London on its ad and direct accounts respectively.

In the UK, TomTom uses the strapline ‘Find your way the easy way’.

The Dutch brand has sold 20m products over the past four years, although shares dipped last month following rumours of declining UK sales.

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Royal Mail and La Poste Privatisation Plans

Posted by | Jul 7, 2008 | |

Both the UK and France are looking at the possibility of part-privatisation of their state-owned postal services although postal unions and some MPs are likely to resist any attempts to privatise, in part or in whole.

In the UK, there is growing concern that the funding of the universal service is being undermined by what some see as an over-zealous drive to introduce competition into the market. The CWU (communication workers union), which repesents the majority of postal workers at Royal Mail, has already hinted at the possible withdrawal of it’s contribution to Labour Party funds if the present government continues to back what it describes as a ‘slash and burn’ policy on postal reform. The union’s present view is that Royal Mail is being run down as an excuse to privatise it.

The European Commission has taken a rather ‘loose’ approach to deciding how the USO could be maintained in a deregulated European postal market by saying that it was up to individual countries to decide how it should be funded. Some argue that in a somewhat grand plan to liberalise postal services quickly, it has effectively ‘passed the buck’ on the USO. Last year saw demonstrations in Berlin from unions concerned about the USO and the impact on jobs.

Neither the UK or France has made any firm committment to privatisation yet, but the idea is likely to find favour with both governments as a way to ease problems in a more competitive market. Directors at France’s La Poste, are said to be keen on the idea of an IPO that would involve 20 percent of the company’s total capital, said to be worth around 10 billion euros.

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