Tag: Royal Mail

Royal Mail bosses under pressure for closing profitable branches (UK)

Posted by | Jul 24, 2008 | |

MPs warn in a new report that post offices in pubs and shops could be at risk because of inadequate funding and call for more transparency in the way Royal Mail treats its public subsidy.
Ministers have told Royal Mail to close 2,500 out of 14,000 branches in a bid to cut the network’s annual subsidy by GBP 40million to GBP 150million a year and stem losses running at GBP 4million a week.
However, Paula Vennells, Post Office Limited’s branch network director, told MPs on the Business and Enterprise committee that some of the condemned branches were making money.
She disclosed that 10 profitable branches will be closed during the 18 month-long Network Change Programme – or just over one every six weeks.
The committee’s chairman Peter Luff, who is publishing the report into the financial viability of the post office network, said it “made no sense” to allow profitable post offices to close.
The committee calls on the National Audit Office to investigate the financial arrangements for so-called ‘outreach’ services which Royal Mail is setting up when it has to close branches.
They call for close examination of the relationship between Post Office and its parent company Royal Mail Group after finding that money provided by Royal Mail was not enough for the Post Office to run its services.
The MPs also said Royal Mail should provide “clear information” on what services Royal Mail expects to be provided, how it works out what to pay for them, and how much they actually cost to deliver.
They questioned whether Royal Mail was using the Post Office to “cross-subsidise” some of its mail services. Last year the network received GBP 358 million for providing mail services to Royal Mail.

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GLS inaugurates depot in Tyrol

Posted by | Jul 23, 2008 | |

The parcel and express service provider GLS Austria has opened a new EUR 2 million depot in Zirl (Tyrol, Austria). The facility’s 50 workers and drivers can handle up to 15,000 parcels a day. The 1,650 sqm handling hall with 57 docking stations is located on a 12,000 sqm plot of land directly adjacent to the Inntal motorway. Construction was completed in less than three months, the staff and equipment moved in last weekend, and a few hours later the depot went on stream, and has already processed its first shipments.

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World's postal sector players meet for the 24th Universal Postal Congress

Posted by | Jul 22, 2008 | |

The development gaps that separate the postal services of industrialized and developing countries at a worldwide level must be reduced for citizens and businesses to better participate in international trade, said UPU Director General Edouard Dayan.

More than 2,200 postal sector stakeholders will participate in the 24th Universal Postal Congress, taking place in Geneva from 12 August. The majority of its 191 member countries will be represented.

According to Dayan, member countries must firmly commit to modernizing their postal networks so that, globally, they can fully contribute to their social and economic development objectives. Postal services are still alive and well, he said, adding that e-mail and the Internet had not rung the death knell for them. On the contrary, he added, all means of communication complement each other, and the postal sector in this era of the Internet and online commerce has never played a more key role in today’s commercial trade.

These challenges and others will be at the heart of Congress discussions and the World Postal Strategy UPU member countries will be asked to adopt. This strategy is designed around the interoperability of postal networks, using new technologies and harmonized international standards, the development of markets and more well-defined governance rules for the postal sector. Four objectives aim to better position worldwide postal services in the light of tougher competition, the opening up of markets, the advances made by new technologies, which offer new opportunities, and the need to improve their reliability and speed to respond adequately to individual and business needs.

Congress delegates will study 560 proposals. Some 330 are of a general nature or aim to modify the UPU Acts, an international treaty signed by all member countries at the end of Congress. The other proposals, more technical, will be examined by the next UPU Postal Operations Council. It will hold its first session after Congress in October at UPU headquarters in Berne.

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Swiss Post International acquires German-based GPD

Posted by | Jul 22, 2008 | |

Swiss Post International (SPI), the international Group unit of Swiss Post, has taken over Global Press Distribution GmbH (GPD) in Germany. With this acquisition, SPI is consolidating its position in the German export press market, the largest in Europe. GPD has a staff of 31 and generated sales of CHF 8 million in 2007.
The acquisition of Global Press Distribution GmbH (GPD) by Swiss Post International (SPI) will take effect retroactively to 1 January 2008. It was agreed that the purchase price will not be disclosed. GPD, whose registered office is in Moerfelden near Frankfurt, provides services connected with the international and national dispatch of magazines. Its customers in Germany include publishers, printers, lettershops and other service providers in the publishing industry. With a workforce of 31, GPD generated sales equivalent to CHF 8 million francs in 2007.
With this acquisition SPI is reinforcing its position in the export press business. The German press market is the biggest in Europe, with 400 newspapers and 200 magazine publications. By entering this market, Swiss Post is pursuing its strategy of establishing itself in international niche markets. Swiss Post now already generates 20 percent of its sales abroad and in its cross-border business. SPI is a wholly owned subsidiary of Swiss Post and currently employs 1,200 people in eleven European countries, five major cities in Asia and in the USA. SPI is now number five on the cross-border letters market after Deutsche Post, United States Postal Service, the UK’s Royal Mail and France’s La Poste.

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A long and stony road to European postal competition

Posted by | Jul 18, 2008 | |

Following full liberalisation in four European countries (UK, Germany, Sweden and Finland), about 54 pct of the total EU mail market in volume terms is now completely open to competition, Alex Dieke, head of Postal Services and Logistics for German-based market research institute wik-Consult, told last month’s World Mail & Express Europe conference in Budapest organised by Triangle Management Services. But experience from these four liberalised markets showed that “it will take a long time for effective competition to arrive”, he commented. In the long-term, competitors might be able to gain up to 20-25 pct of larger markets, he forecast.

In Britain, which liberalised in 2006, competitors such as UK Mail and TNT Post had gained a 10 pct market share in terms of “upstream” volumes collected from customers but there was still no major competitor to Royal Mile for “last-mile” deliveries to businesses and consumers, Dieke said. In Sweden, where the market was opened in 1993, competitor CityMail still only had about 10 pct of the market. In Finland, which liberalised in 1997, high entry barriers meant there was no real competitor to Itella. In the Netherlands, which along with Slovakia might open its market before the official EU-wide liberalisation date of January 2011, competitors Selektmail and Sandd had gained 12 pct of the market despite TNT’s remaining monopoly, he noted.

Iain McLure, CEO of Spring Global Mail, criticised European postal operators for the repeated delays to liberalisation in recent years. “How long does the postal sector need to get prepared for competition?” he asked. In future, postal operators would have to focus on offering products in line with customer demand, better customer service and opportunities to achieve cost savings, the experienced postal manger forecast.

Spring, the TNT/Royal Mail/Singapore Post subsidiary, regularly used alternatives to national postal operators in some markets in order to provide quality services and lower costs, McLure pointed out. But he stressed: “As a broker, we are more of a customer (to postal operators) than a competitor.” Spring had been profitable for the past eight years, he noted.

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