Tag: Royal Mail

Matthew Robertson moves from TNT Post to NetDespatch as Commercial Director

Posted by | Jun 20, 2007 | |

Matthew Robertson, previously Group Development Director at TNT Post, has joined leading on-demand express transport software company NetDespatch in the newly created role of Commercial Director. Robertson joins as part of the recent expansion of the senior management team, and will lead market development for the company’s leading-edge web-based software and services. Robertson will also take responsibility for partnership development and management.

With a career spanning over 10 years in express parcels and packets and doorstep delivery environments, Robertson will assist CEO Becky Clark to maintain their market lead and expand business in the UK and abroad. Robertson spent 3 years with TNT Post as Group Development Director and was instrumental in the adoption and implementation of NetDespatch Velocity in the Packets and Parcels division of the leading alternative Business-to-Consumer (B2C) postal service. Prior to TNT Post, Robertson held senior positions at Arla Foods, where he served 4 years as Business Development Director for the Doorstep Delivery division, and also Royal Mail, where he led market development for B2C parcels and packets for 3 years.

“Matthew arrives at a very exciting time in the growth of NetDespatch. His extensive knowledge and experience gained at the user side of our market will prove invaluable as we move the company forward,” says NetDespatch CEO Becky Clark.

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Postal Professionals Gather for Forum in St. Petersburg

Posted by | Jun 19, 2007 | |

The growing competition that traditional postal services face against new information technologies, the liberalization of the industry and its survival in the internet era are all topics set to be discussed in St. Petersburg starting Tuesday, when postal industry professionals from around the world gather at the Pochtovaya Troika event.

The postal industry forum, which ends Thursday, is held every two years and this year, organizers say, the event will be particularly significant for the industry as it is held between two important international events — the Strategic Conference in Dubai of the year 2006 and the Nairobi Congress — scheduled for 2008.

The forum’s program is planned in such a way as to become a logical follow-up to discussions and debates that are expected to start during the Strategic Conference in Dubai; in addition, it is a part of the communication plan of the Strategic Planning Group of the UPU, chaired by the Russian Federation, the website continues.

For the first time, this year the forum will become “strategic,” which will be reflected in the event’s agenda, Russian Minister for Information Technologies and Communications Leonid Reiman — due to take part in the forum’s opening ceremony — said in a welcome note to guests and participants of Pochtovaya Troika.

With the development of new information technologies including the internet, communication through the means of the simple letter has increasingly become a thing of the past. But contrary to the popular belief that the post service will be obsolete in the foreseeable future, industry experts are positive and say postal services will always find a market.

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Royal Mail loses contract with Amazon

Posted by | Jun 19, 2007 | |

Royal Mail today confirmed that online retailer Amazon has decided it will move its Second Class mailings, worth £8m, from Royal Mail.

Royal Mail said, “We’re very proud to work with Amazon and the loss of such a significant piece of their business demonstrates very clearly that Royal Mail’s higher costs, directly caused by our failure to fully modernise our operations, are costing us business. It’s vital that we urgently change and modernise if we are to be able to compete against more efficient rivals who have already done so.

“At the same time our customers are being threatened with disruption because of strikes – strikes which are aimed at preventing exactly the modernisation that could keep our big customers on board.

“Customers like Amazon are critical to us, and to our competitors. They represent an important area of growth in a market which is otherwise declining as fewer items of mail are sent.”

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Liberal Democrats support for preservation of Universal Service Obligation

Posted by | Jun 18, 2007 | |

Lib Dem MP Robert Smith voices Lib Dem support for preservation of Universal Service Obligation at debate at Westminster Hall.

Speaking on a Lib Dem motion of the Universal Service Obligation in Westminster Hall, MP Alistair Carmichael pointed out the importance of a debate on Universal Service Obligation “following the recent application by the Royal Mail for zonal pricing for bulk mail, on which consultation with Postcomm has just concluded.”

Mr Carmichael expressed his concern that if Royal Mail’s application for zonal charging for bulk mail is approved, bulk mail will be removed from the universal service.

He suggested: “What is left will hardly be worth the name. It will hardly be universal and it will barely be a service.”

Lib Dem MP Danny Alexander also expressed his concern that the government, and Postcomm, are pressing ahead with the opening up of the mail market without first ensuring that there are adequate safeguards in place to protect the universal service.

Lib Dem Sir Robert Smith, speaking for the Liberal Democrats, made clear that “the present situation has come about because of the opening up of the letter market, which was the result of European Union regulations and the decision to open up the whole of the European market-albeit not at the pace that it is happening in the UK.”

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Up for auction . . . 75,000 items that were 'lost in the post' by Royal Mail

Posted by | Jun 17, 2007 | |

Royal Mail has admitted selling off thousands of items that got ‘lost in the post’ to help meet its running costs.

The troubled company sells the contents of about 75,000 undelivered packages every year, at the risk of enraging hordes of customers already frustrated that their post has gone astray.

Even customers who paid over the odds for premium ‘secure’ services to cover valuable items have been shocked to find their goods put up for auction, in an operation that could be netting the postal giant millions of pounds a year.

The scandal was exposed by retired teacher John Beattie after he discovered that a set of antique bagpipes, which Royal Mail had lost, were for sale on internet auction site eBay.

He had originally sold the rare 1910 Henderson bagpipes to a fellow collector in Belgium for Pounds 1,500 last July, and despatched them using the Royal Mail’s Airsure premium airmail service, described as ‘fast, secure and reliable’.

Although the package was correctly labelled, it vanished without trace.

However, in March this year a friend spotted the bagpipes online.

It turned out that the package had spent three months languishing in the national undelivered mail centre in
Belfast, before the Royal Mail sent it to Surrey auctioneers Wellers.

In turn, they sold the bagpipes to an online bidder for Pounds 60. The instrument then turned up on eBay, advertised by a man in the Glasgow area.

Wellers has an exclusive contract to sell Royal Mail’s undelivered post, but senior auctioneer Glen Snelgar refused to comment on their arrangement.

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