Tag: Royal Mail

UK Postmen may deliver strike next month

Posted by | May 1, 2007 | |

The first national postal strike in more than ten years could cripple services as early as next month as the Communication Workers Union prepares to mount a strike ballot this week.

The union’s postal executive is expected to ratify a strike ballot later today or tomorrow as it meets to discuss Royal Mail’s plans for a pay freeze with only lump sums of Pounds 600 available if employees change their ways of working.

The last time that a strike ballot was mounted, the Communication Workers Union (CWU) narrowly lost a vote in favour. However, then Royal Mail had offered a 14 per cent pay increase over three years.

A strike at Royal Mail would come as the group is preparing to announce a large fall in profits for the year to the end of March. Its interim profits fell 86 per cent to Pounds 22 million and the organisation has lost more business since then.

Industrial action could also put Royal Mail on a collision course with the industry regulator if a strike causes problems for rival operators and if it is thought that Royal Mail could have averted disruption. Royal Mail’s rivals tend to use the postal organisation for the final-mile delivery of the mail that they handle because they need its infrastructure. They could try to seek damages against the organisation if their services are disrupted because of a strike at Royal Mail.

Royal Mail has set out a 22-point plan to reduce costs by Pounds 350 million this year as it struggles to improve its productivity. The company is investing more than Pounds 1 billion in automation and is expected to cut up to 30 per cent of jobs -nearly 50,000 -when new equipment is installed. Its investment is coming from a Pounds 3.9 billion rescue package from the Government that was agreed in February.

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Wind turbine to power IRIS mail routing platform

Posted by | May 1, 2007 | |

Mail Handling International are to announce the commissioned installation of a state of the art Wind Turbine to power its IRIS mail routing platform. The energy offset turbine sited on the roof of MHI’s UK HQ will on windy days generate 125% of the power required to run IRIS!

Gary Barnett, MHI Group Operations Director, was delighted to emphasise that
“Routing mail efficiently with IRIS has been the key to MHI’s rapid growth and success, now running profiles and cleaning data is also carbon neutral…”

Gary added “At MHI we are always looking to improve our post handling efficiencies and this is just one of a number of initiatives underway for 2007” MHI’s CEO Paul Brown is enthusiastic to point out “The success of IRIS has allowed MHI to once again re-invest in the future of the business, the wind turbine will power all of our processing servers and contribute to the overall efficiency of the business as we rapidly grow to meet client’s mail routing needs”

Paul added “Visitors to the Triangle World Mail Awards 21-23 May in London will be able to experience the routing efficiency of IRIS first hand regardless of whether the wind is blowing!” www.mailawards.com.

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Royal Mail unveils next phase in direct marketing

Posted by | May 1, 2007 | |

Royal Mail has launched a new direct marketing service that will seek to fuse traditional direct mail campaigns with digital media.

Following the successful trial of its Personalised Integrated Media solution last year with Audi, the firm has decided to roll out the scheme for all customers seeking to launch a direct marketing campaign.

However, for any direct mail initiative to prove successful, a high standard of data quality is needed so as to ensure that information is being sent to the correct addresses. Returns on investment can often be reduced by incorrect data which causes information to be sent to old or inaccurate addresses, meaning that data cleansing exercises are important to get the most out of any such campaign.

By maintaining a high standard of data quality, through data suppression and data cleansing operations, a firm can carry out a highly successful direct mail campaign, even without the latest technology as employed by Royal Mail.

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Post Office® (UK) insurance sales hit half a million

Posted by | May 1, 2007 | |

Post Office® Financial Services confirmed its position as one of the fastest growing insurance providers in the UK as insurance policy sales passed the 500,000 mark.

Already the largest independent provider of travel insurance in the UK, the Post Office® has built on this success over the past three years with Post Office® Financial Services which was launched as a joint venture with Bank or Ireland in 2004.

Post Office® Financial Services insurance products now include motor, home (buildings and contents) and most recently van cover for small businesses. Alongside this it has also successfully launched a range of lending and savings products.

The Post Office® has strived to bring innovation and fair value to the insurance market: it was the first provider to offer a GBP 50 cash back incentive to all new car insurance customers. From May 1 2007, it is launching a new promotion offering one month’s free cover to all new car, van or home insurance customers.

CEO of Post Office® Financial Services Patrick Waldron said: “Our aim at launch was to become a major player in the financial services industry and now, reaching half a million customers with our insurance products alone, we are definitely on target to achieve this.

“We believe in offering customers fairer, easier and better insurance – for example our customers can already save up to 33 per cent on car insurance alone, offered through 14,300 branches, online or over the phone. With one month free it’s even better value.”

All products are available by telephone and online and information is available at all 14,300 UK Post Office® branches – one of the largest retail networks in Europe.

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Post de-regulation offers reseller opportunities

Posted by | Apr 30, 2007 | |

Deregulation of the postal market will see new and traditional players alike scrabbling to implement mobile devices to survive, according to market watchers at Zebra Technologies.

The loss of the Royal Mail‚s monopoly has resulted in a plethora of delivery companies and courier services entering the industry, fighting to stay ahead of the game in a newly-competitive environment. Zebra is predicting that new entrants to the industry will fail in this market within twelve months if they are not properly equipped, due to the new levels of competition.

In the ‘War of the postie’ it is technology that will help new market players to stay competitive – mobile devices will make or break processes including delivery of registered mail, and collecting returned goods,” said Clive Fearn, vertical marketing manager at Zebra. “It represents a big opportunity for businesses to provide tailored systems to all the big players in Europe. There‚s so much pressure to stay ahead of competitors, it is essential companies are properly equipped to work efficiently, and offer as many services as possible.”

In the last twelve months, Zebra has supplied printers to leading postal operators such as Polish, Portuguese and Hellenic post. The company also works with businesses such as TNT and DHL, and with major postal and private operators across EMEA on projects including the mobile post and electronic stamps.

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