Tag: Royal Mail

Royal Mail eyes Sainsbury chairman

Posted by | Dec 24, 2006 | |

The chairman of J Sainsbury, Britain’s second-biggest food retailer, has been approached to become deputy chairman of Royal Mail, making him a potential successor to Allan Leighton as head of the postal group.
Philip Hampton is one of three candidates to have been shortlisted for the job and a series of interviews have taken place with the headhunter appointed to handle the search. Bob Wigley, chairman of Merrill Lynch Europe and a non-executive director of Royal Mail, has also been approached but it appears he is reluctant to take on the post.

Hampton is seen as a strong candidate. As well as chairing Sainsbury he also been finance director at Lloyds TSB and BT. Royal Mail is keen to find a deputy chairman who can be groomed to succeed Leighton when he steps down in March 2008.
However, the search has been made more difficult because none of the candidates wants to move forward until the government has decided whether it is going to back a financial restructuring at Royal Mail and support issuing 20% of its equity, which is 100% held by government, to staff.

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Christmas cards boost bottom line for UK businesses

Posted by | Dec 22, 2006 | |

Small and medium sized businesses up and down the country are set to increase their New Year profits by GBP257 million as a result of sending their customers Christmas Cards over the festive season.

According to the Royal Mail research launched today, bottom line profits of businesses are set to increase by 2.1 per cent as a result of sending Christmas card mailers – a return on investment of 3,213 per cent – with the average company spending just GBP200.

Businesses are realising the value of sending Christmas cards, with a third convinced they help to build and maintain customer relationships, and six in ten believing that they give them a competitive edge.

Alex Batchelor, Royal Mail’s Marketing Director, said: “This research shows that as a sales and marketing tool, the humble Christmas card provides a huge return on investment.

Royal Mail’s festive postbag this year of two billion items includes 750 million Christmas cards.

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UK Post office closure is branded shortsighted

Posted by | Dec 22, 2006 | |

The West Surrey branch of the Federation of Small Business (FSB) has added its voice to the mounting furore over the decision to close 2,500 post offices across the UK.

The organisation which looks after the interests of small businesses has cited that 82% of small firms believe the closure of their local post office would adversely affect them.

While accepting that many sub-post offices are loss making, it has argued that the social need must be put before profit.

A total of 88% of small firms send mail every day, 69% send invoices through the post and 94% of small firms use Royal Mail exclusively.

And with small businesses employing twelve million people the potential for this decision to have a negative knock-on effect on the economy is considerable claims the group.

Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Alistair Darling made the announcement to the House of Commons last week that some post offices will close as early as summer 2007 as part of the cost-cutting move, branded short-sighted by the federation.

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UK postage price changes from April 2007

Posted by | Dec 18, 2006 | |

Royal Mail confirmed today that the price of a First Class stamp for a standard letter weighing up to 100g will rise by 2p to 34p from 2 April 2007, in line with the four-year price control set by postal regulator Postcomm in March 2006.

The price of a First Class stamp for a large letter up to 100g will rise by 4p to 48p.

The price of a Second Class stamp for a standard letter up to 100g will rise by 1p to 24p. The price of a Second Class stamp for a large letter up to 100g will rise by 3p to 40p.

Lorna Clarkson, Royal Mail’s Director of Commercial Policy and Pricing, said: “Now that the UK mail market is open to full competition, it is essential that Royal Mail’s prices more closely reflect the true cost of collecting, sorting and delivering around 80 million items of mail a day to 27 million addresses across the UK.

The price of business mail services will rise at a lesser rate than stamped mail. First Class franked mail and items carrying a printed postage impression (PPI) will attract a 2p discount for items up to 100g. The same discount will also apply to Second Class franked and PPI mail.
Prices will continue to decrease for heavier weight items, which will support the growth of the online retail market. Royal Mail is also offering business customers discounts for machineable mail, and the thresholds for volume discounts have been lowered for some business mail services to enable more customers to benefit.

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Royal Mail hires 3,000 'address detectives'

Posted by | Dec 17, 2006 | |

Its one of the most frantic jobs before Christmas: making sure your greetings cards are sent in plenty of time. But the scribbled addresses on cards in the final post are proving to be a big problem for the Royal Mail.

The service has this year been forced to hire an extra 3,000 workers to decipher bad handwriting on an estimated 400 million poorly labelled packages and envelopes. Bad spelling, illegible handwriting and neglecting to include the postcode have been highlighted as reasons for post not arriving at its intended destination.

The 3,000 extra staff, known as “address detectives”, will be based at Plymouth, Stockport, Stoke and Doxford, in Northumberland, and will join 1,400 permanent staff members who decipher addresses that cannot be read by the Royal Mail’s automated sorting machines.

Letters and parcels with addresses that cannot be sorted by hand by address detectives in sorting offices are scanned into computers and emailed to colleagues, who run internet searches to determine where the mail should be sent.

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