Tag: Sweden

DHL launches New York overnight express to Europe

Posted by | Jun 25, 2007 | |

DHL, introduced the service for urgent next day documents from New York City to major European destinations.

Available for customers with shipments originating from lower Manhattan, DHL’s next day delivery trip begins with the pickup of urgent material by courier for transfer to the DHL helicopter pad in New York City. Shipments are then flown by helicopter directly to John F. Kennedy (JFK) airport, avoiding New York City traffic. From there, they move on flights bound for nine cities in Europe.

Available Monday thru Thursday, the new offering gives customers the ability to get their shipments delivered next business day from New York City to Amsterdam, Holland; Brussels, Belgium; Dublin, Ireland; Frankfurt, Germany; Geneva, Switzerland; London, England; Madrid, Spain; Paris, France; and Zurich, Switzerland. Next day by 12:00 noon delivery is available to some of the main financial centers in Europe.

For more than two decades, DHL has been leveraging its Manhattan helicopter to serve the financial district, and is the only express shipper to provide continual same day and overnight delivery of cash letters from Europe and Asia to the US banking system — a service vital to the world’s leading financial institutions. By cutting as much as a day off the time in transit for these shipments, financial institutions and their customers can save millions of dollars each year in otherwise lost interest and delayed business transactions.

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The Liberalized Swedish Postal Market (14 yrs after the abolition of the monopoly)

Posted by | Jun 7, 2007 | |

Universal Service Obligation (USO) and Supervision
The EC Postal Directive has been implemented and the former Postal Administration, Posten AB, is obliged by law as well as licence terms and conditions to provide nation-wide postal service. In addition, the Basic Counter Service Act also obliges Posten AB to provide a nation-wide basic counter service. Postal items weighing up to 20 kg are distributed every non-holiday Monday to Friday with some minor exceptions. Experience shows that the introduction of competition has if anything enhanced the ability of Posten AB to run a profitable nation-wide distribution of letters without subsidies from the State. After the transformation process of the service network Posten AB meets its customers at 381 Business Centres, 1 600 Postal Outlets and around 2 000 Stamp Agents. In addition 740 000 addressees are served by rural postmen. The National Post and Telecom Agency is an independent regulatory authority engaged in supervision and licensing. No case of non-compliance with the universal service obligations has been reported to the Government since the postal market was totally liberalised.

Quality of service and Tariffs
The previously high service quality of Posten AB has, as a result of the liberalisation and the growing competition, even improved in terms of quality and efficiency. International benchmarking ranks Posten AB among the leading postal operators in the world when it comes to efficiency and quality. 95% ol first class letters are delivered over night. The most important reason for this outstanding performance is that Posten AB for a long time has been used to competition in large segments of the postal market, for instance logistics. Since 1994 there is a price-cap on the domestic letter rate for single piece items. The liberalisation of the postal market in Sweden is not the reason for the increase in prices. Decisions to raise prices were taken when VAT on postal services was introduced and when prices for Posten AB’s letter mail products were re-balanced in relation to costs. These decisions led to increased prices in some segments of the market. However, other more important segments of the market as e.g. bulk mail have benefited from lower prices after competition was introduced. The standard letter rate is on an average European level if the purchasing power of the households is taken into consideration.

Employment and Financial performance
Other companies alike, postal operators have to follow the cycles of business trends and change their staff structure in order to adjust to the new economy and its prerequisites. The introduction of new techniques including highly automated sorting centres and the reorganisation of the post office network, which led to a reduction of the number of employees within Posten AB, had already started before the liberalisation of the postal market and the abolition of the monopoly. However, this has not had any negative impact on the ability of Posten AB to fulfill the universal service obligation. CityMail employed almost 1400 people in Sweden in 2006, all with the same terms of employment as mailmen working for Posten AB . The remaining private postal operators are largely one-man businesses. According to the Annual Report for 2006 of Posten AB, the income had increased with 2 546 million SEK (271 million Euro) compared with the year before of witch 1 930 million SEK (205 million Euro) is attributed to the acquisition of the mail printing company Strolfors. Full competition in the letter market has not affected the universal service provider’s ability to provide a profitable nation-wide postal service at reasonable prices.

Competition
After 14 years of a liberalised postal market, Posten AB still holds 91% oe total market for letters. This implies that the need to protect consumers and new competitors will probably remain in the foreseeable future. However, there is growing competition in several segments of the mark

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Presentation of Posten AB's New Service Network

Posted by | Jun 7, 2007 | |

This English version summarises two reports about Posten AB’s new service network that were published by the National Post and Telecom Agency (PTS) in 2004 and 2006. The aim of this document is to describe the development of Posten AB’s new service network, which is largely based on franchises rather than traditional post offices. Today, consumers have access to various postal services through grocery and petrol station chains. This document describes Posten’s experiences from over five years of operating the service network and the changes made during this time. The National Post and Telecom Agency (PTS) is the supervisory authority for the postal sector, for which reason the authority’s assessment of the new service network is also included. This assessment is based on the regulatory framework which must be complied with by the operator allocated responsibility for providing a universal postal service. The reactions of consumers to changes in the service network are also described.

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Sweden/EU industry: Post liberalisation…in a big country

Posted by | May 31, 2007 | |

Liberalisation of the postal sector will mark the end of an era across the EU. Making the transition to open markets will prove to be a bloody process for some – at stake are jobs, time-honoured principles such as universal service provision and cherished assets, including post offices, letter-boxes and sorting offices.

But countries such as Sweden, which liberalised in the early 1990s, warn that resistance is futile. Traditional postal service provision is being stretched by the advent of digital technology and e-commerce. The sector, says dominant postal operator Posten AG, can choose to adapt of its own volition or sink.

“Physical post will diminish if postal services don’t adapt and it will be difficult to uphold the universal service obligation in the end,” says Susanne Flyckt, chief officer for regulatory affairs at Posten, formerly a state-backed monopoly.

Sweden is a flag-bearer for the liberalisation cause. A report compiled this year by Sweden’s postal regulator shows that universal service provision, or standards guaranteeing non-discriminatory access to postal services, has not suffered as a result of market opening. “The previously high service- quality of Posten has, as a result of the liberalisation and the growing competition, even improved in terms of quality and efficiency,” says the report.

According to Flyckt, any jobs lost at Posten since market-opening have been “down to technological developments and changes in customer behaviour”. The regulatory report, published in March, shows that the introduction of new techniques, including highly automated sorting centres and the reorganisation of the post office network, in any case, predated liberalisation.

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