TNT announced that it has beaten off competition from up to 15,000 other companies to be named ‘Best Overall Supplier’ by The Royal Bank of Scotland.
TNT was commended for “reducing costs and delivering increased service efficiency” in its role as RBS’s exclusive distributor of cheques, internal mail and commodities supplies.
Royal Mail will regain its monopoly on delivering household post following a decision by Express Dairies to pull out of the postal delivery business. Express Dairies has been delivering small parcels, magazines and catalogues to the nation’s homes using its fleet of milk floats since 2002. Although other companies have contemplated setting up a full residential mail delivery service, so far Express has been the only competitor to Royal Mail in this market. But earlier this month Express wrote to its business customers informing them that it would wind up its delivery operation at the end of November. In the letter, it blamed changes in postal pricing for the move. Royal Mail’s planned move to size-based pricing, which would make heavy items such as catalogues cheaper to post, and a new promotion to win back magazine and catalogue customers, was squeezing Express out of its niche market, it said. Last June, Express Dairies formed a partnership with TNT Mail to expand its delivery business. It is understood that TNT Mail now plans to establish its own end-to-end delivery service but it is not clear how long this would take to set up.
Read MorePeter Bakker, head of the Dutch post office, said yesterday that the company is considering hiring its own force of postmen to compete head on with Royal Mail.
The company, TPG, trades as TNT Mail in the UK, and already delivers heavier mail door-to-door using Express Dairies. Mr Bakker said that although replicating Royal Mail’s entire network was “not viable”, hiring large numbers of postmen was “one of the models” TNT was looking at in the UK. He expected there would be “one or two companies with competing networks to Royal Mail” after the mail market was fully opened up to competition. Royal Mail would still maintain its leading position, but he saw no reason why TNT Mail could not have between 10pc and 15pc of the UK mail market. “We have the capability to succeed,” he said. Mr Bakker is looking at an “end to end” delivery strategy that doesn’t use the Royal Mail’s access agreement which TNT Mail uses at the moment.
TNT Mail has won a three-year deal to handle energy supplier Npower’s customer statements and direct marketing materials, as its parent company revealed it is drawing up plans to offer end-to-end delivery. Npower is TNT’s first utility sector client and follows Powergen’s move to private mail operator UK Mail.
Npower has more than 6m residential and business customers and the deal with TNT Mail is expected to cover around 50m items annually. Hilary O’Grady, the energy supplier’s logistics manager, said: “TNT has the size, scale and resources to deliver on what it promises.” It will use TNT’s Premier service, providing collection and delivery, using Royal Mail’s network for final sort and “last mile” delivery, in 48 hours.
Print management companies are set to face increasing competition in the direct mail sector from postal firms. TNT Mail is working more closely with sister mailing company Cendris to provide an end-to-end service. Cendris is rebranding as TNT Document Services in a bid to centralise the group’s activities. Head of marketing and communications Simon Dolph said although print management activities are not a short term priority, the integration between the two businesses would continue to develop. “It’s not on the immediate horizon,” he said. “As far as going back up the chain goes, that won’t be happening for a few years yet.” A growing number of firms are extending their links up the supply chain from the delivery of printed items, such as direct mail, to include document management and printing services. DHL Global Mail already provides a limited direct mail printing service, largely for conference companies, as well as personalisation, polywrapping and inserting for publishing clients such as Reed, Euromoney and Haymarket.
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