Tag: UK

UK small businesses seek alternative mail service

Posted by | Apr 4, 2008 | |

UK SMEs are looking for an alternative to the postal service as concerns mount over the increased number of local post office closures forcing firms to use expensive courier companies.

A survey by the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) revealed that 82 per cent of SMEs believe the closure of their local post office would have a significant impact on their business.

Simon Briault, an FSB representative, said: “Small businesses have limited options for an alternative postal service. The private services that are available have cherry picked the government and larger businesses because they do not make enough money from SMEs.”

The FSB recently called upon politicians to take every possible step to retain the network of post offices and launched a national campaign and petition called Keep Trade Local.

“A large number of SMEs rely on Royal Mail and their local post office, with 94 per cent of them using the service exclusively. Couriers are an alternative service and can be useful, but in rural areas businesses will really suffer,” added Briault.

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MailSource UK extends its digital processing capabilities with the acquisition of Graphic Data

Posted by | Apr 4, 2008 | |

MailSource UK Ltd (www.mailsource.co.uk) has today announced the acquisition of the document processing business of Graphic Data UK Ltd, further expanding its capability to provide outsourced document processing to its clients.

Founded in 1979, Graphic Data provides off-site digital processing of paper-based and electronic information for over 700 corporate clients, including Coca-Cola, Whitbread, Equity Insurance, Scottish and Newcastle and Sodexho. Graphic Data provides its clients with services that automatically capture, process and distribute corporate information, including credit card and mortgage applications and claims, as well as purchase invoices, as outsourced business processes.

Both MailSource UK and Graphic Data are specialists in their fields and have historically provided complementary services. MailSource UK, a subsidiary of Swiss Post, has a strong base in the outsourcing of physical mailrooms and related services and the acquisition is a natural evolution of MailSource UK’s growing service provision in digital mailroom management. The integration of the two established skill-sets – physical mailroom and digital information management – will provide clients with an unparalleled level of combined expertise and service delivery.

Both companies are active in a wide range of industry sectors, including public sector, healthcare, financial services, professional services and retail.

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Postcomm welcomes reappointment of Commissioner Wanda Goldwag (UK)

Posted by | Apr 3, 2008 | |

Nigel Stapleton, Chairman of Postcomm today welcomed the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform John Hutton’s reappointment of Wanda Goldwag as Postcomm commissioner. Ms Goldwag has been reappointed for a further three years.

Ms Goldwag has more than 25 years’ experience in direct marketing, and started her career at Yves Rocher, the multi-national cosmetics company. Since then, she has held senior posts at Fidelity Investment Management, direct marketing agencies WWAV and Smith Bundy, Thorn EMI, Thomas Cook, and the British Airways-owned Air Miles loyalty scheme, where she was executive director.

Postcomm’s work is steered by its seven commissioners, who, between them, have many years’ experience of business, competition, consumer issues, regional matters, mail operations, trade union work, regulation and policy-making, as well as working with government.

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Royal Mail migrates entire procurement system online to e-sourcing (UK)

Posted by | Apr 3, 2008 | |

Royal Mail migrates entire procurement system online to e-sourcing making the process completely paperless

“The Royal Mail (RM) procurement team source around GBP 2.1 billion a year in goods and services. In an effort to cut costs, increase efficiency and deliver a higher level of service to British citizens, Royal Mail embarked on a three year transformation programme in July 2006, unify all procurement processes and stakeholders on the SAP E-Sourcing platform.

Previously sourcing was managed via paper files which was hugely inefficient and did not allow strategic visibility of vendors and contracts. With the new SAP E-sourcing platform, Royal Mail has eliminated all manual steps involved in the Source to Contract Process, increased visibility and compliance, enabled vendors to self-register via ‘Vendor Expression of Interest’ and saved the company GBP 300m.”

“SAP E-Sourcing in Royal Mail was rolled out in a phased manner starting in January 2007 with a month on month roll-out process to integrate all the elements of the procurement chain. When Release 1 Contract Management went live there was a cleansing and migration of approx 900+ contracts from the original procurement management system (PMS) to E-Sourcing. An innovative motivation tactic was deployed where different sourcing teams within RM like clothing, utilities, automation etc. competed against each other to be the fastest to cleanse and transfer their data.

Release 2 in June enabled ITT and eAuction functionality. This was a significant move to integrate all stakeholders under a common process leading to a high level of visibility and accountability. In addition to this, Release 2.1 allowed the vendors interested in participating in asourcing events to register electronically and this greatly improved the management & selection process for large scale deals.

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DHL Exel Supply Chain wins GBP 50m contract extension (UK)

Posted by | Apr 3, 2008 | |

DHL Exel Supply Chain has won a GBP 53.5 million contract extension with Nisa Today’s to continue distributing frozen and chilled food (27.8 million cases each year) throughout the UK. The deal will also see DHL work with air and freight specialist DHL Global Forwarding, for a trial in the Republic of Ireland.

John Sharpe, managing director of Central Distribution Trading and Logistics at Nisa-Today’s said: “We have enjoyed a great relationship with DHL and have appointed them until March 2011 to support us in developing our routes and supply chain while working with us to increase our carbon efficiency. We aim to help customers grow their sales and increase profits in a competitive market and we believe DHL’s strength in supply chain operations will help us to achieve this.”

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