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UPU Puts Addressing On UN Agenda - November 3, 2009
[Press Release.]UPU Director General Edouard Dayan urged United Nations organizations and agencies on Friday to join a UPU campaign to develop efficient addressing systems world-wide.
Attending the United Nations Chief Executives Board meeting in New York, Dayan told Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and colleagues that addresses are a critical tool for economic and social development and an essential part of a country’s national infrastructure.
Addresses are taken for granted in industrialized countries, but billions of people in developing countries don’t have them, preventing citizens from being full members of the community, Dayan said.
“People without addresses cannot easily vote or enjoy a full legal identity, nor can they easily open a bank account or qualify for credit or loans,” he recalled.
The head of the UN agency for postal services reminded his colleagues that addresses are important for delivering health and emergency services, developing rural and urban policies, and providing access to basic public services such as electricity or water.
“How can you apply for a decent job without a personal address? How can businesses sell and customers buy online if there is no physical address for delivering the goods? How can people get a passport or an ID?” said Dayan.
The UPU wants to raise awareness of addressing systems and give an address to everyone in the world. Plans include the creation of a multi-agency working group and holding a global summit on addressing in 2011.
Many postal-sector stakeholders are enthusiastic about the initiative. The United Nations Development Programme, the World Bank, UNESCO, the International Telecommunications Union and UN-Habitat have also indicated their desire to join the campaign.
DHL Enters Five-Year Multi-Million Pound Distribution Deal With News International - November 3, 2009
[Press Release.]DHL Supply Chain has been awarded a multi-million pound five-year contract with News International to handle the delivery of four leading national newspapers from print plants to wholesalers across England and Wales.
The deal will see DHL delivering The Sun, The Times, News of the World and The Sunday Times - amounting to over 25 million newspapers every week.
The partnership follows a 12-way competitive pitch. News International is the largest publisher of newspapers in the UK and the deal covers distribution from its four print plants, through the DHL Supply Chain network, to over 68 locations, seven days a week, 364 days a year.
Hellenic Post Restructuring Ahead of Liberalization in 2013 - November 2, 2009
[English Capital.]State-run Hellenic Post (ELTA) is to go through major restructuring ahead of the liberalization of the postal services market in 2013.
It is noted that on a European level, the liberalization is set to be implemented on 2010. Greece was granted a two year extension on the grounds of its geographical particularities, that is its numerous islands.
The government is set to gear ELTA towards new, innovative services and products with new technologies on the spotlight.
Sources told Capital.gr that the shut down or the merger of ELTA units seems to be an one-way street in the new, extremely competitive environment that is emerging.
The company is struggling on costly payrolls due to the numerous staff (11,000 employees) of the national network, that counts 800 post offices.
The big bet for the postal services provider is the differentiation from the traditional postal services, that currently account for more than 85 percent of the company's turnover.
ELTA posted H1 2009 losses that exceed 15 mil. euro with its operational profitability being flat.
TNT Q3 Results: Sharp Focus On Cost And Cash Continues To Pay Off - November 2, 2009
[Press Release.]
Highlights:
Group
" Cash flow remains strong; full-year cost-savings targets reaffirmed
" Profit from continuing operations 102 million euro, 10% blow Q3 2008
Express
" Quarter-on-quarter improvement in Express volumes and weight per consignment
" Continuing success in achieving cost savings: 128 million euro in Q3 2009, 368 million euro year to date
" Underlying operating income of 77 million euros (99 million euros in Q3 2008)
Mail
" Addressed mail volume decline in the Netherlands 4.8% i line with trend
" Strong Master plan savings of 24 million euros in the quarter
" Operating income in line with Q3 2008
CEO Peter Bakker comments:
In this quarter the trading environment has stabilised further with some early signs of positive underlying developments. With Q3 being the low volume season, the EBIT of both our divisions is at a satisfactory level.
The rate of decline of Express volumes has modestly improved. In particular, the average weight per consignment developed positively for the first time in a year, while price pressure remained. At the same time, our people continue to deliver on cost.
Mail achieved a solid result helped by strong Master plan savings in the quarter. Discussions with our unions to find ways of achieving necessary cost savings are ongoing.
TNT is optimally positioned to take advantage of a possible economic upturn but also needs to be prepared for continued harsh economic conditions and therefore remains focused on achieving its aggressive cost and cash control targets.
'Post Office In Your Hand’ an interview with Ross Philo, CIO and senior VP, USPS IT operations - November 2, 2009
The scope of the U.S. Postal Service is vast--208 billion pieces of mail delivered last year, 656,000 employees, 221,000 vehicles, 32,700 post offices--and its challenges are in proportion to its scale. The amount of mail handled by the Postal Service declined last year, while revenue, at $75 billion, was flat.
The Postal Service is looking to right itself through consolidation of offices, downsizing its workforce, and offering new services. Just a few days ago, it announced new capabilities for smartphones, including Track & Confirm, Post Office locator, and Zip Code lookup.
CIO and senior VP Ross Philo oversees the Postal Services' IT operations and reports to Postmaster General and CEO Jack Potter. Philo is included among InformationWeek's Government CIO 50, a group of the most influential technology executives in government.
Prior to joining USPS in February 2008, Philo worked for Cisco, startup Visean, Halliburton (as CIO), and Schlumberger. InformationWeek talked to Philo about how IT is being applied within the Postal Service to manage costs, improve operations, and deliver new services.
Interview
Lithuania To Reorganise Postal Network To Reduce Losses - October 30, 2009
[HellMail]
Lithuanian Post, AB Lietuvos paštas, is seeking to further minimise costs by reorganizing some 72 loss-making rural post offices by the end of this year.
The losses incurred were an average of 32,000 Litas each - 2.3m in the whole of 2008 and the company said it had no choice but to reorganise most of these branches over November and December this year.
“Universal economic decline, reduced purchasing power of customers and a difficult situation for the company is forcing us to make non popular but necessary decisions"said Director General of AB Lietuvos Andrius Urbonas.
"Since post offices are an important focus for society, the optimal solution must be reached with consultation - with representatives of municipalities, analysing the flow of customers, volumes of the services provided in loss making post offices, considering their technical conditions, and at the same time we must strive to ensure the further provision of services in order that citizens would not face inconveniences.“
In the Vilnius region, the reorganization is scheduled for 20 post offices, Kaunas branch – 10, Siauliai branch – 22, Panevezys branch – 20 post offices. The changes in the postal network will allow the company to save 2 million litas this year and about 4 million starting from 2010.
According to A. Urbonas, the provision of postal services will be ensured by changes to the postal network with some services replaced by mobile post offices or relocated to other post offices.
Employees of the reorganized post offices are to be offered new positions: about 70 percent of them will shift to mobile and other post offices. The reorganization of the postal network is being performed in compliance with the rules of the public postal network of the universal service provider approved by the Minister of Transport and Communications.
Currently AB Lietuvos paštas has more than 8,000 employees, the postal network consists of 808 stationary post offices, 9 sub-offices and 16 mobile post offices.
Norway Post: Enhanced Efficiency Improves Profitability - October 30, 2009
[Press Release.]Norway Post's revenues are declining as a result of the economic slump and electronic substitution, but extensive efficiency measures are leading to greater profitability at the end of the first three quarters of 2009.
The earnings before non-recurring items and write-downs came to NOK 647 million during the first three quarters of 2009, compared to NOK 345 million for the same period last year. The operating revenues amounted to NOK 20.1 billion, compared to NOK 20.8 billion at the end of Q3 2008.
The main reasons for the improved profitability are that the Spinnaker programme, which is intended to improve efficiency, has produced positive results and that the Norwegian state has paid for mandatory, unprofitable services in accordance with the licence conditions. As at 30 September 2009, government procurements of NOK 369 million were recorded in the books.
The Spinnaker effect - NOK 800 million
The Spinnaker programme was implemented in 2008 and consists of a number of measures to reduce costs and increase revenues in the Group. The measures are primarily intended to meet the challenges involved in the decline in volume and changes in customer behaviour in the traditional mail sector. The transition to electronic mail is leading to a permanently lower volume of letters, sharp fall in banking transactions and considerable decline in the number of those visiting post offices.
As at 30 September 2009, the effect of the Spinnaker measures equals around NOK 800 million. In the three first quarters of 2009, the effect equals around NOK 563 million.
«With the Spinnaker efficiency programme, we have so far succeeded in improving the efficiency of our operations and adapting our costs to the lower volumes of letters. The economic slump is also affecting the Logistics and IT activities, so that the efficiency programmes have been extended to also cover these parts of our operations,» says Dag Mejdell, the CEO of Norway Post.
Declining volumes of mail - improved quality
The volume of letters was in total 13.5 per cent lower as at 30 September 2009 than on the same date in 2008. Unaddressed advertising fell by 17.5 per cent while A and B mail fell by 8.6 per cent during the first three quarters of this year.
«Electronic substitution is leading to a permanent reduction in volume and changes to our customers' requirements. We expect the volume of letters to continue falling and that the amounts we lose to electronic messaging will not find their way back to Norway Post,» says Mr Mejdell.
In Q3 2009, Norway Post delivered 89.2 per cent of the A mail overnight, compared to 88.7 per cent in Q3 2008. This is well above the licence requirement of 85 per cent.
The economic slump is affecting Logistics and IT operations?
The generally lower level of activity in the economy is also affecting the development of revenue and earnings in the Logistics segment. In total, the operating revenues fell by three per cent during the first three quarters of 2009. Lower volumes and subsequent declining capacity utilisation levels had a negative effect on profitability. A number of measures have been implemented to compensate for this trend. Further adaptations are being considered in line with developments in the economy.
The revenues of the IT segment (ErgoGroup) fell by six per cent during the first three quarters of 2009, mainly due to a sharp slump in the Swedish market. Measures have been introduced to reduce the costs in the IT segment, but these are not expected to have any effect on the results until 2010.
So far this year, ErgoGroup has won a lot of new contracts and entered into contracts worth NOK 2 136 million during the first three quarters of 2009. This is NOK 136 million more than during the same period in 2008.
Swiss Post: Gratifying Result Thanks To Good Third Quarter - October 30, 2009
[Press Release.]In the first three quarters of 2009, Swiss Post generated Group profit of 553 million Swiss francs. This is an increase of around 11.5% compared with the same period last year. The rise is due primarily to successes chalked up by PostFinance. The mid-year result had shown a 16% drop from 12 months previously.
Between January and September 2009, Swiss Post generated Group profit of CHF 553 million (2008: CHF 496 million). This represents an increase of CHF 57 million or 11.5% compared with the same period in 2008. The improvement is attributable mainly to the success of PostFinance, which lifted its unit result by 76% to CHF 351 million (2008: CHF 199 million). In addition to the above-average growth in new customers and customer deposits, the much smaller scale of writedowns required was responsible for this increase. Two other units, Swiss Post International and PostBus, also improved their results.
Compared with 2008, operating income fell by CHF 160 million (2.5%) to CHF 6,310 million. Almost all Group units posted a decline in earnings. At PostMail, this decrease was accentuated by the implementation of price cuts for letters on 1 July 2009. Three quarters of the operating income (around 75%) was generated by Group units PostMail, PostLogistics and PostFinance. Investments came to CHF 257 million, some CHF 43 million below last year’s figure. In the past nine months they were again financed completely by resources generated by Swiss Post itself.
Economy compounding declining letter volumes
The decline in letter volumes is continuing unabated: from January until September, Swiss Post carried 4.9% fewer addressed letters than in the same period of 2008. The economic crisis has reinforced the decline resulting from substitution (replacement of physical mail with electronic means of communication) and dispatch optimization (bundling of items). Parcel volumes remained largely stable. Swiss Post reacted to the shrinking volumes by adapting its organizational structure and human resources.
Owing to the persistently difficult economic situation and the effects of price cuts in the letter segment, Swiss Post is expecting the result for the year as a whole to be lower than that of last year.
USPS Turns To Selling Greeting Cards To Boost Revenue - October 29, 2009
[
Ed O'Keefe, Washington Post .]Facing declining mail volume, workforce cuts through employee buyouts and the possible closure of hundreds of post offices, the U.S. Postal Service has a new "get well" remedy: greeting cards.
About 1,500 post offices nationwide started selling Hallmark greeting cards two weeks ago, part of a one-year experiment that may lead all 34,000 postal outlets to sell the cards and offer other goods and services, including banking, insurance and cellphones.
In the District, people can buy greeting cards at the Postal Service's flagship location at L'Enfant Plaza. And 29 sites in Maryland and Virginia sell cards. The 1,500 postal locations join more than 100,000 other retail outlets across the country that sell greeting cards, according to the Greeting Card Association.
About 7 billion cards are sold annually, totaling more than $7.5 billion in sales, the association said. About a third of the greeting cards sent each year are for birthdays, according to GCA statistics.
Of the 7 billion cards, about 4 billion are mailed, accounting for about 2 percent of total mail volume, said Robert F. Bernstock, president of mailing and shipping services for the Postal Service.
"If we can get some energy behind greeting cards, which are incredibly linked to the mail, what better place to sell them and merchandise them than at our post offices?" Bernstock said.
A Postal Service study confirmed that customers think selling greeting cards at post offices is appropriate and that they would buy them there, Bernstock said. The goal is for the cards to help boost postal retail sales by 30 to 40 percent.
A 2006 law allows the Postal Service to sell various mailing and packaging products and other mail-related items, including cards. Officials awarded the one-year deal to Hallmark's Sunrise Greeting card line, with the option to extend the deal for two more years.
"I think we're going into it with a little optimism that we'll be able to expand to a greater number of retail outlets," Bernstock said.
Most European and Asian postal services sell financial or insurance services or prepaid cellphones, said Postmaster General John E. Potter, and U.S. postal officials want Congress to grant permission to explore the possibility of doing something similar.
"I think we're going to have to rationalize," Potter said recently. "It doesn't take a genius to figure out that we're not going to sell the same number of stamps going forward."
New Round of Nationwide Postal Strikes to Go Ahead in UK - October 29, 2009
[Brian Groom, Financial Times]A new round of nationwide postal strikes will go ahead from today after three days of intensive negotiations failed to produce a breakthrough.
Royal Mail accused the Communication Workers Union of "walking away" as peace talks were making significant progress in the long-running dispute over jobs, pay and modernisation. Up to 120,000 postal workers will strike over three days with mail centres affected today and collection and delivery staff on Saturday.
Dave Ward, CWU chief negotiator, said this week's talks chaired by Brendan Barber, general-secretary of the Trades Union Congress, had been the "most useful and productive" since the start of the dispute. But the state-owned postal operator said the union was "playing havoc" with customer confidence.
Mark Higson, managing director of Royal Mail Letters, said: "Yesterday we were once again on the verge of a sensible agreement that would have allowed us to enter into in-depth discussions with the union over the future of Royal Mail in an atmosphere of calm - but just like last week the CWU leadership has failed to carry its own postal executive committee, which appears to be split with London members at odds with the rest of the country and unable to reach any decision."
Mr Ward said: "Earlier today we tabled a proposal [that] reflected the progress made in negotiations over the last few days. We have not had confirmation as to whether our proposal is acceptable and therefore the strikes previously announced for the next few days will take place."
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