Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
Letter volume decline has returned to the long-established pattern of a 6-8% annually however letter revenues increased by 11.8% as a result of price increases and now it seems that Seidenberg is warning that the UK operation may need a taxpayer bailout to keep the service afloat?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/01/16/royal-mail-warns-taxpayer-bailout-may-needed-keep-services/
Plus the news that parcel volumes were up by 21% and parcel revenue up by 21% in Q3. So armed with this data, a privately owned company wants to go cap in hand to the UK Government for a taxpayer funded bailout? Interesting.....
JB, Brendyboy, some interesting ideas regarding the USO going forward however in my opinion nothing is going to change in 2024 as it's an election year plus who knows how it's all going to pan out now that the voting areas are going to be adjusted and rest assured that reforming the USO won't be a priority for the next UK Government given the amount of other issues that are going to take priority both in the UK and abroad? The best thing that RM can do is to ignore the USO and QofS and keep paying the fines.
Pauly, "Seidenberg probably can't believe the state of what he's walked in to."
"It is an impossible business model in 2024 and no one can turn back time to make the company successful again."
Unfortunately, it's going to be long uphill struggle to get this giant on it's feet again plus with Post Office Counters offering services from DPD and Evri as well then future competition is going to be tight. Seidenberg clearly has his work cut out here and I don't think that anyone is expecting the Q3 results to be fantastic.
From a mail centre perspective, neither November or December were anywhere near as busy this year but that could be because a large percentage of outward parcels and packets were diverted to feed the super hubs? The figures wil be interesting?
Https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/jan/07/dead-letter-office-royal-mail-wrestles-with-a-difficult-future
Not a great write up but to be expected in my opinion.
Ispy, Broch, regarding the business taking on 500 staff a week since October, it would be interesting to know what contracted hours they are on and what thee retention rate is? Also, I'm assuming that the "two year rule" is still in force for rehiring?
So, part of Thompson's plan was to cut out the deadwood staff with voluntary redundancy or natural wastage and get the rest working harder but under Seidenberg they have been hiring up to 500 extra staff a week since October and then offered a Christmas clearance bonus of up to £500 plus presumably the usual £100 bonus? Have I got this correct?
Derek, I was thinking the same when I read the previous post. Callers offices open from 10am to 2pm are pretty inconvenient for most who work 9am to 5pm, also echoing previous sentiment about "who waits in for a letter" it could also be said "who waits in for the postie to collect your return"? Of course returns can be received by Post Office Counters but perhaps (and rather candidly) the newly touted collection lockers could potentially be utilised for returns? Just a thought.
Bigfatty, I suspect that several million pounds might be enough to start the ball rolling into the tendering stage for an external contractor to supply and install the lockers. Then there's the site locations to be considered. Existing customer service points or car parks in delivery offices or mail centres could be utilised and would be free but many of these are not in convenient locations for the recipient so spaces in shopping centres, bus/rail/tube/service stations etc would need to be considered and rented out. I certainly don't anticipate that it will be a quick process and may require a decent outlay before results can be assessed so RM may well choose a city to carry out a trial before national rollout?
It looks like Amazon has 5,000 lockers (presumably locker locations) across the UK although no idea of initial setup costs, ground rent or timescales for RM?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/12/26/royal-mail-launch-amazon-style-parcel-lockers/#:~:text=Amazon%20currently%20operates%20around%205%2C000,courier%20Evri%20has%20about%201%2C500.
To be honest, given the amount of boxes per unit and locations of the parcel lockers where I live, I really can't see them being a massive threat to the RM workforce? I'm not sure what the average turnover per box per year is in the UK but I'm also sure that someone looking on here would know?
It would probably be easier for RM to have a locker for every residence and a bank of them every couple of hundred yards in residential areas. This way they might just be able to meet their service obligation......lol
Redceo, "imagine the profits IDS could produce if only it were run efficiently". Absolutely.
Perhaps this was the reason why Seidenberg sacked McPherson? Another one who must be skating on thin ice is Chaplain who joined in October 2022, also from JLR so presumably he and McPherson were mates of Thompson as neither had glowing resumes? Incidentally, I am led to believe that it was Chaplain who instructed the RM engineers to manufacture copy written parts. I'm really not sure how these senior managers actually get these posts but the old boy network must be strong?
I am now waiting for the usual posters to come out of the woodwork to call me a deramper, troll or ex employee hater but the fact of the matter is that these things go on within the business. The good news is that they usually have zero impact on the SP.
Redceo, hopefully all may not be lost. These machines are modular in design and are used by several postal administrations in Europe and elsewhere so they may be able to be resold? The good news is that Royal Mail always go for base spec and then try to make modifications in house (a bit like buying the L model and buying the aftermarket parts to turn it into a Ghia X Pack) so the price will be the minimum.
Redceo, unfortunately it looks like the contract was for the full quota of parcel machines plus support from the French engineers and a committment to purchase their spares and warranty returns for a decade. To add to the woes, the onsite French engineers have reported back to their bosses that the RM engineers have been manufacturing spares in house thus breaking copyright although I believe that this was a direct order from the head of engineering who came from JLR along with McPherson. As we know, JLR have recently been caught out fitting second hand spares for warranty work on their vehicles so it is very possible that this is how the current HoE rolls?
I'm not sure what is going to happen now but by all accounts the French are certainly not happy as some of the parcel machines have been built and are awaiting shipment but RM don't really want them plus they currently supply a huge amount of stock for the legacy letter machines.