First class war for Business Post's Guy Buswell

[Stormproof]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.j ... rof111.xml
First class war for Business Post's Guy Buswell
Richard Northedge
Last Updated: 11:20pm BST 10/05/2008Page 1 of 3



Tucked away in one of Guy Buswell's depots are 12 pillar boxes. Standard Royal Mail design but painted blue. For Buswell is a private postman and the pillar boxes may one day be part of his expansion plans. For the moment, however, they confirm the conclusion of last week's report from former Ofcom regulator Richard Hooper that the private consumer has seen no benefit from introducing competition to postal services.


Guy Buswell: I don’t copy Leighton. He runs four miles every day and I do three


Buswell is chief executive of Business Post, which collects letters from the likes of Vodafone and HSBC, sorts them and hands them to the Royal Mail for delivery. His UK Mail subsidiary handles more than 10 per cent of Britain's post but, as yet, the public cannot give him letters for posting.

"You cannot start off a business and give everything to everybody from day one," he says. "We've got to get critical mass."

On the wall of his office, on an industrial estate outside Birmingham, above one of his 57 depots, is the very first envelope he delivered. It was from Powergen, posted on May 10 2004, and commemorates the end of the 370-year postal monopoly.

UK Mail now delivers more than 2bn letters a year. "Last week we carried 12m items in one day," boasts Buswell, 46. It is arguably Britain's biggest private mail service (the argument would come from TNT, the Dutch post office) and this week he will announce plans to change the quoted Business Post name to UK Mail Group.

Just 50 big customers account for 40 per cent of Britain's post and Buswell has signed up a fair share, including Abbey, Prudential, Carphone Warehouse, Lloyds TSB and Royal Bank of Scotland. Yet sending letters is a shrinking business.

He blames Royal Mail, whose universal service last week posted its first loss in the year to March - a £100m shortfall. "I do not think it is innovating as a normal company would do," he says. Buswell cut his teeth in the parcels business and says: "Parcels had been a shrinking market but we went and looked for new areas. I do not think the mail market is in a sorry state forever. We have several products in our armoury."

The dozen pillar boxes are part of that arsenal. "We can collect mail from any customer that has 200 items per night. In the future there will be pillar boxes - or collection points," he says. For now, however, he is working on I-mail, which will allow anyone to e-mail a letter to UK Mail for hand delivery next day.

Why not e-mail it directly to the recipient? Buswell points out that legal addresses are not electronic addresses. I-mail will be launched this summer and the consummate salesman explains: "It massively reduces the carbon footprint and reduces time. It will cost between 40p and 50p and be a next-day service."

But its importance, he states, "is that it will be innovation in the mail industry by a competitor."

Buswell denies cherry-picking the Royal Mail's best business but he has a love-hate relationship with Royal Mail chairman Allan Leighton and his chief executive, Adam Crozier. He is their competitor when winning collection contracts and a customer when asking them to deliver.

"People say it's not real competition but that's just a mindset," complains Buswell. "Otherwise, how come I've attracted so many large organisations to use us? It does not have to be an end-to-end service; you don't have to have my postmen on the street."

Thus it is Leighton's postman the dog barks at when the mail is delivered to Buswell's Leicestershire home. The Business Post boss rises at 6am each day and runs. "That's not copying Allan Leighton," he volunteers. "He runs about four miles and I do three - and not every day. I'm a fair-weather runner."

Besides Harper, the springer spaniel, the family includes Ruby, a horse being schooled for eventing by his new wife Jo, a part-time sales executive in a legal firm. Buswell has taken up riding too - but shuns the risks of show jumping or cross-country. "Dressage is the discipline within riding I'd go for. It's quite safe and I like the technical side of it," he explains. "Making a horse do what you're telling it to do is quite good fun."

He applies the philosophy to skiing too. "What interests me is the technique," he says. "For example I like slaloms rather than downhill: it's better than seeing how fast you can go." And in the office. "We're not piling it high and selling it cheap: if you're going to do something you should do it properly."

He is also a perfectionist at home. "Most of my hobby is developing the house, which has 10 acres. It is a project," he admits. "Though some would call it a money pit." It is a modern property but he says: "I put new kitchens in and knocked walls out; I planted a lot of trees and put in stabling and landscaped the garden."

Buswell is not afraid to get his hands dirty. His school-holiday job was making sausage rolls in his father's Northamptonshire meat business. The pay was 50p an hour and the factory was a closed shop, forcing Buswell - unlike UK Mail's 4,500 staff - to join the union.

The business, founded by his grandfather, was subsequently sold to Dalgety but Buswell says: "It was never my family's intention I should go into the business." He admits to not doing well at school.

"I was due to go to Stowe but failed the common entrance," he confesses. "Which was one of the better things that ever happened to me. I went to Millfield instead, which I'm sure was a great deal more fun."

On his 17th birthday Buswell started behind the counter at Thomas Cook, and after three years learning the basics of the business set up his own cut-price travel agency. "I opened Northampton's first bucket shop," he says. "At 21 I was really inexperienced but I learnt a lot about business. I missed out on university life but gained from running a small business - albeit not very well. I think that puts me in much better stead that most people who leave university today. They do not have that entrepreneurial flare."

He swapped travel to work as an estate agent during the early 1980s boom. "People have a view of estate agents, but they are classic sales people," he states defensively.

Next stop was the Nextday parcel delivery company and in 1989 he switched to the Business Post, boosting turnover fivefold in five years as sales manager. The subsequent gap year seeking sponsorship for a Formula 3 team in Rotherham indulged his long interest in motorsport but he admits: "It was an escape from Business Post, which was the wrong thing to do."

He re-entered the parcels business via the newly privatised Red Star, trying to revive a tired brand, but after two years returned to Business Post in 1997. As management changes accompanied profits warnings, Buswell climbed from regional sales to the main board. He started UK Mail and became chief executive at the end of 2005.

Persuading the Government to move the contract for state pensions post from its own Royal Mail was possibly his greatest achievement. "You have to go through a huge process of negotiation," he says. "A government department going out to a corporation was scary stuff." Unions protested and there were always fears the Government would bottle out, but other contracts have followed and Buswell now handles TV licensing too.

There is constant tension with Royal Mail. Buswell thinks the 13p he pays it to deliver his post should be cut now second deliveries have been cancelled. Leighton wants it increased. But Buswell claims: "I never see Allan Leighton and while I do see Adam Crozier we do not have a great deal to say. He's in charge of a business that's clearly in trouble.

"Royal Mail now is like Business Post three years ago, though on a massively different scale. Now we're leaner and meaner."

Would Buswell like to run his nationalised rival? "Yes," he admits without hesitation. "If I finish this job, why not? I love the mail industry. It's a bigger train set with the same issues I've had here. Why not?"

Profile: Guy Buswell

Born: September 4, 1961

Educated: Millfield

Family: Wife Jo and two sons by first marriage

Lives: Market Harborough

Pay: £344,000

Time off: Gardening, running, riding

[DGP1]

Let them deliver the mail they collect!

All we seem to hear is how RM is not being innovative or efficient when what they should say is that RM aren't CHEAP enough for other to make big profits so that they can buy horses and keep them

[baldrick]

"UK Mail now delivers more than 2bn letters a year."

[axeman]

So they have twelve boxes sitting in the corner gathering dust ? is that nationwide cover ? ...i run three miles big al does more ? ....then hows he so fat ?
answers please

[cj_1985]

RMG isnt charging enough for having to sort and deliver the mail for these jokers.

as has been said they dont deliver it.. they collect it and dump it on us.
let them do the "final mile" let them get complaints from customers about certain items not arriving... let them get chased by dogs... and let them go out and deliver the mail on foot come wind, rail, snow, sleet or sun

[DirtyHarry]

Why do people like Guy Buswell, sound so feckin' stupid ? "Critical mass", my arse.

[bogstandard]

why has he not been persued for wilful delay, he has a letter which he claims was the first one he delivered,but he has it.
Did he deliver it to himself?
If he did then he really is taking the pee, i also do that when i get home, if i am lucky and the postie has been i pick them up off the mat.
Although i was no sad enough to keep the first letter i got or delivered

[Phantom]

Yes there is an extreme mis-use of words here and he's not the only one.

"We deliver 10% of letters" - no you don't, you collect and kind of sort them and then pass them to royal mail for more sorting and DELIVERY and you get a bargain at 13p a letter which was forced by the government on royal mail to accept it.

tnt like to use this phrase too.

[k979aaa]

Yes there is an extreme mis-use of words here and he's not the only one.

"We deliver 10% of letters" - no you don't, you collect and kind of sort them and then pass them to royal mail for more sorting and DELIVERY and you get a bargain at 13p a letter which was forced by the government on royal mail to accept it.

tnt like to use this phrase too.

Maybe royalmail should stamp them DELIVERED BY ROYALMAIL

[Darren Bent]

IT should be on every non Royal Mail post for USO access

[k979aaa]

IT should be on every non Royal Mail post for USO access

Agreed and what are :cfo & :lfo doing about it a competitor like guy of gisbourne buswell and buzzoff boast a lot not do a lot!. NOTHING LET US TAKE THE FLACK ADAM AND ALAN MORE AA THAN THE GERMAN'S THOWN AT US IN WW2!.

[janitor]

Could someone please tell me who handles DSA return to senders, is it us or do we hand it back to them for them to return it to THEIR customers.

[BELIAL]

Could someone please tell me who handles DSA return to senders, is it us or do we hand it back to them for them to return it to THEIR customers.

Take a wild stab at it. It costs quite a lot of money

[janitor]

I assume its us then, I don't see why we can't just give it all back to them after all they belong to thief customers.

[k979aaa]

I assume its us then, I don't see why we can't just give it all back to them after all they belong to thief customers.

You just try finding one of his blue letterboxes first and then he still has the problem of staff too deliver it !.