TNT strategy and the threat to the USO

[arnold cheshire]

letters will go on Saturday but parcels will stay and may be sunday parcels they say will manage decline in letters and growth in parcels

thats hardly a competitive service just doing letters on a saturday

[aiden01]

letters will go on Saturday but parcels will stay and may be sunday parcels they say will manage decline in letters and growth in parcels

thats hardly a competitive service just doing letters on a saturday

think he means letters wont be done on a Saturday.

[Straight4ward]

7 days a week delivery is never ever going to happen. RM could not afford to increase their running costs by 15%+, they would have to gain an absolutely enormous amount of business.

I’m not sure about that. It’s going to be a question of demand. If the big players like Amazon want it then we either respond or see more of their business being lost to us. It’s probably more a matter of retaining the business we currently have rather than increasing it.

I don’t see us delivering letters on a Sunday, I think it would just be packets, so it wouldn’t require a 15% increase in costs. The network would work on reduced numbers of staff if they were only handling packets. A DO that, say, receives 6 trucks a day from its MC might only require 1 or 2 on a Sunday morning. There would be no need to have an OPG to cover each walk. One postie in a van would cover any number of walks.

The big question for me is whether the public really wants Sunday deliveries of their packets. I’ve got a fella that does work for Hermes on my duty and he will start Sunday deliveries in June, I think he said, so I’ll be interested to see if he gets plenty of work.

He told me that last December he had to work the 3 Sundays prior to Christmas and that on 2 of the Sundays he got nothing at all to deliver and on the other one he only got 15 parcels to deliver, so he didn’t bother as it wasn’t worth his time.

However, I guess to some extent just by offering the option to the public a certain amount of demand will be created.

[SpacePhoenix]

I think if RM do Sunday delivery it'll probably be parcels, Tracked and Specials (with maybe a £1 extra charge on Tracked and £2 on Specials) but with the Specials being 1pm only.

If we were to ever loose a customer like Amazon, that'd be a big drop in traffic (and revenue for RM), I wouldn't be surprised to see Amazon demand Sunday delivery within the next year or so.

[Captain Scarlet]

I had a chat with guys in our DO when the pay increases were announced and I was wary about the parts of the deal around the USO.
It seemed to me that RM were already factoring in changes as they knew the impact from a few years ago.Then 2mins after the deal was voted on the rumblings about the USO started and I think Moya was looking for help from Ofcom to somehow stop the competition from running away with revenue by cherry picking, what's going to happen is that we will be squeezed by even more unrealistic targets by DO managers (many who cannot do our job or their own) and more people off sick with injuries/stress etc.
Regarding deliveries the situation may very well be that we go to a 5 day week tues/sat with sun/mon off, this removes practically all need for floaters.
Of course this requires a change in the USO law surrounding it but my thoughts are that Moya had this idea all along and in a edition of the Courier it was mentioned about the unfair advantage the competition has over us and could RM AFFORD the USO.
So I expect RM to arrange the change required and Dave and Billy to make something of this and then say it's the only way forward blah blah blah because there will always be letters to deliver and we will be the only mugs to do this, as I think eventually TNT/DHL etc. will see there is very little profit in it and it will act as a PR stunt to attract more business.

[Lounge Lizard]

I had a chat with guys in our DO when the pay increases were announced and I was wary about the parts of the deal around the USO.
It seemed to me that RM were already factoring in changes as they knew the impact from a few years ago.Then 2mins after the deal was voted on the rumblings about the USO started and I think Moya was looking for help from Ofcom to somehow stop the competition from running away with revenue by cherry picking, what's going to happen is that we will be squeezed by even more unrealistic targets by DO managers (many who cannot do our job or their own) and more people off sick with injuries/stress etc.
Regarding deliveries the situation may very well be that we go to a 5 day week tues/sat with sun/mon off, this removes practically all need for floaters.
Of course this requires a change in the USO law surrounding it but my thoughts are that Moya had this idea all along and in a edition of the Courier it was mentioned about the unfair advantage the competition has over us and could RM AFFORD the USO.
So I expect RM to arrange the change required and Dave and Billy to make something of this and then say it's the only way forward blah blah blah because there will always be letters to deliver and we will be the only mugs to do this, as I think eventually TNT/DHL etc. will see there is very little profit in it and it will act as a PR stunt to attract more business.

Yes, we will "be squeezed by even more unrealistic targets by DO managers" but that's because they're squeezed by RM top management to cut budgets and that's because Ofcom won't do anything about TNT's cherry picking until RM cuts its costs, and in time our wages, to something like TNT's.

[Tman]

7 days a week delivery is never ever going to happen. RM could not afford to increase their running costs by 15%+, they would have to gain an absolutely enormous amount of business.

I’m not sure about that. It’s going to be a question of demand. If the big players like Amazon want it then we either respond or see more of their business being lost to us.

Dead right. If Moya etc can't that Sunday parcel delivery is a business necessity then she's clearly worse than the general perception.
There wouldn't need to be any increase in costs; all RM would need to do would be to follow the example of BT thirty years ago and offer a good payrise across the board on the condition that Sunday premium went, and people's "weekend" could just as easily be Wednesday/Thursday as Saturday/Sunday.
Instantly Sunday deliveries cost the same as weekday deliveries, RM's happy, the customers are happy, what's not to like?

[dvbuk55]

Well RM thought a few things Brain but they seem to have been left hanging. So The Courier came up with schemes to do what exactly? Are we as individuals capable of influencing Ofcom when RM and the CWU combined cannot, no of course not. Should we take to the streets - oh hang on we already do! Now the CWU will be less concerned because as current members are made redundant they'll just recruit the TNT operatives IF they aren't too aware of how the RM members have been treated.

I find it a little galling that neither the Board of RM nor the think tank of the CWU didn't see this coming despite being paid a tremendous amount of money to on the one hand run the business and on the other hand look after the members best interests.

Now is the reneging of the cast iron guarantees of The Agenda for Growth in particular the inability to maintain the USO about to rewrite history - someone somewhere is talking because dingo is shrieking The Sky is Falling yet again.

[Cut Off King]

I like Dingo's style, throw a scrap of meat to the forum, then watch the dogs tear each other apart

[dvbuk55]

I like Dingo's style, throw a scrap of meat to the forum, then watch the dogs tear each other apart

Yes a wonderful way for a senior Rep to conduct himself - but tell me why do you think it was thrown to the wolves in the first place - scaremongering d'you think?

[Brain Fury]

7 days a week delivery is never ever going to happen. RM could not afford to increase their running costs by 15%+, they would have to gain an absolutely enormous amount of business.

I’m not sure about that. It’s going to be a question of demand. If the big players like Amazon want it then we either respond or see more of their business being lost to us.

Dead right. If Moya etc can't that Sunday parcel delivery is a business necessity then she's clearly worse than the general perception.
There wouldn't need to be any increase in costs; all RM would need to do would be to follow the example of BT thirty years ago and offer a good payrise across the board on the condition that Sunday premium went, and people's "weekend" could just as easily be Wednesday/Thursday as Saturday/Sunday.
Instantly Sunday deliveries cost the same as weekday deliveries, RM's happy, the customers are happy, what's not to like?

A "good payrise" is going to cost money. operating vehicles for 7 days a week instead of 6 is going to cost money etc. and where are the hours for Sunday's coming from?

[Brain Fury]

Well RM thought a few things Brain but they seem to have been left hanging. So The Courier came up with schemes to do what exactly? Are we as individuals capable of influencing Ofcom when RM and the CWU combined cannot, no of course not. Should we take to the streets - oh hang on we already do! Now the CWU will be less concerned because as current members are made redundant they'll just recruit the TNT operatives IF they aren't too aware of how the RM members have been treated.

I find it a little galling that neither the Board of RM nor the think tank of the CWU didn't see this coming despite being paid a tremendous amount of money to on the one hand run the business and on the other hand look after the members best interests.

Now is the reneging of the cast iron guarantees of The Agenda for Growth in particular the inability to maintain the USO about to rewrite history - someone somewhere is talking because dingo is shrieking The Sky is Falling yet again.

I've seen a few posts where people are querying what RM is doing about the Ofcom position on direct delivery. The Courier article explained what is being done. Did you really think that once privatisation and the CWU deal was complete that everything in the garden would be rosy? RM faced a very difficult future however those two issues played out.

[Tman]

A "good payrise" is going to cost money. operating vehicles for 7 days a week instead of 6 is going to cost money etc. and where are the hours for Sunday's coming from?

This business, like any other, will want to maximise profits, and while operating vehicles for an extra day obviously incurs costs over and above a six day operation, NOT operating them (by sticking to a six day operation) costs more in the long run through lost business.
The issue of Sunday hours wouldn't arise as staff would still be doing their contracted hours over any five days from seven.
There's no reason to believe that the gradual erosion of the concept of a "day of rest" on Sunday won't continue, and even a couple of decades or so ago the thought of department stores etc opening for business on a Sunday was unheard of.
We all live in a 24/7 society now, and if customer demand dictates that they want parcels delivered on a Sunday, then that's what'll happen.

[dvbuk55]

Well RM thought a few things Brain but they seem to have been left hanging. So The Courier came up with schemes to do what exactly? Are we as individuals capable of influencing Ofcom when RM and the CWU combined cannot, no of course not. Should we take to the streets - oh hang on we already do! Now the CWU will be less concerned because as current members are made redundant they'll just recruit the TNT operatives IF they aren't too aware of how the RM members have been treated.

I find it a little galling that neither the Board of RM nor the think tank of the CWU didn't see this coming despite being paid a tremendous amount of money to on the one hand run the business and on the other hand look after the members best interests.

Now is the reneging of the cast iron guarantees of The Agenda for Growth in particular the inability to maintain the USO about to rewrite history - someone somewhere is talking because dingo is shrieking The Sky is Falling yet again.

I've seen a few posts where people are querying what RM is doing about the Ofcom position on direct delivery. The Courier article explained what is being done. Did you really think that once privatisation and the CWU deal was complete that everything in the garden would be rosy? RM faced a very difficult future however those two issues played out.

Did I really think that everything in the garden was going to be rosy, obviously not but it would appear RM and the CWU thought it was going to play out differently. Could be squeaky bum time all round Brain, maybe a rehash of the Agenda even. The loss of revenue is bad enough but the loss of work in urban areas will decimate the workforce - now who's making the future forecast as to where, when and how many - what price the overarching theory on redundancy then?

[arnold cheshire]

A "good payrise" is going to cost money. operating vehicles for 7 days a week instead of 6 is going to cost money etc. and where are the hours for Sunday's coming from?

This business, like any other, will want to maximise profits, and while operating vehicles for an extra day obviously incurs costs over and above a six day operation, NOT operating them (by sticking to a six day operation) costs more in the long run through lost business.
The issue of Sunday hours wouldn't arise as staff would still be doing their contracted hours over any five days from seven.
There's no reason to believe that the gradual erosion of the concept of a "day of rest" on Sunday won't continue, and even a couple of decades or so ago the thought of department stores etc opening for business on a Sunday was unheard of.
We all live in a 24/7 society now, and if customer demand dictates that they want parcels delivered on a Sunday, then that's what'll happen.

can i ask where this customer demand for sunday deliveries is ?