RM announces major investment in hand-held technology

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Royal Mail announces major investment in hand-held technology -

http://www.royalmailgroup.com/royal-mai ... technology" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

· Royal Mail today announced an investment of around £130 million over five years in hand-held technology to provide more flexible delivery for customers and better tracking capability. This investment is part of Royal Mail’s budgeted expenditure

· This programme is part of Royal Mail’s IT transformation programme, a key objective of which is to support the delivery of our parcels strategy. Delivery companies are increasingly technology companies, as they seek to provide better tracking and delivery solutions

· The investment means Royal Mail will begin rolling out around 76,000 next generation hand-held devices to postmen and women in 2015. The roll-out is expected to be completed in the 2016/17 financial year.

· The investment will have the following expected benefits:

· Moreflexible delivery for customers not at home when we attempt to deliver a parcel, e.g, by enabling them to tell us a safe location to leave the item if they are not at home

· Improved management information and enhanced tracking for parcels customers by adding information rich barcodes to shipping labels
· Earlier this year, Royal Mail launched a new parcels shipping and tracking platform to enable e-retailers to improve integration between their IT systems and Royal Mail

Royal Mail today announced an investment of around £130 million over five years in hand-held technology to provide more flexible delivery for customers and better tracking capability.

Through its Field Force Automation services, BTwillwork with Royal Mail to decide which hand-held device to deploy. Royal Mail will roll out the new hand-held scanners to postmen and women in 2015.

The contract with BT also covers the day-to-day management of the current and new devices and operating platform for a five-year period. Royal Mail’s mobile connectivity is provided by BT under an existing, separate contract. Within the investment, Royal Mail expects to finalise a contract in the coming weeks for the supply of software applications for the devices.

Investing in our IT

The five-year investment is part of Royal Mail’s IT transformation programme, a key objective of which is to support the delivery of our parcels strategy. This includes enabling Royal Mail to be more flexible and customer responsive.

Earlier this year, Royal Mail launched a new parcels shipping and tracking platform to enable e-retailers to improve integration between their IT systems and Royal Mail.

This summer, Royal Mail also made its Local Collect ‘click and collect’ service with Post Offices available to its 20,000 SME contract customers. This enables many of the UK’s leading small and medium size online businesses to offer shoppers the option of collection from any of 10,500 Post Office branches.
Nick Landon, Managing Director of Royal Mail Parcels, said: “We are delighted to announce our investment of around £130 million in IT which will better enable us to develop new services for parcels customers. This is part of our on-going programme to continue to respond to the needs of our customers and maintain our leading position in the UK parcels market.”

Luis Alvarez, Chief Executive Officer of BT Global Services, said: “We’re passionate about helping leading organisations like Royal Mail blend the latest technologies with their people's skills and experience to get the best business results - something we call the art of connecting. The new hand-held devices, provided and managed by BT, will transform parcel tracking, helping Royal Mail create an even better connection with its customers.”

[rhino49]

Moreflexible delivery for customers not at home when we attempt to deliver a parcel, e.g, by enabling them to tell us a safe location to leave the item if they are not at home

Message from customer "Sorry I won't be in when you call in half an hour - please leave my parcel with my Auntie Doris - she only lives 20 minutes from me and will probably be in ... I hope"

[rubberbond]

Will they actually be fit for purpose this time? And not weigh the same as a house brick

[rhino49]

Will they actually be fit for purpose this time? And not weigh the same as a house brick

I didn't mind them weighing as much as a house brick - it was the fact that a house brick was more responsive that was a problem !!!

[halfull]

we will probably have to text the customer from our new pda's to tell them what time we will be there lol!
with 16-20 bags of mail in the van & around 75-100 packets & parcels!!!!
No extra time given like delivery to neighbor, no planners back in to add in extra time just got to get on with it lol
Oh i forgot we will have time because tnt will be taking all our business off us!!

[red666bear]

A contract with BT? The same company that uses TNT premier for its bills. You couldn't make it up.

[knackeredneedadayoff]

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Royal Mail just invested £130 million with Toys R Us to get the latest tech.

[answer=42]

So RM is investing £130 Million in new scanning technology with BT helping to make the choice.
Let's hope they choose wisely, seems a bit strange though considering all the PDAs that have just been brought into service.....................and all those charging cabinets!

[Darren Bent]

I want something lighter and ability to print out P739 instead of writing it out.

[rubberbond]

I want something lighter and ability to print out P739 instead of writing it out.

now that is a good idea. So it won't happen.

[Lazycarton]

Writing 739's is the most ball aching and archaic part of the job. I have said for ages that we should have a machine that provides a printed doodah (like the things in restaurants) It won't happen!

[Chelseablue]

We all want that , so you're right it won't happen . The amount of notice lefts written out now is a nightmare ,takes up all you're time. Let's start us even more later so we get even less ppl in for packets!

[ganda]

Wonder if the money is coming from the sale of Mount Pleasant.

[aposter]

I want a PDA that keeps a track of how many of each item I have already delivered, how many SD items I have left to deliver, and how many of each item I have in the van that have been P739'd, a bit like a pen and paper used to do.

[Ahebban]

More flexible delivery for customers not at home when we attempt to deliver a parcel, e.g, by enabling them to tell us a safe location to leave the item if they are not at home

Safe Location .. that would be the Delivery Office then