Learning from others
Royal Mail was joined by 19 other postal companies as hosts of a benchmarking conference that put Universal Service at the heart of the debate.
The International Postal Benchmarking Conference was hosted by Royal Mail and saw delegates from the likes of Deutsche Post, PostNL and Swiss Post in attendance for a workshop in Birmingham.
It was a great opportunity to hear from Australia Post and Post Nord (Royal Mail’s equivalent in Denmark) about changes they have made to their own obligations.
We caught up with them in this film, to hear what changes they have made and the journey they went on.
Chief Operating Officer, Alistair Cochrane, and UK Operations Director, Ricky McAulay were among those hosting the companies for a three-day event that also saw them take a tour of our Midlands Super Hub.
Alistair said: ‘It’s all about learning and understanding some of the challenges they have gone through.’
‘We’re exchanging the challenges the industry faces and the strategies being deployed to respond to the common themes we see across the world,’ adds Ricky.
The conference came after we submitted a proposal to Ofcom on the future of the Universal Service.
In March 2023, Australia Post phased out daily letter deliveries at six trial locations. Letter deliveries now occur every second or third day, while parcels are now being delivered five days a week.
PostNord is no longer required to provide the Universal Postal Service. Several operators now deliver letters and parcels at a universal price. Letters have been delivered just one day a week since 2018.
Hear from both companies in this film.
‘They have been through the journey,’ says Alistair. ‘Hopefully we can learn from that and make sure we’re in a much better place when we transition ourselves.’
