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Most, if not all, national postal service providers deliver some form of Universal Service Obligation ("USO") (i.e., obligation of pickup and delivery at every physical address), and with the decline in the global letters market, these postal providers are under pressure to reduce costs and to become self-sustaining business enterprises. As postal markets open up to commercial competitors, past financial and operational models for national postal services are no longer viable. As a result, each such provider must change along with the respective market(s) in which they operate.
Leading up to 2010, many people in the postal industry across the EU considered the modernization effort at the United Kingdom's Royal Mail Group—the UK's national postal service provider—to become the template for how other EU governments could modernize their national postal service and postal marketplace. The first five articles in the series provide information pertaining to Royal Mail specifically, but the articles contain pertinent information to help any national postal service to understand the distressed market in which they operate so as to reform their postal service to become competitive, while preserving their USO. The article on EU Postal Liberalization contains information pertinent to regulatory concerns that will impact the success of any national postal service that desires to operate a viable USO.
In summary, a national postal service provider offering USO is a viable business, but such providers must first properly identify their primary market, which virtually none have done (and that includes the U.S.P.S.), and then properly identify which products and services they must focus on providing to remain relevant in the future. Virtually every national postal service improperly identifies their primary market as the communications market, when they all are, and always were, in fact in the delivery marketplace. Finally, modernization efforts generally focus primarily on automation, cost cutting and consolidation, which are important factors in a total plan to remain competitive and pertinent as postal markets continue to open up to greater competition, but automation, cost cutting and consolidation cannot be the plan itself unless failure is the eventual desired outcome.
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17 September 2009This article addresses how postal service providers can remain competitive enterprises, as well as self-sustaining, as postal markets open up to greater competition and letter volumes continue to decline, using Royal Mail's modernization efforts as a working example.
22 September 2009This article identifies why postal services are experiencing letter volume declines as a result of new internet-based communication services (e.g., e-mail) using Royal Mail as a working example. By accurately understanding the new postal services market, national postal services can focus efforts and resources on building sustainable, competitive business models instead of focusing on dying business markets.
07 October 2009As letter volumes continue to decline and postal competition increases, postal service reforms are mandatory to ensure continued universal service offerings. This article examines the proposed process for reforming the UK national postal service provider (Royal Mail), highlighting common distressed industry mistakes and providing applicable examples to aid in the development of winning postal reform strategies.
14 October 2009Using the UK postal reform effort as an example, this article provides a detailed analysis of postal reform strategies, including strategies and tactics that damage or greatly reduce the valuation and survivability of national postal service providers.
20 October 2009 This article provides further analysis of postal reform strategies and includes an analysis of strategies by the major participants in the UK postal reform effort.
08 November 2009 This article is specific to UK postal reform efforts and details how poor and conflicting strategies impede on the financial and operational success of a national postal service provider that no longer enjoys a market monopoly that existed in years past. The examples in the article emphasis if national postal service providers wish to remain viable, competitive and efficient service providers, they must shed their old business model mentality.
01 December 2009 This article addresses the topic of EU full postal competition rules relative to the challenges EU national postal service operators share as they prepare for the added competition and the impact such competition will have on their financial viability and universal service obligation.
12 January 2010 This article provides a financial analysis of Royal Mail's 2009 half-year financials, including an analysis of the various, often conflicting, claims made by Royal Mail management, the postal union and the politicians pushing for part-privatization.
28 January 2010 This part of the article (part 2) provides a financial analysis of Royal Mail's end of year financials, including a discussion of Royal Mail's use of modified operating income numbers to distort actual operating profits during a decade long modernization effort that is focused mostly on automation, staff-reductions and consolidation of buildings and equipment, missing out completely on building new revenue streams necessary for sustaining their letters business and its universal service obligation.
26 March 2010 This article analyzes the EU Commissions position on EU postal liberalization, and defines how the current rules threaten a national postal service provider's ability to continue to offer universal service in the long-term, while proposing changes to the rules to ensure the mandate of universal service remains a viable offering for national postal service providers.
06 June 2010 This article reviews major events impacting Royal Mail during the first half-year of 2010.
15 June 2010†This article reviews Royal Mail's mid-2010 financial statement.
†21 June 2010; publication delay due to publisher print production issue.
28 June 2010 This article reviews the performance and modernization claims made by both Royal Mail and its postal union, as both claim Royal Mail's modernization effort is working, and both Royal Mail and its postal union together are the reason for their claimed success.
06 July 2010 This article exposes a poorly conceived and expensive political strategy employed to garner support for privatization of the UK's national postal service provider given continued opposition to such a proposal, and includes a summary of the financial losses such a plan imposes.
12 July 2010 This article defines manipulation of postal service quality of service (QoS) relief by applicants and provides solutions to counter any such manipulation attempts, while ensuring QoS penalties remain an effective deterrent to QoS failures even for applicants suffering adverse conditions.
14 July 2010 Royal Mail is undergoing a leadership change, and the article discusses the changes for what is described as the New Royal Mail.
01 December 2010 Royal Mail has been undergoing modernisation reforms for nearly a decade, and their financial performance for 2010 is reviewed. Because actual financial reporting of expenses is mostly nonexistent, the article focuses on evaluating financial performance claims by Royal Mail and the postal union.
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