Postal Hub podcast

Mark Cross, Engagement Director at JICMAIL, and Dr Christopher Thresher-Andrews, Research Director at Kantar, discuss measuring mail's impact and unlocking mail's new capabilities:

• Creating the mail equivalent of TV audience measurement
• Demonstrating the value of mail, including business mail
• JICMail's background and ownership
• Helping marketers understand audience data for mail
• Making data accessible and easy-to-use
• Advertisers and agencies need data to include mail in campaigns
• Direct mail's perception challenges
• How some digital channels take credit for conversions
• How mail behaviours are measured
• Preserving direct mail revenues
• How mail engagement metrics compare to other channels
• Mail's life in the home
• Purchase behaviour initiated by mail across age groups
• Growing interaction with mail
• How can "attention" be measured?
• Using video analytics to measure mail engagement
• Why should posts care about direct mail?
• Unlocking new capabilities of mail
• Making mail use effective and habitual

Kate Muth, Executive Director at IMAG, discusses cross-border delivery and the US Postal Service, including:

• USPS plans for international mail
• USPS's focus on domestic matters and business
• What pushed USPS rates high?
• Why USPS lost business during COVID
• What's the plan to win business back
• Competing on price
• Alternatives to competing on price
• Highlights of USPS research on international mail
• Decline in international revenue
• Net importer or net exporter of mail?
• List being the carrier of last resort, even in international sales.
• Stopping illicit substances in the mail
• AED / EAD
• Changing the de minimis threshold
• Where illicit drugs are entering the US and the mailstream
• AED on letters and large letters (flats)
• US legislation impacting the postal sector creating global standards
• WILDS - Women in Logistics and Delivery Sector - update

Sustainable urban logistics expert Johan Peeters discusses reducing last mile emissions, including:

• The gap between what consumers say they want and what they're prepared to pay for when it comes to "green" delivery
• The seduction of free delivery
• Opportunities for delivery companies to improve cities
• Green zones in European cities
• Urban planners seeking to create human-based cities, to the exclusion of cars
• Posts and local distribution
• Low-emission delivery might be more than simply electric vans
• Diversifying last mile delivery methods
• Delivery companies as corporate citizens
• Sustainability as a commercial issue for delivery companies
• Impact of IPCC report
• Lawmakers and policymakers forcing change on the delivery sector

Julien Le Signor, Head of Environment at Geopost, discusses measuring and reporting last mile emissions.

• Calculating and processing delivery emissions in real time in Geopost's Carbon Calculator tool
• Taking data from scanning events for millions of parcels per day
• Differing emissions for different vehicle types
• Reporting emissions for residential and out-of-home deliveries
• Why develop a carbon calculator tool? How will retailers use the data from the tool?
• Carbon reporting obligations on retailers
• SBTi targets
• Transport sector's high reliance on fossil fuels
• Seeing the immediate reduction of emissions as electric delivery vehicles are deployed
• Accreditation
• Accurately matching deliveries to actual emissions

Omnic CEO Dimash Syzdykov and Chief Product Officer Ann Snitko discuss a new era of parcel lockers.

• Why parcel lockers networks fail
• Making parcel lockers more than just luggage storage lockers
• The risks of weak customer experience
• Comparing parcel lockers to non-automated alternatives
• Omnic combining expertise in locker manufacturing, software development, and parcel locker management systems
• How to build functional, consumer-centric parcel locker networks
• Why the customer experience is so important for success in parcel locker networks
• How the role of parcel lockers can differ in various countries

Cpost International CEO, Thomas Roggendorf, details how a unique set of circumstances in Curaçao demanded an innovative response from the national postal operator.

• How the post became Cpost International
• Falling letter volumes
• Why the post couldn't fall back on local e-commerce
• What a semi-government company is
• The quest to be profitable
• Cross-border e-commerce
• Consolidated international shipments for Curaçao consumers
• Freight forwarding
• Investing in IT and expanding IT as a profit centre
• Expanding Cpost kiosks to the USA
• Digitisation of postal and post office services
• Payment gateway
• Government services in post offices

Cédric Hervet, Chief Product Officer and Co-Founder at Kardinal, discusses a technology-assisted approach to delivery resource management.

• How postal and parcel delivery companies manage resources
• Deciding who does what and where, and moving beyond planning via spreadsheets
• Productivity lost thanks to suboptimal route organisation
• Maximising driver productivity
• Advantages of drivers being familiar with their delivery area
• Dealing with increasingly volatile parcel volumes in a stable parcel delivery structure
• Avoiding the problem of subcontractors going out of business
• Keeping good contractors
• Using data and new methodology to create resilient, optimised delivery networks
• Putting facts and data at the centre of discussions between delivery companies and subcontractors
• Getting the balance right with delivery subcontractors and employees, including managing shift lengths and delivery route distances
• Getting to the key number of what the last mile delivery cost is
• DPD France case study
• Advanced territory analytics and optimisation
• Productivity improvements of up to 25%
• Making better decisions based on the algorithm

Markus Reckling, CEO Germany at DHL Express, discusses cross-border e-commerce, delivery preferences, and sustainability.

• Growth in B2B e-commerce
• Post-pandemic trends in B2C e-commerce and bricks-and-mortar retail
• Food delivery
• Global opportunities for B2B retailers in supply markets and in customers
• Why cross-border is important for B2B
• Offering quality of service worldwide
• Delivery preferences for different destination countries
• Giving customers delivery choice in cross-border deliveries
• Creating quality customer experiences in different markets
• Returns - including return rates for international purchases
• Deutsche Post DHL's emission targets
• Making sorting centres more environmentally sensitive
• Leases on logistics centres
• Electrifying the ground fleet
• Key issues to be resolved to enable greater electrification of delivery fleets
• Reducing aviation emissions - including SAF
• DHL's new GoGreen Plus offering
• People and culture

Pos Malaysia Group CEO Charles Brewer discusses the postal operator's transformation strategy and its sustainability push:

• Board's remit to transform and turnaround Pos Malaysia
• No glitter without the basics!
• The need to focus on core logistics functions, including parcel delivery performance
• Understanding customers' needs
• The three parts of Pos Malaysia's strategy: fix the basics, transforming the core, and creating incremental value
• Competition in the Malaysian delivery sector
• Monopoly on letters, improvement in quality of service
• Different approach to regulated and non-regulated business
• Value-add for mail
• Transition from letter-centric to parcels-centric business
• Inflation and spending power - impact on parcel volumes
• Retailers in-sourcing logistics
• Start-ups and new delivery entrants
• Leveraging retail / post office network
• Communicating with the parcel recipient
• Using WhatsApp in parcel delivery notifications and interactions
• USO - letters and post offices in rural areas
• Pos Malaysia's sustainability roadmap
• Introducing electric vehicles to the delivery fleet
• Solar power in the Pos Malaysia network

Dean Maciuba, Managing Partner (USA) for Crossroads Parcel Consulting, shares some insights into the negotiations between UPS and the Teamsters - the union representing UPS employees.

• UPS driver employment model - including a lower-paid class of driver
• Why are these negotiations attracting so much media attention?
• Change in Teamsters leadership and implications for negotiations with UPS
• The relationship between UPS management and UPS employees
• UPS communicating with drivers and ramifications for contract negotiations
• Key issues: Wage stagnation, health-related issues in UPS trucks, and second-tier drivers
• What happened during the 1997 UPS strike - including how customers tried to get parcels into the FedEx network
• What's different: More regional carriers, more forward stocking fulfilment centres, the presence of Amazon with its own last mile capability
• Retailers potentially losing sales to Amazon if UPS can't deliver
• Importance to carriers of controlling intake of packages
• US industrial relations and the role of the US President
• Could UPS drivers be compelled to return to work if they strike?
• The role of Roadie in all this
• UPS has an advantage over FedEx thanks to Roadie
• Other employees in the UPS network, e.g. aircraft operations support and handlers at hubs
• UPS leveraging its poor Q1 earnings as part of negotiations