Postal Hub podcast

Sharick Mirza, CEO at Assurety Consulting, and Rex Bull, CMO at Assurety Consulting, join me to talk about the digital mailbox:

• Assurety's history with the US Postal Service's Informed Delivery
• What Informed Delivery is for consumers, businesses, and the post:
  • Sustaining letter volumes
  • Helping marketers exponentially increase ROI
  • Giving customers a preview of their mail
• Penetration and saturation of Informed Delivery - including projections for usage rates
• Exceptionally high open rates for Informed Delivery messages
• Benefits to mailers of Informed Delivery or digital mailbox apps
• Insights that marketers can get from a digital mailbox solution such as Informed Delivery
  • Improved response rates to marketing messages
• Informed Visibility - and how it relates to the concept of the intelligent barcode
• How mid-sized and small posts can use data to provide a digital mailbox service
• Providing a single platform on a smartphone to track parcels, including returns
• Helping companies plan marketing and sales campaigns using the mail and Informed Delivery
• How to get started adding value to mail
• Why postal operators shouldn't be intimidated of embracing technology to improve the delivery experience - regardless of scale
• Sharing delivery data on social media

Big changes happening in cross-border e-commerce in 2021. Martyn Noble and David Spottiswood, co-founders of Hurricane Modular Commerce join me to discuss:

• A look back at what's happened since Jan 1 and how it's affected the world of cross-border e-commerce
• Brexit, VAT, IOSS
• What have we learned from the implementation of Brexit and its impact on cross-border trade?
• Country of origin - the new question for cross-border e-commerce
• Northern Ireland protocol (EU origin goods)
• How government bodes have reacted to Brexit - example from Hurricane and An Post
• Why data is king
• STOP Act - update
• The sticky end in store for undeclared goods destined for the USA
• July 1 – EU VAT Package (including the removal of the VAT exemption on low value items under €22)
• Electronic advanced data (EAD/AED) transmission for postal operators
• Clearance fees
• Introduction of the Import One-Stop Shop – levelling the playing field between EU e-retailers and third country online retailers and marketplaces
• €140 billion in unpaid VAT
• The doorstep surprise - customers having to pay extra duties/customs charges to the delivery company for receipt of their cross-border purchases
• The financial incentives to posts and carriers to have the right data
• Hurricane's growth, and the growth of cross-border e-commerce over the past few years
• The postal and delivery companies that work with Hurricane
• The first file to the last mile

Sam Rahim, General Manager Canada Post Business Transformation Deployment, joins me to talk about about Canada Post's business transformation project:

• Overview of Canada Post's Retail Transformation Programme
• Transforming the Canada Post network to adapt to growing parcel volumes and changing consumer needs
• Upgrading hardware and software in processes
• Importance of the post office network for inducting parcels into the postal network - the first mile
• Simplifying products and processes
• Improving the customer experience and the counter officer (clerk) experience
• Clarifying postal language
• Engaging counter staff in the development process
• Reducing training requirements
• Post office network - different operating models
• Canada Post PUDO network - Parcel Pickup
• Fast setup of new PUDO points - technology and training
• Over-the-counter transactions
• Using technology to identify parcel hot spots
• Enabling better reporting
• Measuring counter operator (clerk) experience
• The need to continue to measure

Kate Muth, Executive Director at IMAG, joins me to talk about the future of letter and parcel delivery in the USA:

• Postal reform:
  • Is this the best opportunity in years for meaningful change?
  • Implications for parcels and letters in the USA
• Lack of clear definition of the Universal Service Obligation in the USA
• The letters monopoly – should it be opened to competition?
• Upstream preparation of letters (work share)
• The mailbox monopoly
• What is the most convenient way for customers to receive letters and parcels?
• Do recipients still value mail?
• Mail as a two-sided market
• Parcel delivery frequency
• Alternate day letter delivery
• Post office network access
• Who would be involved in formulating the USO?

Sharick Mirza, CEO at Assurety Consulting, and Rex Bull, CMO at Assurety Consulting, join me to talk about data, delivery, and fraud prevention:

• Data and visibility of customers, delivery, transportation, bottlenecks, and more
• Removing silos to bring together insights available from data
• Address data and the intelligent barcode - linking customer and address information
• Leveraging insights from intelligent barcodes across the enterprise
• The pay-off for intelligent barcode data - even for small delivery operations
• How address data can combat fraud and transporting prohibited or illicit substances
• Detecting fraud using address data
• Machine learning and optimising operations - for example, detecting problems in the delivery network
• How data can be used to create new products - including crossing over between digital and physical products
• Data and up-selling
• Cleansing data
• Giving CEOs , senior executives and managers a high-level view of operations, via tools such as KPIs and dashboards, or an operations-level view
• Improving first time parcel delivery rates
• Bringing in data from different sources, e.g. social media, weather, to help improve delivery

Wayne Haubner, Escher Group CTO, and Keith Emery, Product manager track-and-trace at Escher, join me to talk about track-and-trace, route optimisation, and modern e-commerce delivery:

• The big changes in the parcel environment - and it's not just growth, it's about flexibility
• The role data plays in parcel delivery and providing transparency to customers
• Customs data
• How postal operators can create flexible and dynamic delivery networks
• Route optimisation and redirection of parcels
• Creating a unified way of delivering and the delivery experience, while improving first-time delivery success
• Reducing calls to customer service contact centres
• Quality of service
• Escher's new Riposte Track Trace and Last Mile Delivery product
• Flexible delivery options, including PUDO, lockers, time-slot delivery, full visibility of deliveries
• Additional services in the last mile, including fresh, pharma, and other home delivery services
• Dynamic route adjustment and elimination of paperwork
• Technology and the battle for talent
• Flexible workforce to deal with peak season - including dealing with agency workers and reducing training costs
• Bringing in new customers for delivery companies
• The development of route optimisation technology - including real-time route optimisation while the driver is out on the delivery route
• Enabling efficient same-day delivery via route optimisation
• Giving customers control over their deliveries without burdening the post with excessive costs
• Remote on-boarding and training
• Usability of hand-held delivery devices
• Modernising delivery and retail networks
• Being customer-centric and focusing on the customer experience

Perry Lavergne from Last Mile Experts North America / Perry Lavergne Consulting discusses measuring postal performance:

• Why postal operators should measure postal performance
• The role of the postal regulator (monitoring, pricing and enforcement)
• Regulators showing understanding of postal conditions when monitoring postal performance
• Measuring performance of international mail service (inbound and outbound)
• Reimbursement for international mail (Universal Postal Union - UPU)
• Targets, terminal dues, and performance
• International mail entering the domestic mail stream
• Cross-border parcels in the postal stream
• RFID and monitoring delivery
• Using performance data domestically and internationally
• Which leg of the journey is most important in international mail? (In particular for remuneration under UPU terminal dues)
• Who is accountable for delivery failures?
• EMS and PRIME Exprès - monitoring performance and payment
• Modern proof of delivery relating to IPC/UPU cross-border products - including scanning for track-and-trace

International IT security expert John Taylor, most recently divisional CIO at AGL, joins me to talk about the core cyber security issues delivery and postal companies need to understand:

• Critical infrastructure and security risk
• Top three strategic priorities for Boards and CEOs for enterprise IT security:
  • Governance
  • Awareness
  • Incident response
• How being world-class in these three areas will allow companies to respond quickly to threats and attacks
• The role of end users, customers, and technical staff in cyber security
• The role of larger corporations in helping small companies in IT security
• Recovering from IT outages - part of incident response - lessons from recent Toll and TNT cyber attacks
• Building cyber-resilient systems
• Role of the CEO in responding to a cyber attack
• Phishing and fraud attacks on consumers
• Educating customers and sharing learnings post-security event
• Where should the head of IT security be in the company? C-Suite?
• The importance of leadership in IT security
• Security, strategy, and the modern take on enterprise IT
• The reliance of the delivery sector on IT

Tony Walmsley, performance coach, profiling specialist, former professional manager, and founder of The Leaders Advisory, joins me to discuss creating high performance teams:

• Dealing with stress in teams - in particular during peak season
• Defining high performance for individuals and teams
• Immersing teams in a productive environment
• Understanding personality types
• Why disengagement is at high levels in the workforce
• Recruitment - including recruiting for peak season
• Authentic management style - leading authentically, and self-awareness
• Different roles in postal and delivery companies, and what that means for managing teams
• Diversity of mindsets and keys to success in management
• What staff members want from their managers
• Workplace culture
• External hires managing established teams
• Unearthing the competitive advantage in teams - and how authenticity is central
• Motivation and performance
• Changes in senior executive management team and uncertainty in the rest of the organisation

Does Amazon's market dominance make it at risk of being broken up by the US government? Dean Maciuba, Managing Partner (North America) Last Mile Experts, joins me to discuss:

• Amazon's incubator for start-up trucking companies
• Why Amazon is so interested in trucking (truckload and LTL)
• Comparisons with Amazon's DSP (Delivery Service Partner) model
• Increase in trucking failures in the USA during 2020
• Walmart's trucking and distribution network
• Amazon creating a Walmart-like network at a lower cost
• AT&T, Microsoft, Standard Oil, and US government intervention (antitrust)
• Is Amazon's dominance similar to Standard Oil's dominance?
• Political lobbying in the USA and Europe
• How Amazon does a better job than many other online retailers
• Do consumers care if Amazon becomes some sort of monopoly?
• Checks and controls on monopolies such as postal or utility monopoly operators
• Jeff Bezos stepping down as CEO - is it perfect timing?
• Market dominance wasn't an issue during the pandemic
• The US Presidency…?
• Seller-fulfilled Prime - murmurings of discontent
• Rules and controls on seller-fulfilled Prime
• Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) capacity
• Expansion of Amazon's last mile network in the USA
• US Postal Service's Parcel Select service, Amazon (and FedEx) volumes, and service standards