As the Festive Season fast approaches, unfortunately, if things continue on their current trajectory, it would appear that the famous ‘last posting date’ may have already passed.
However, fret not, as deliveries of the important stuff – the parcels and presents ordered up to the 11th hour from on-line retailers such as Amazon and John Lewis are destined to find their way to their recipients in a timely and reliable fashion. These businesses you will not be surprised to hear have opted to drop Royal Mail in favour of alternative providers. There are unfortunately some on-line retailers who won’t have that choice. Just as Britain is trying to fight its way out of recession, not only will Royal Mail potentially lose over £100m of combined letter and packet business, the disruption could cost general business over £220m in direct lost business and increased delivery expense not to mention damage to reputation and customer loyalty.
So it would seem that the current dispute of Royal Mail employees with the management over pay, conditions and modernisation plans continues to erode not just the trust and reputation of another institutional brand but ultimately drive it closer to the edge of an inevitable precipice.
Sure, the history, politics and organisational issues that underpin the machinations of Royal Mail and the current dispute are complicated but the stark reality is much simpler. This is a business model that makes little commercial sense or in its current guises delivers a relevant consumer service for modern Britain.
Royal Mail was created in 1516 by Henry VIII when he established a Master of the Posts. It was no doubt of formidable use in days gone by for sending threatening letters to the French or Scots, communicating with your army, courting another potential wife or demanding taxes and favours.
But today, my letterbox at home is rarely straining under the weight of anything of such urgency, value or contempt. Bank statements, mobile phone bills, energy bills, tax returns, passport and driving licence applications are all now managed on-line. In our fast-paced digital society, we can’t wait a few hours, let alone a day or two to for a piece of communication to wind its way through the ‘Snail Mail’ plumbing.
So what future for our postal champion and its significant army of foot soldiers?
The solution for Royal Mail is to leverage its capabilities in a more effective and innovative manner. It benefits from an amazing local community presence and infrastructure. It just needs to mobilise it and charge for it in a more valued and valuable way.
Perhaps Royal Mail should consider stopping those daily letterbox deliveries of increasing amounts of junk mail. Household mail only accounts for about 10% of volume anyway. Apart from certain government departments, rarely do we send anything of real urgency or value through the postal system. Perhaps we need to be educated that we should go and collect our mail from the local Post Office. Use the Post Office as a micro-sorting office from where we rent our own PO Box for a convenient Saturday morning collection before popping to the coffee shop next door to peruse it.
Equally, Britain is a universe of micro and small and medium sized enterprises. These smaller businesses need to move things around and most often within a fairly narrow geography and relatively minor window of time.
Couldn’t Royal Mail do this? Couldn’t Royal Mail be exactly the kind of local community logistics champion that we could really use on a daily basis.
With assets out on the roads local independent grocers or traders who can’t compete with the likes of Ocado can offer to deliver direct with Royal Mail. Plumbers, electricians and tradesmen can call suppliers for parts and have them picked up and delivered by Royal Mail within 90 minutes. For domestic customers, dry cleaning can be delivered or collected and those cakes you’ve baked for old Mrs Jones who lives on the other side of town can be sent and received and still be warm. Maybe if I’m really running late, they can pick up and deliver my kids home from nursery.
Now that really would indicate a level of trust and give valued meaning to those letters within the Royal Mail brand name that make it a service we can all be proud of.
