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The Royal Mail Group

The Royal Mail group comprises the following well known brands

• Royal Mail
• Post Office
• Post Office Products and Services
• Parcelforce Worldwide
• General Logistics Systems

1) The Royal Mail

Most people readily associate The Royal mail with the postal service side of the business. The Royal Mail collects, sorts and delivers letters and packages from all over the UK six days a week.

Business customers use the direct marketing operation of the Royal Mail who provides comprehensive data base management and distribution services to target discreet groups of customers efficiently.

Home shopping is a relatively new departure for The Royal Mail who assists retailers and customers alike by being a collection as well as a distribution point for goods.

Perhaps you’ve collected stamps as a child or noticed the array of attractive stamps often displayed at the Post Office counter? You know then that The Royal Mail commission new UK stamps to commemorate events and anniversaries. Did you also know that they can commission personalized novelty electronic stamps for business and private use?

2) The Post Office

This arm of the Royal mail group is responsible for the running of all the Post Offices – all 14,300 of them! This makes them the largest retail and financial services chain in the UK. The future of many Post Offices is under threat as the existing Government funding expires in 2008. This is bound to be problematic for many people who rely on their local Post Office. Unfortunately despite 28 million visitors a week the Post Office network runs at a loss and relies on the Government funding. There are many reasons for this, not least because much of the Government business that used to be transacted at the Post Office is now done directly through the banks.

In order to generate replacement revenue streams, the Post Office has developed a wide range of new products and services.

3) Post Office Products and Services

In addition to its postal services, the post Office now offers an impressive array of financial services. Here are the main ones:

Banking services

• Credit Card
• Personal loans o Savings and Investments
• Bill Payments o Postal orders
• Gift vouchers

Travel Services

• Foreign currency exchange
• Travel insurance
• Passport application ‘check and send’

HomePhone

• Directory Enquiries
• Phone cards
• Mobile Phone Topups

Lottery products

License Applications

Insurance

• Car / Van/ Motorcycle
• Home
• Life

4) Parcelforce Worldwide

This is the express parcels business delivering around 150,000 parcels a day to customers.

5) General Logistics Systems

This is the European side of the parcels business of the Royal Mail, it is based in the Netherlands and handles over 1m parcels a day, mainly for business to business customers.

Contribution of The Royal Mail Group

Whilst you may be aware of the different brands that sit under the Royal Mail umbrella and will undoubtedly be aware of the pressure the Post Offices are under for their very survival, you may not be aware of a whole host of services that The Royal Mail provide free of charge. Here are just some of them.

• Free First class postal service for the Blind
• Return to sender
• Post Restante services for travellers and the homeless
• Delivery of rural newspapers (about 300,000 per yr)
• Post bus in rural areas (50,000 passengers per yr)
• Santa Mail (200,000 responses per year)
• Delivery of petitions to Parliament and the Queen

Nevertheless, the UK has easily the lowest postal rate in the world. With the fourth highest internet usage in the world it is suffering from the switch to Internet Advertising from Direct mail.

Although its role for the large companies is being eroded by competitive mail services, 77% of small and medium size companies continue to claim that The Royal Mail provides a critical role for them. In a recent survey conducted by The Royal mail, 50% of these companies claimed to be ‘very’ or ‘extremely satisfied’ with the services they received from The Royal Mail.