Triangle News

The organisers of the UK Mail Awards, Triangle, have opened entries for this year’s awards. It will be the fourth year of the awards and they are firmly established as the UK postal industry’s most prestigious recognition of excellence.

The express and parcels market in India is growing rapidly and is increasingly attracting investment from the global express integrators such as DHL with its new Indian subsidiary Blue Dart Express, TNT with its purchase of road express company Speedage and FedEx’s buy out of its global service partner Prakash Air Freight, Pafex. Even GeoPost is thought to be interested in acquiring a stake in local operator DTDC.

With the Americas offering some of the most competitive markets in the postal world, the 2008 World Mail & Express Americas conference will look at competition and collaboration, with a strong focus on ‘working together’.

Now in its 4th year the UK Express Delivery Conference took the plunge this month by transferring the event from the midlands to London’s Olympia Conference centre. As a result there were many more users, carriers and suppliers attending than at any previous year’s events.

Twenty billion items sent through the UK post in 2006 would say it is! But the traditionally growing industry is now facing huge challenges. There is increasing questioning of its relevance when faced with competing communications technologies and growing environmental concerns linked to perceptions of pollution and waste.

Technology is now fundamental to all of our lives and particularly the way we communicate. There can be few other industries, where the significance is so key, than for the Postal industry. Surprisingly, despite employing more than 5 million people and accounting for an average of 2% of GDP as part of the national and global communications infrastructure, most postal authorities have not historically invested heavily in technology.

Last week saw hundreds of leading postal executives from all over Europe and the rest of the world come together for three days to debate the major issues they face in the next ten years. The annual World Mail & Express Europe conference, this year hosted in London, provided the platform for postal operators to publicly air their agendas, their concerns and listen to solutions from those who have experienced new competition.

The 2007 World Mail Awards, presented on Monday night at a top London hotel, brought out the very best from postal services around the globe. More than 350 senior executives from the industry gathered to hear yachtsman, hero & adventurer, Pete Goss, present the coveted trophies for best practice and excellence.