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Union Postale Has Been Reporting News from the International Postal Sector for the Benefit of Stakeholders Across the Industry

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Union Postale Has Been Reporting News from the International Postal Sector for the Benefit of Stakeholders Across the Industry Moving the postal sector forward since 1875 MARCH 2011 No 1 IFAD president on remittances E-substitution’s many faces Clipping the wings of revenue loss Isn’t it time you subscribed? Since 1875, Union Postale has been reporting news from the international postal sector for the benefit of stakeholders across the industry. These include regulators, chief executives, operational experts, post-office employees, strategic thinkers, suppliers, academics, philatelists and anyone else with a keen interest in Posts. Help Union Postale celebrate its 135th birthday Moving the postal sector forward since 1875 by joining the ranks of thousands of satisfied MARCH 2011 N o IFAD president on 1 remittances readers. Sign up now for four issues a year of this E-substitution’s many faces full-colour, high-quality magazine in one of seven languages. Private subscribers anywhere in the world can subscribe for CHF50 a year. Special discount rates Clipping the wings of apply to Posts from UPU member countries. revenue loss Fax us your order now on +41 31 350 37 11 or email us at [email protected] with the following details: Name Language version desired: Position English Organization/Operator French Full postal address Arabic Chinese German E-mail address Russian Telephone Spanish Fax Contents Cover story Revenue protection takes centre stage The UPU’s Consultative Committee is helping Posts to stop losing money 12 Feature Electronic substitution: a shifting story A look at the state of research on a game-changing phenomenon 9 People Moving the postal sector forward since 1875 MARCH 2011 No 1 IFAD president on remittances Bringer of glad tidings E-substitution’s many faces Sima Azroyan has worked for Haypost for 40 years and serves at the counter 17 The interview Beating poverty with remittances The International Fund for Agriculture and Development’s president, Kanoyo Kwanze, on a collaboration with the UPU 18 Clipping the wings of Perspective revenue loss Getting practical with addresses Industry expert calls on Posts to keep business users in mind Cover: Die Gestalter when changing address formats 22 Departments In brief 4 Editor’s note 5 Who’s who at the UPU 7 Market focus 25 March 2011 Manager, Communication Programme: Rhéal LeBlanc (RL) Editor-in-chief: Faryal Mirza (FM) Contributors: Anne Césard, Jérôme Deutschmann (JD), Tobe Freeman Administrative assistant: Gisèle Coron Photographers: Yasuyoshi Chiba, Alexandre Plattet Union Postale Translation: Richard Alderman, Mark Prosser, Summer Nesrallah International Bureau Proofing: Richard Alderman, Mark Prosser Universal Postal Union Union Postale is the Universal Postal Union’s flagship magazine, Design and layout: Die Gestalter, St. Gallen, Switzerland P. O. Box founded in 1875. It is published quarterly in seven languages and takes Cover redesign: BlackYard, Berne, Switzerland 3000 BERNE 15 a closer look at UPU activities and features international news and Printer: Gassmann, Biel, Switzerland SWITZERLAND developments within the postal sector. The magazine regularly pub- Subscriptions: [email protected] lishes well researched articles on topical issues facing the industry, as Advertising: [email protected] Phone: well as interviews with the sector’s leading individuals. The colour pub- +41 31 350 35 95 lication is distributed to Posts around the world from our 191 member Printed on FSC Mixed Sources paper using environmentally friendly Fax: countries, including thousands of decision-makers, who regard it as an processes and ink. +41 31 350 37 11 important source of information, as well as postal stakeholders. The opinions expressed in the articles are not necessarily E-mail: those of the UPU. [email protected] Union Postale is also published in French, Arabic, Chinese, German, Material may be reproduced with an acknowledgement: Website: Russian and Spanish. © Union Postale magazine (UPU) http://www.upu.int 1/2011 Union Postale · 3 in brief Quality of service GMS participation rises An additional 33 countries have re- cently joined the Global Monitoring System (GMS), the UPU’s quality of service measurement system. This brings the total number of partici- pating countries to 51 since the sys- tem was first launched in 2009. GMS uses radio frequency identifi- cation technology to primarily measure the quality of letter-post services on the inbound stretch. Lower costs More than 25 new members were able to indivi dually save tens of thousands of US dollars on joining costs. This was due to a special agreement between the UPU and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). This ensures New members include Japan, Botswana, Kenya and that purchased equipment is exempt Bangladesh Illustration: Beat Felber of taxes in the receiving country. The UNDP supervises logistical matters, such as customs clearances doing well but the manual testing good thing about GMS is its very and delivering equipment to the system did not really measure robust diagnostics. It was a great installation site. end-to-end and was not indepen- help to know why and where we did dent,” said Pos Malaysia’s Chum not perform and how we could add- Satisfied user Choy Han. ress those areas of service failure,” Malaysia decided to sign up to GMS And GMS delivered on its prom- Han added. FM during its inaugural year. “Before ise to help countries improve quality we joined, we were doing manual of service. “The first results showed GMS animated film: monitoring and testing of the ser- that we were not as good as other http://www.tinyurl.com/gmsfilm vice performance of inbound inter- countries. We then worked with the national mail. We thought we were GMS team on areas to improve. The The figure This is the estimated amount in USD being lost by Posts annually through not protecting revenue 30 billion streams. 4 · Union Postale 1/2011 Editor’s note Times are hard. Mail volumes are down, competition of wool but I can’t fathom the relationship between from other players is on the increase in certain markets my grandma’s length of yarn or wool and the context and discussions have been going on for years about in which you use the word.” I explained to Rodger that the raison d’être of the postal industry in an electronic my intention was to invoke a complicated situation age. In the meantime, work on the ground – led by the with many intertwined strands. I may have succeeded. UPU and its Consultative Committee – is helping Posts “See how Union Postale can teach even an old dog to protect existing revenue streams. As our Cover new tricks,” he replied on the eve of his retirement story shows, this innovative approach is offering from Australia Post after 50 years of service. hands-on advice and best practices on what could As befitting a magazine that is 135½ years old, it turn into a regional road show of workshops. was time to give Union Postale’s cover a gentle face- The last Editor’s note resulted in enjoyable dis- lift. The new design boasts a new, fresher typeset for cussions with readers about my use of the word the magazine’s title and has a more flexible layout, ‘skein’. Thanks in particular to Rodger McGowan, who making it easier to highlight our other stories. wrote: “I can recall my old grandmother buying skeins Faryal Mirza, Editor-in-chief tent or unpaid import duties. Such delays can have a knock-on effect on delivery times. Tunisia Post esti- mates that up to 20 per cent of the 20,000 EMS items it receives each year are kept temporarily by Cus- toms. “They store them in special areas for in-depth controls. The cus- tomer may be called in or the item sent to another customs centre be- fore delivery to the addressee,” says Khaled Abid, the Post’s Rapid-Poste network’s director. As coordinator of the Tunisian pilot project, Abid says the new rules will be communicated to busi- ness clients and customers at post Getting faster and faster Photo: Correios office counters. “We will also work with Customs to redefine the regu- EMS latory holding periods,” he adds. Express customs clearance on the way The first results of these pilot projects will be presented to the EMS Cooperative’s general as- The UPU’s EMS Cooperative has ities. The second clearly defines how sembly in May 2011. The objective is launched four pilot projects to the postal operator and Customs to share resulting best practices so speed up customs clearance of will improve import customs clear- that other operators can follow suit express mail and improve delivery ance. The final phase will ensure in streamlining their customs clear- times. The projects will take place in that EMS items are tracked and ance procedures. Brazil, Portugal, Togo and Tunisia. traced to evaluate progress. The Express Mail Service or EMS Each project has three phases. Currently, items can be held in is the fastest postal service and is of- The first educates businesses and Customs for over 24 hours due to fered by 163 countries. JD customers about customs formal- lack of information, suspicious con- 1/2011 Union Postale · 5 in brief International Bureau Strategy starts to take shape were able to build bridges between the past and the future,” said Elena Fernandez, chair of the strategy implementation group. Fernandez added that dis- cussions focused on how to better align the UPU’s various pro- grammes, aimed at helping to achieve the strategy, with the over- all goals of the roadmap. Working closely together The close participation in the Madrid meeting of member countries charged with looking at the reform of the UPU was also welcomed. Par- ticipants were able to better under- stand the impact the proposed new Pondering the road ahead Photo: Yasuyoshi Chiba (EPA/keystone) strategy could have on the UPU’s structure and find leads on how the organisation could be adapted to The UPU International Bureau’s stra- November.
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