Adrian Hollister

In my world, a successful Royal Mail would not aim to allow the business to grow, or to right-size, downsize, or reduce in anyway, but to sustain itself and ensure that capacity in the supply chain can be met. There is tremendous potential in Royal Mail as a service provider the country can be proud of. I've never understood the need to break up, dissolve through legislation and 'competitive' practices (that generally favour foreign competition and not innovation or sustainability).

Where are Royal Mail now?

Royal Mail Group (RMG) are in a strange and difficult place at the moment. Conservatives wanting to see it sold off, New Labour keen to break it up and yet the logical conclusion of the market place (should it be totally 'free') would result in the ultimate domination of RMG within it's sector. It is the only supplier able to sustainable meet the local delivery need, the only supplier with the capability to distribute large volumes of small mail items and is in the right place to offer up it's spare capacity for sale in the market place, and the only retail counter for government.


What could Royal Mail Group do?

If we were to use Van Weele and Rozemeijer's (1996) definition of procurement as including "all activities required in order to obtain the product from the supplier and get it to the place where it is actually used. It encompasses the purchasing function, store, traffic and transportation, incoming inspection, and quality control and assurance." then we could envisage RMG as a facilitator of not just distribution and delivery, but funcation, storage. RMG have the advantage of not having a direct environmental or disposal problem on their hands - this problem should be borne by the manufacturers, suppliers and consumers.

On the whole RMG's whole supply chain works around the distribution of physical things between people and businesses. Recently they have extended this model to include 'services' such as banking and telephony, but these are short sighted money grabbing tasks and loose sight of their main advantages in the market place - their people and their distribution network.

In some ways I like the simplicity of Ellram (1990) who suggested that supply chain management is philosophy used to manage the total flow through a distribution channel from the supplier to the ultimate user. This as far as I am concerned should be RMG's core responsibility and they should freely be able to work in this space (even if competition is reduced).

RMG have a trump card up their sleeves though that should never be over looked: key social value. How ever you think of yourself: people, citizens, commuters, tourists; you will know and see a postal worker. I could imagine situations where some at home during the day may only see or speak to a postal worker. Others will interact at PO shop counters or when receiving/collecting parcels and packages. These postal workers are a human and real supply chain link between the users/manufacturers and the consumers - this is something that has over time become essential part of governance - the face of the benefits system, center for government forms, a social venue for similar people and often the heart of a community.

Michael Quayle's (2006) description of supply chain interests me: "...there is a supply chain of events to be managed—the art, perhaps, is recognising that there is one and recognising where it can be influenced, in one form or another." He discussed the thought of a sustainable supply chain.

He goes on "What is sustainable development and a sustainable supply chain, and, indeed, why bother? It is no secret that development has often been at the expense of the environment, both at home and abroad. We are feeling the effects internationally, as global warming affects our weather patterns, and locally, as once-common species of plants and animals become rare. Development has had social costs, too. Once-lively towns and villages are in decline, and whole communities find themselves excluded from the benefits of economic growth. Sustainable development is about striking a better, more creative balance between economic development, environmental protection, and social change; about finding ways of meeting our needs without jeopardising the ability of our children to meet theirs. Development that is more balanced should be more enduring and offer a better chance of long-term prosperity."

So if Quayle, Ellram's view is taken the supply chain has extended beyond the physical parcel boundaries. By enabling 'competition' the UK government has put RMG under aggressive pressure to 'modernise' and to become 'more competitive'. It has not thought that this system of distribution is one of it's biggest and brightest assets.

What should we do?

I think that the use of 'competition' to boost the uptake of foreign companies has overlooked an essential national asset. An asset that should not be sold off. An asset that should be allowed to exploit it's niche to give the best possible service to it's customers, our community and our country.

With this free hand for Royal Mail Group there must be a change in philosophy in their management - it would not to given away lightly to capitalists looking for a fast buck; but to a new breed of managers who consider CSR as equal to 'profit' in their sustainable business model.

I've been nagged enough - I know the site is not as user friendly as it could be, so if you want to contact Adrian Hollister you can use the 'Contact Me' link on the left hand side - or just click here, you can also find me on Skype - just search for adrian.hollister. One day I will get around to updating the site so that it's a bit more obvious!

Few pic's here - it's not the standard 2.25 petrol unit that the chassis implies, so I'm going to have to find out what it is. Perhaps 2.5 n/a?



Continue reading "Pic's of my new (well very old) 1970's Series..." »

The use of cloud computing could ultimately and fundamentally change the delivery model for traditional IT service delivery companies. With the assumption that services can be chosen from a catalogue of on-demand technologies and that storage of information and the desktop will be virtualised (see Googles model) the traditional delivery and support organisations like CSC and Fujitsu will have a problem - their current role will no longer exist.

Will they survive the change?

The likes of these smaller outsource providers are based upon revenue from outsourcing/hosting, applications and development. If we assume that cloud computing will take the vast majority of outsourcing/hosting from them, it doesn't leave them with a lot and put's them fighting directly with the tier 1 providers like IBM (and a battle they are in a less suitable position to win).

If you take a look at the application space, even with fundamental changes to their business model to support virtual or cloud application, desktop and office suite deliverables, they will be put in direct competition with their traditional suppliers like Microsoft, SAP, IBM and Google who are and will be offering their application suite and services as SaaS and cloud based services. So if we assume this is also a low profit/commodity battle, even if they do win these bits, there will be nothing in it for them and their business will collapse.

Lastly development. I'm using this term loosely as clearly this needs to cover aspects of design and architecture - someone will still need to pull together all these bits of the cloud. But why would you go with a tier 2 provider, when the real architecture, the designs and the plans are being handled by the largest companies, the Microsofts, IBM's, SAP's and Oracles? and if this was their only real revenue stream, would it be enough for them to survive?

Certainly, if cloud takes off and if it is the way forward (and logic dictates that this is highly probable) then companies can look forward to shopping for virtual services at commodity prices (if market forces take place).

Change for the tier 2 providers is likely to be too much. I would imagine that they will merge, be bought, or have to make massive redundancies to stay afloat.

Change for the largest IT providers and potentially the cloud services providers is also going to be a shock. Why do you need fleets of sales people to sell what is essentially a cots service? Why do you need a fleet of business partners selling your hardware and software if businesses can purchase something that works straight from the cloud? The quickest and cleanest business model must be to change to giving software away free, but charging for support or use of the software on a commercial basis each month. IBM of course have long term experience with this model for their Mainframe product line.

The cuts in work force for the largest IT providers could be massive and often would involve many layers of management rather than the people on the ground (if the produce sells itself via a service provider, then electronic license controls can mostly replace many of the sales and sales process managers). Marketing, R&D, Architecture and Application Design would be the key points of revenue for the organisation. It is likely that none of the largest organisations are nimble enough to flex to this way of working though and they will experience many years of pain and many years of senior managers justifying their job roles. At least though the largest providers are in a position to survive it - if only through their case reserves and longer term customer contracts.

So what about real business, what changes are needed there?

In part 2 of this blog I will discuss the changes that businesses will need to consider and implement to be ready for the benefits of cloud whilst shielding themselves from any dangers that may be present.

I've been fascinated by the social technologies out there for some time. Wondering which direction they are going in and watching as community forming sites such as facebook and twitter are on the rise. Whilst these are generally known as Web 2.0, it's Web 3.0 and beyond that is interesting. It's difficult to explain to people what convergence of technology could do (good and bad), but here is an example of a futuristic view of Web 3.0.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/pattie_maes_demos_the_sixth_sense.html

Of course as information (formally a strong hold of power bases such as the USA) become more widely available, how will the governments around the world seek to control, manage and censor what we see and know. There already loads of examples of the US, China and Australia blocking access to materials that their governments do not like - I wonder when this will extend to the personal, community and social technology world.

Not sure why this is happening - twice now - looks like it's been pulled apart. Must be getting a little too damp.

Good to see that the Environment Agency have finally released their long awaited document on hydro power (usually small scale low head hydro systems such as existing or renovated mill's). It's actually a good document, easy to read with clear guidelines. You can find the document here.

Now where do I search to find a mill for renovation ....

Just a bit of fun this one. Someone actually bought me this - they thought I would finally be able to rebuild a Landrover without help from the father in law

I've added an online photo gallery for those interested in Finnish Lapphund dogs. You can find my gallery in Photobox here. This includes some pictures of our show dog Rauhan and the West Berkshire downland countryside.

Now is the time to choose your Flu Friends. Flu Friends will collect medicines, food and other supplies if you get swine flu so that you do not have to leave home. Remember you cannot collect your own antivirals (such as Tamiflu) - this would be a great risk and you could infect a large number of other people doing so.

Flu advise for Berkshire can be found here.

If you are in Chaddleworth and need assistance collecting your anti-viral drugs (such as Tamiflu) from the National Pandemic Flu Service please contact me.