Author Archive
Update on the Activities of the UPU CC Postal Revenue Protection Group
Posted by: | CommentsThe UPU Consultative Committee Postal Revenue Protection Group has made a very significant contribution to helping postal systems around the world learn how to efficiently and effectively get paid. This note by the Group’s Chair, Jean-Philippe Ducasse of US trade association Postcom and Pitney Bowes describes this very important project. Editor.
UPU projects follow a four-year ‘Olympic’ cycle, from one Congress to the next. Four years is a long period of time for any company, not so much for a U.N.organization. In fact UPU working groups’ race to actionable results resembles a 110 m hurdles. Our Consultative Committee’s Postal Revenue Protection group created at the end of 2008 has just cleared the first hurdles – and the finish line is already in sight. (This joint postal/private sector group led by Pitney Bowes aims at helping Posts to reduce leakages of postage revenue ; it promotes solutions that improve operational and accounting processes, and encourages use of cost-effective technologies). Read More→
Addressing Moves to the Top of the Agenda
Posted by: | CommentsThe Editor participated on a panel last week at Triangle’s World Mail & Express Europe Conference and, opening the second day of the conference to a full room, told the audience that addressing is moving to the top of the agenda. Subsequent speakers from Estonia Post, Intermec, and DPD Gmbh expanded on many aspects of the Editor’s comments. Their presentations will be reviewed in these pages in the coming weeks. In the meantime, please feel free to download “Addressing Moves to the Top of the Agenda” and learn how and why this is so. You will be surprised why the address is getting more valuable. The presentation is a pdf of a “notes view” powerpoint and thus you can read what the audience heard.
Border Bullies and Border Buddies and Address Buddies
Posted by: | CommentsAugust 29, 2009
Border buddies and border bullies
The September issue of The Prescott Report inaugurates a new column which bestows awards on companies, government agencies other institutions which either increase the difficulty of international trade and commerce (Bullies), or which reduce the difficulties of international business (Buddies). We are, as noted, working to “make the borders go away” and so wish to recognize appropriately those who assist us, and to bring to the attention of our like-minded friends those who hinder us. Enjoy the awards in this month’s issue.
And Address Buddies In the meantime, we note that the experts and publishers who help businesses deal with addresses from customers from all over the world are deserving of recognition as Border Buddies as a group, and we shall recognize them individually by mentioning them in our blog going forward. Today, we have been given the privilege of making available a wonderful work in the Address Library in this website, Better Data Quality from your Web Form, by Graham Rhind. Mr. Rhind has been a prodigious student and adviser on the subject and his website is a cornucopia of information on addressing and postal matters. It is worth a visit and a bookmark.
Interest in the future. If you have a professional interest in the subject of the address or the data and systems related thereto, or merely a curiousity, we invite you to join our interest group to share knowledge and recommmendations for improvement in address systems world-wide and the elimination of undeliverable as addressed mail (UAA). See the blog entry of August 27 for our proposal on this subject. If you have an interest in sharing ideas and information in this subject area, please join our blog by registering as a Silver Member or by subscribing as a Gold member. You may also send an email expressing interest to address@prescottreport.com and we will send you occasional news of developments.
What the world needs now-an Address Association
Posted by: | CommentsAugust 27, 2009
This proposal is circulating in the postal and marketing communities world-wide and is beginning to generate interest as the end of the recession is being perceived. We invite readers to comment on this proposal on this blog or by sending a comment to address@prescottreport.com.
PROPOSAL FOR A COMMON PROJECT ON POSTAL DATA
The issue
Addresses are the fuel that drives postal delivery, direct mail, and numerous critical economic, political and social elements. Address systems are essential for the delivery of emergency services, for efficient urban planning, for building utility and communication networks, and much else.
Postal addresses are “geo-locators” which permit the easily recognizable and communicable name of a location of a place or individual. For the most part, addresses and address systems are the province of the postal systems world-wide, but their impact and uses are broader than this.
Postal systems, and the businesses which are in the developed world their primary customers, are in crisis, but this crisis will pass. As the crisis is resolved, there will come a realization that one of the traumas that was occurring was the world’s struggling to accommodate a global economic structure in which 1/3rd of the world’s population consumed and spent, while the other 2/3rd’s constructed, sold, and saved. One of the realizations growing in the world is that at least one more third of the world’s population, if not even more, must join the consumer society and spend.
