GOING ONLINE, IS IT TIME?

Posted by Stelios Theocharous October 1, 2009 - 7:29 am

Written for Fish & Chips & Fast Food Magazine, October 2009 Issue

I am very sure that a lot of you have been reading in the paper or listening on the news about one of Britain’s biggest companies having union problems; not only is it one of Britain’s largest companies it is owned by the government, and for, those of you that don’t understand why I am writing about this then I will explain to you a number of reasons.

• I believe it can affect the industry & retail as a whole.

• I believe a trade magazine should focus on outside news as well, because national issues affect us all

• I would like to write about something a little out of the box

So back to the Royal Mail…they employ around 120,000 people – that is a big number, generally I would imagine that calculates to 120,000 households all over the country, They are about to go on strike to prove a point, if not nationally yet, they are regionally. I don’t know if any of you have been affected by this but it has been a terror around here. You see my concern is this: if region by region people start going on strike it is not going to be a good thing, I am not just referring to the Royal Mail staff spending money in our shops – here is a list of problems.

• Your payments being received late and thus annoying the supplier.

• Your payments to you being received late thus annoying you.

• Your customers getting paid late thus annoying them.

• Everything bodged up in time for Christmas, all retail business messed up.

• Everything comes late.

See, it might not seem important, but the fact is they send millions of letters a week, though the number is falling, I only know that from the postal workers’ side of things, they want more money and better hours, whereas the Royal Mail want to modernise their workforce and ultimately – yes – employ less staff, but they say that they need to make these changes if they are to compete with the private companies.

It is not a story that effects all the people in Britain, most people say give the job to someone else! But it will affect the people who receive letters and money from others. If it causes a stress on people’s finances what will happen to their shopping habits? You have to ask yourself this question. A lot of self employed people get paid through the mail via cheque; a lot of elderly and people who don’t work get their pensions and benefits through the post. So if a small proportion of people in the UK get their payments late it could all go pear shaped. In the last postal strike over 200 million letters were backlogged and put in storage until they could get them sent out,. Because of these regional strikes there are already 30 million and the number is rising, The AA has warned that drivers could get big fines and their cars impounded if the ANPR (Automated Number Plate Recognition system) is not updated with who has paid their road tax. The system will automati­cally send out fines to people who think they have paid their road tax. And let’s not think about what the rogue car park companies will do if their payment is not received. If you get caught driving without insurance because your payment hasn’t arrived, you could get up to 6 points and a £5000 fine. Even if all problems are reversed at a later date because the letters start to go through, what about the stress of all this on the nation? If people start losing their jobs because of certain situa­tions that are out of their control it will not be good for anyone.

I know Royal Mail isn’t directly involved with our industry, but with a company as big as this and given its role in the country, it will still have an impact on our businesses. Maybe this will give us all a kick in the you know where to start going online and digital. But where does that leave our suppliers who have not done so yet?

What do you think? Isn’t it time we started ordering our materials and supplies online where we can, and paying our bills through the internet banking system?