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Only 19% of companies have a plan to survive the Royal Mail strikes

Submitted by Adrian Gaskell MCMI on Wed, 21/10/2009 - 08:10

The news was abuzz with tales of the Royal Mail strike disrupting Christmas, with online retailers particularly concerned by the disruptions.  Some 77% of online retailers believed the strike action would cause shoppers to buy on the High Street rather than online this Christmas, costing them many millions of pounds.  Are people prepared for such disruption though?

1 out of 5 cats were prepared

According to our Business Continuity research earlier this year, just 19% of companies had plans in place to deal with such supply chain disruption.  This is despite the perceived risk of such disruption being considerably higher.  IMRG do offer some useful tips for online retailers concerned at the risk involved.  These include:

  1. Contact customers immediately to ensure you have an email address you can use to communicate with them, at least until the strikes are over.
  2. Provide a ‘postcode defined’ alternative delivery address so that customers can collect from their nearest branch.
  3. If you can establish a relationship with an alternative supplier, such as TNT, this is where your mail will go to.
  4. For parcels there are many alternative suppliers that you can use.  However if you only expect to use them while the strike is on, it may be difficult to negotiate their best rates.

We've setup a poll on Twitter to ask what your plans are to cope with this matter.  Give us your views below.

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Comments

Submitted by on Wed, 21/10/2009 - 23:15

I think many businesses are simply gritting their teeth and just temporarily making do with couriers or alternative means of delivery, without this affecting their long term delivery plan. At the end of the day, for many, Royal Mail is the only affordable option.

Submitted by on Thu, 22/10/2009 - 10:37

We have switched all our business and private communications to email (PDF attachments) and we will be paying our bills by direct debit or BACS rather than cheque from now on.

Actually the CWU has done us a favour as it was costing us a few quid to use the post but the cost for ecommerce is considerably lower.

Submitted by on Thu, 22/10/2009 - 10:39

Does it not occur to union leaders that they're actually shooting themselves in the foot by striking? Causing this level of disruption will harm the Royal Mail's reputation and during the strike companies and individuals will look for others means to have their post delivered. They may well find these private companies provide a better service and continue to use them ongoing. Striking will lose the Royal mail money and money is after all what the workers are paid with.

Submitted by on Mon, 02/11/2009 - 11:01

Royal Mail are fast becoming a joke and I can't see why anyone would want to take the risk of doing business with them now if they had any choice in the matter. I certainly do as much as I can electronically these days to avoid the lottery of the postal service.