Royal Mail has carried out one of its biggest mail operations for a private company with thedelivery of 3.77 million documents and ballot papers for insurance company Standard Life. The UK
national postal operator won the contract following a competitive tender.The Edinburgh-based financial services giant selected Royal Mail, ahead of competition fromother postal operators, to carry out the historic mailing of the documents to its members andpolicy-holders throughout the UK. They will be voting on the company’s demutualisation proposalswhich are designed to enable a stock exchange flotation.
Achieving Standard Life’s aim of getting as many of its members as possible to vote in theballot was a massive logistical undertaking, Royal Mail said in a statement. The operation involved3.77 million documents, weighing 300 grams each. This amounted to 1,131 tonnes of mail and to moveit required 3,000 mail cages and over 70 articulated lorries from Royal Mail’s fleet. Thisrepresents about six times more documents than last year’s delivery of 500,000 copies of thebest-seller “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”.
Royal Mail was involved in the mailing operation from the early planning stages, to collectingand sorting and final delivering across the UK. Deliveries were made during the week after Easter.Royal Mail will also be responsible for collecting, sorting and delivering the completed ballotpapers.
Mike Lloyd, Sales Development Director for Royal Mail, said: “We are absolutely delighted tohave won this major contract and to be working with Standard Life on an operation which is of suchcrucial importance to the company, its members and its future. The postal market is now fully opento competition and this is exactly the type of business which other postal operators are targeting,but once again Royal Mail is proving that it is the only company in the country that can be trustedto meet the needs of business, all the way through from initial planning to final delivery, nomatter what scale of operation is required.
Standard Life Chairman Sir Brian Stewart said: “This is one of the most significant and largestmailing exercises in our history. We are delighted to have the scale, capability and reliability ofRoyal Mail as our partners in this communication.”
