Leadership and Strategy - Moya Greene at the Privatised Royal Mail

The strategic challenges facing Royal Mail and its renowned CEO Moya Greene are explored in this superb FT video report (below) from Andrew Hill which takes a look at Royal Mail just a year after the business was privatised.

Moya Greene’s leadership challenge is to both modernise and energise a business with a history of losses, regulatory constraints and poor industrial relations.

Reservations raised by an investment analyst include:

• Need for improved automation and productivity in the parcels business;
• Continued decline in volumes and revenues in the letters business;
• Inflexibility in the cost base as a result of a three-year pay deal recently agreed by Moya Greene with the trade unions;

Royal Mail faces intensive competition not just in the lucrative parcels business (where much new capacity has been created in the UK) but now in letter delivery.

Could this perceived “unfair competition” threaten the Royal Mail’s legal obligation to deliver mail to every address in the UK (the universal service obligation).