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9. Royal Mail Group

Royal Mail Group
  • Quarter: Q2 2011
  • Screens: 90,000
  • Employees: 176,000
  • Head of IT: Catherine Doran, Chief Information Officer, as of September 2011
  • Industry: Transport and distribution
  • Website: www.royalmail.com

Now almost two years into his position as CIO in 2009, former Diageo IT chief Robin Dargue (pictured) should have his feet well under the table at the Royal Mail Group. However, times are changing fast in the world of delivery and logistics with the establishment of a truly open market removing the privileges of the ancient dominant incumbent.

Dargue has overseen a huge transformation project at the Royal Mail to revamp automation, supply chain and mobility, thus refreshing what remains a huge concern. Each working day the Royal Mail collects items from 113,000 post boxes, 14,300 Post Office branches and 87,000 business customers.

It also helps in the delivery of online shopping, provides help with mail marketing services and designs and produces stamps. Finally, it has a discrete wholesale division and even lets companies use its Innovation Lab for brainstorming at its Coton House Learning and Development Centre in Warwickshire.

In keeping with the challenges ahead, the Group is itself attempting to change through innovation, even releasing an iPhone application that lets users discover how much to pay for different weights of packages.

Like, seemingly, everybody else, the Royal Mail suffered an embarrassing data compromise in 2009, this time referring to the postcode database landing on the public internet.



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