Royal Mail

Project Outline

The Royal Mail Group is unique in reaching everyone in the UK through its mails, Post Office and parcels businesses – which directly employ over 160,000 people in the UK. It is a business operation of considerable scale, working within a tight regulatory framework in a competitive and declining market. To respond to these pressures and to ensure its survival, the Group launched a modernisation programme centred on transforming the efficiency of its Letters business operations.

Maxxim were retained by the Royal Mail Group in early 2010 to review the role and size of the group corporate centre in the light of the progress made by the modernisation programme. During the initial diagnostic stage, the scope of the review was increased to include all overhead areas within the UK Letters and Parcels businesses and we were also asked to support the overall transformation of the UK businesses.

Working alongside senior executives from all functions across the group, the Maxxim team used the conclusions from the initial diagnostic to facilitate the design of an organisational blueprint that allowed Royal Mail to operate in a more streamlined fashion with fewer internal barriers and less duplication of resources. The work covered the traditional overhead functions of HR, Finance, IT and Legal but also covered the regulated activities in the commercial areas.

As a result of this work, the RMG executive and management teams are aligned around a new structure and operating model which costs 20% less than before. This transformation is an important step in the Royal Mail’s journey to improving profitability in the very difficult market conditions in which it operates.