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Thursday April 19 2018
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Beware shock of new tech, says head of Royal Mail
Callum Jones, Trade Correspondent
April 18 2018, 12:01am, The Times
Moya Green, head of Royal Mail, said ministers and businesses had to adapt to technological changes or face the consequences
Moya Green, head of Royal Mail, said ministers and businesses had to adapt to technological changes or face the conseqhuences
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Governments and businesses will face a “big backlash” if they fail to prepare for the upheaval created by new technologies, according to the boss of Royal Mail.
Moya Greene said a “big question mark” hangs over whether ministers and executives can manage the “deep and profound change” created by advancements in automation and artificial intelligence.
Warning that “nobody really knows” how many jobs will be lost as progress is made in areas such as robotics, the chief executive of the postal company warned that lower-skilled workers were vulnerable.
“If we’re not careful, if we don’t manage better, we are going to find ourselves up against what I call a big backlash,” she said. Ms Greene, who is expected to confirm her retirement from Royal Mail after eight years over the coming months, warned that in the past overconfidence had led to leaders failing to adequately prepare for such changes.
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“Innovation is unavoidable,” she told the Commonwealth Business Forum in central London. “In the end it will create far more benefit than it will create disturbance. But the disturbance will be real and if it’s not managed we’ll be slow to get the innovation to work for us.”
Gavin Patterson, chief executive of BT, told delegates at the event that technology would fundamentally alter the jobs of most workers, “including CEOs”. Citing a company that put a robot on its board and found it made better decisions than a human, he laughed: “Nobody’s role is safe.”
Royal Mail, the former state-owned monopoly, was sold off by the government in 2013. It employs about 159,000 people and is highly unionised through the Communication Workers Union. Last year it had £9.7 billion of revenues and made £335 million in pre-tax profits.
“My advice, looking at my industry today, is that the practices in this industry have to change,” Ms Greene said. “We have got a consumer in the United Kingdom who is conditioned to believe that delivery is free. There’s no such thing as free anything in my experience, and certainly not delivery.”
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