Qatar Post needs to improve its mail handling, says expert

Qatar’s General Postal Corporation (Q-Post) needs to upgrade some of its mail handling operations to make the service more profitable and attractive, a visiting German postal expert said.

Q-Post’s existing services, however, are among the most efficient in the world, he added.

Speaking to the media, Wolfram Strohmaier, consultant for quality at the Universal Postal Union and a senior expert at the Deutsche Post, said some of the areas in which Q-Post could do better were in its sorting schedules and the delivery of mailbags to airlines.

Wolfram had been sent to Doha for a week by the UPU to study the areas in which Q-Post can further upgrade his services.

He said that he would shortly submit a written report to Q-Post and the UPU about his week-long findings at the Doha General Post Office.

According to Wolfram, postal corporations such as Q-Post have to calculate the expenses they incur in handling a mail item and improve the overall efficiency of the staff to make the system more user friendly and cost effective.

Q-Post, he said, was very keen to do so and had hence requested the UPU to delegate an expert.

He pointed out that the Deutsche Post of Germany has only 300,000 employees to handle extremely high volumes of mail and some 83 sorting offices all over the country, despite being a 500 year-old organisation.

The Post, he said, lays emphasis on staff productivity, cost effectiveness and other key elements to ensure that it remains a profitable organisation, since its stocks are held by some 2,000 share holders.

Q-Post, he said, was looking at installing more mail sorting machines in the near future, to expedite the processing of outbound mail.