India Post gets tech savvy to take on competition
John Samuel, general manager, business development & marketing directorate, Department of Post (DoP), believes that the time has come for India Post to take the DHLs, Blue Darts and DTDCs of the express mail industry head on. And he banks on technology investments to turn the tables in India Post’s favour in this battle. The postal department is investing Rs 1,400 crore in technologies such as RFID, web-based customer response systems, and even mobile phones for the postman.
The department has put forward the proposal to the Planning commission recently for consideration in the 11th Five-Year Plan. The plan document highlights the need for India Post to invest in technology so as to provide its customers with high quality services. India Post believes that this will give it an edge over its competitors and help increase its customer base.
The investment for the technological upgradation will be allocated out of the ‘planned fund’. Says Mr Samuel: “World over, leading post offices such as United States Postal Service (USPS), Royal Mail and Deutsche Post have reformed themselves by investing hugely in cutting edge technology. And so are we.”
The DoP has also identified three core services for heavy investment in the years to come — parcels, financial services and logistics. Says Mr Samuel: “We believe that the parcels and logistics business will bring revenues to the tune of almost Rs 1,000 crore in the next 2-3 years. Moreover, parcels and logistics is an area that India Post had been neglecting over the years, but now we have realised that is where the volumes are and thus we are looking at building up that business.”
In fact, that is where the need for better technological systems like RFID, call centres and web-based customer response systems comes in. Once all the post offices are upgraded, the DoP will step up ancillary services like ‘instant money order scheme’ and ‘postal retail’. The instant money order scheme is presently in the pilot stage. Using this facility any person having a post office account can withdraw an amount ranging from Rs 1,000 to Rs 50,000 from any post office in the country. Says Mr Samuel: “All that a person will need to do is present any document to validate his identity and state the code number.”
The RFID system will be first put to use for the parcels and logistics division, following which it will be extended to letters. Mr Samuel says that all approvals have been obtained. Adds Mr Samuel: “Using the RFID technology, we want to be the pioneers of the express industry.” Mr Samuel is right, but the challenge for DoP would be to justify the costs, considering that the investment in RFID is huge and India Post makes losses in almost every other product offering.
