See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/264413626

TO STUDY THE STRATEGIES ADOPTED BY INDIAN POSTAL DEPARTMENT FOR

BRINGING SUSTAINABILITY WITH THE INCORPORATION OF INFORMATION
SYSTEMS

Conference Paper · April 2013

CITATIONS READS
0 3,851

2 authors, including:

Lakshmi Shankar Iyer

Christ University, Bangalore
41 PUBLICATIONS   113 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Electronic Waste View project

Digital Economy View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Lakshmi Shankar Iyer on 28 May 2019.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 TO STUDY THE STRATEGIES ADOPTED BY
INDIAN POSTAL DEPARTMENT FOR BRINGING
SUSTAINABILITY WITH THE INCORPORATION OF
INFORMATION SYSTEMS
Rahul Mahajan 1and Lakshmi Iyer 2
1
Student, Christ University Institute of Management, Bangalore, India
rahul.mahajan@mba.chrsituniversity.in
2
Assistant Professor, Christ University Institute of Management, Bangalore, India
lakshmi.iyer@christuniversity.in

Corresponding author: rahul.mahajan@mba.christuniversity.in

2) To study the steps taken by Indian Postal

ABSTRACT
Indian Postal Department, a government owned
organization is considered as a backbone of
country’s communication and information channel.
With its exceptionally wide network it has played a
phenomenal role in bringing citizens together. With
the changing times India Post has upgraded itself to
the needs of the Indian citizens by adopting strategies
to reach the citizens. India as a country is
undergoing a digital revolution and technologies
help in their increasing their service efficiency. To be
in line with the changes India post had invested huge
amount in Information systems and thereby
incorporating information technology in all its
processes.
Department to incorporate information systems
in their services.
3) To study the perception of Indian citizens
towards Indian Postal Department.
The major findings include whether customers
perceive India post as reliable and efficient and their
preference when it comes to choosing a mail service.
This study helps India Post to know how the users
perceive them looking at the competition given to
them by the private courier services. The implication
of this study are relevant as we see the postal
network remaining underutilized and backed by the
fact that profits of postal department are declining
every year.

The collection, processing and delivery of letters

and packages comprise one of the largest service Keywords: Digital revolution, Sustainability, Indian
industry in the world states Jatinder N D Gupta. Due postal department, Information Systems.
to increase in private incumbents Calzada’s paper
examines competition in the postal sector with private
services. Also Sakshi Prabha Singh states in her
paper about how Information and communication I. INTRODUCTION
technologies are playing for Indian society to educate
In past few decades India has seen a tremendous
them and this could help India post in bringing its
growth in the field of information and technology and
upcoming sustainability strategies. The study would
also many stated-owned and public enterprises being
help me achieve following objectives.
morphed by various reforms which have
1) To study the postal network in the Indian predominantly changed the way these enterprises
scenario. were regulated. The present era is focused more
towards efficiency, innovation, meeting the

1 of 13
customers demand and above all to sustain in this
intense competitive world.
In this context Indian postal department had the
same roller-coaster ride with the emergence of these
new technologies and growing competitors. And this
led to the financial viability of the postal network
which today is challenged as a consequence of steep
decline in its revenues and its promise for social
welfare. The implication of this can be interpreted as
if any post office in an area closed down, no other
competitor can replicate its offerings at the same cost.
So to mitigate these threats is of utmost important
and Indian postal department have to build upon its
strength and continue to diversify and innovate its
product offerings and sustain in the market.
The Indian Postal system is considered as one
of the ‘not equal’ departments of government of
India. Unlike telecom department with which it was a
part till 1985, postal department has more favorable
public image (Department of Posts, 2013). At the
same time, it is also one of the Cinderella
departments of the government of India because
when it comes to allocation of resources, it gets
perhaps much lesser than what it deserves. This is
because of the general perception that this department
services is a money losing service. 85% of its budget
are spent in the salaries of its 6 lakh employees. In
fact in the past postal services have become a
metaphor for do good socialism. In 1960s, Galbraith
described India’s socialism as ‘Post office socialism’
(India's Post Office socialism, 2011).
We have ample examples in this universe were
enterprises have overcome their financial situations
with the incorporation of information technologies
into their day today systems. Take the example of
Indian railways passenger reservation systems, 40 to
50% more work can be handled today with the same
staff. Even the studies shows that 503 counters out of
4,180 have been reduced as a result of higher
productivity obtained by the installation of
multipurpose counter machine and this is just the
beginning and the savings will exponentially grow
will time (Vittal & Pritchard, 2002).
A. E-Post: Bridging the Digital Divide
2 of 13
Internet and e-mail have revolutionized the
world of communication. At the same time
accessibility to e-mail or internet is major problem
arising today especially in rural parts of India. In its
endeavor to make the benefits of e-mail available to
everyone and to bridge this digital divide India Post
have introduced e-post service.
Through this service, customers can send their
messages to any address in India with a combination
of electronic transmission and physical delivery
through a network of more than 1, 55,000 Post
Offices. e-Post sends messages as a soft copy through
internet and at the destination it will be delivered to
the addressee in the form of hard copy. e-Post costs
just Rs. 10 per page of A4 size (ePost, 2007).
However this service is not limited to e-post
centers and can be availed from any post office.
Irrespective of any place, rural or urban, a user can
send and receive messages.
B. Post Office Bill 2011
Postal department had drafted a Post Office Bill
2011 and has sent to the cabinet for approval. The
purpose of providing protection to the Department of
Posts is to compensate it for the services provided by
it in the rural areas. The Department runs many post
offices in small villages. These Post Offices provide
less business but cost of running them is high. On the
other hand Courier Companies only serve the large-
volume big city markets. Thus the costs of the
Department are high. This needs to be compensated.
The argument is correct. However, this compensation
can be provided by imposing an 'Access Deficit
Charge' on Courier Companies along the lines
imposed on telecom companies
The proposed amendment will, in the main,
provide more opportunities to postal inspectors to
harass small courier companies and for indulging in
corruption. The objective of reduction in budget
deficit can be better attained by allowing full freedom
to courier companies to fix charges but imposing
higher taxes on them. The government can calculate
the amount of subsidy it wishes to provide to the
Department of Posts for its rural services and impose
taxes of like amount on courier companies. The
economy can bear the burden of such taxes but not
that of restrictions on charges.
The Department argues that postal departments
enjoy monopoly on delivery of letters in most
countries. India is only trying to follow this
international best practice. This is only partially true.
The Civil Society Exchange tells on its website that
the Postal Department has monopoly on letters
weighing less than 350 grams in England, 250 grams
The basic problem is that technological
developments have made postal services outdated
and its telecom companies are the biggest nightmare
for postal offices not only in India but all over the
world. The diversification of services and moving
into provision of more financial services is the only
solution left to regain profitability.
II. LITERATURE REVIEW
Literature review helps to identify the related
facts in the research work through authors’ research
in the similar field of work and to know the outcome
of their research. The literature reviews will throw
light on the broad spectrum of entrepreneurial
activities in India and other countries, especially in
rural sector.
A. Research in India
The collection, processing and delivery of letters and
packages comprise one of the largest service
industries in the world. This paper provides a broad
survey of the application of operations research
techniques to analyze and resolve decision problems
forced by postal managers in various countries. The
problem areas considered include: forecasting, cost
and revenue analysis, postal network design,
manpower planning and scheduling, maintenance,
and service characteristic measurement. The paper
concludes with a brief description of the efforts to
train postal managers in the use of operations
research in their decision-making functions (Jatinder
N.D. Gupta & Krajewski, 1977)
Srinivas G.R. (2002) explained that rural sector is
now poised for offering a vast potential to markets
which promises to be an opportunity which is to be
3 of 13
in Australia and 50 grams in Netherlands and
Germany. On the other hand there is no restriction in
New Zealand. Japan is slated to privatize its postal
services. European Union also requires its member
countries to open up their postal services to private
players.
created with well thought policies to encourage
businesses, ensure sustainability and use of
environmentally friendly technologies.
grabbed by facing the challenges and surmounting
the threats.
According to Hall (2000), training centers
require rapid access to considerable information in
order to adjust to changing environment constantly.
This has the for training centers to provide online
training. One can save time and money by training
known as “online learning” or “e- learning” and train
a bigger group simultaneously. Electronic learning
(e-learning) is a modern approach that includes
learning activities through computers.
B. Research in other countries
Postal Service organization has a long history of
incorporating information and communication
technologies in their business activities under the
government ministry and then as a public enterprise
from 2004. In these enterprises Information &
communication technologies plays a vital role in
promoting customer service, operational efficiency
and fostering new businesses for further
development. Japanese postal department is
privatized in Oct 2007 and all other private
companies were forced to adopt Information &
communication technologies. In this article the use of
Information & communication technologies in the
postal services is described with a view to establish a
relationship between institutional arrangements
namely government & public corporation and
incentives of introducing Information &
communication technologies. (Kaneko Y, 2007)
The environment of the postal industry in china has
experienced tremendous changes in the past few
years. The environmental changes have some effects
on the elements that decide the service structure of
China Post. In such context, the current service
structure of China Post needs some improvements to
adapt itself to the changing environment. Aiming at
the optimization of the service structure of China
Post, this paper reviews the law of its development
and makes an analysis of its current characteristics
and the existing problems. (Hong-fen, Hao, & Wan-
jun, 2003)
A double Analytical hierarchy process methodology
is developed in this paper to divide benchmarking
process into two main parts: performance evaluation
and continuous improvement. Both qualitative and
quantitative factors have been taken into
consideration. The first phase aims at evaluation of
the performance of the benchmarked company and its
competitors. The second phase aims at finding the
best practice from a list of improvement alternatives
based on the first phase. The proposed framework
can evaluate the performance of the case company
against its competitors. It can also help the company
to select the best improvement alternative for
implementation in order to enhance its performance
on the weakest measures. The proposed
benchmarking process in this paper can help the case
company to identify its weaknesses and then select
the best improvement alternative in order to improve
its performance against the market leader. Although
the postal industry is used to demonstrate the
proposed framework, it can be applied to other
industries with a little modification.(Chan & Lau
2006)
III. BACKGROUND
Diversification is one of the key element of any
postal operator for its success. For long term viability
cost cutting measures alone cannot hold good and as
a result major attention is being paid in developing
and identifying new markets and services. There are
ample opportunities to generate revenue, rarely,
which will deliver the profits which could replace the
declining mailing business. Today one of the major
problem postal organization face is to decide on the
right strategic choice for building a sustainable
future.
A. Strategic Categories
Postal organization can be analysed in four strategic
categories (Accenture high performance delivered ,
2012) viz. Global player, Regional Diversifiers,
Traditionalist and service providers.

Table 3.1: Strategic Categories

Global Players Regional Diversifiers Service providers Traditionalists

Strategies adopted for

25% of the revenue 12.5% of the revenue Strategic approach
diversification through
to be earned outside outside their domestic primarily to increase
proximity and
the domestic market market efficiency of mail
convenience

Clear strategy for

Dominant strategy of Innovative solution across
growth in National focus
regional growth channels
international market

Revenue earned from Services beyond

Revenue earned from
more than one trade shipping, mailing, and
nearby countries
block or continent banking

Source: (Accenture high performance delivered , 2012)

and high level encouragement those ideas will never
B. Diversification strategies see the light of the day” (Capegemni, 2010)

“There are lot of good ideas resting in the minds of Generally there is a tendency among all operators to
postal operators but without innovation management diversify by investing beyond their core areas based

4 of 13
 Figure 3.1 Positioning of postal innovations in the core supply chain category
Source: (Capegemni, 2010)
services in three major areas: retail merchandise &
on different diversification strategies which are as
agency services, letters & associated services and
follows:
parcels & logistics. It operates normal post services
1. Postal operators with increasing dominance over
as well as express services through Messenger Post.
their core business.
(Corporation, Australian Postal, 2010) It is
2. Postal operators with increasing dominance over
transforming its national logistics network into a
non-core operations.
“world class” parcel delivery network with an
3. Postal operator with tendency to invest in
investment of 2 million USD. These investments are
diversification of non- core activities.
to improve the automation levels and increase the
C. Postal Services Globally reach of Australia Post globally so that there can be
According to the report released by Universal Postal more flexible delivery options for customers and
Union, postal operators globally are witnessing 4% to businesses. Australian post is one of the first postal
6% negative growth. The primary reason is economic operator to introduce “Augmented Reality” concept
downturn but some of the people argues that this is in customizing its mail services.
due to increasing popularity of email as a preferred
mode of communication and lack of innovation by • Canada Post
the postal operators. With this let us now see how
different postal department operates globally. Canada post sets a new direction for its postal service
and aims to provide more reliable services and ensure
• Australia Post independence and financial security. It is in the
process of introducing new product line for its online
retailers who wish to integrate Canada post into their
Australia post, a government owned postal
customer application or online store. With the help of
corporation has broadened its product and service
Canada post web network retailers can offer tracking
range and is investing huge amount in technology
based infrastructure programme. It offers core

5 of 13
abilities, various pick-up options, return labels and
shipping rates.
• United States Postal Service
The US postal service planning to introduce same
day package delivery service within certain
metropolitan areas to compete with the private
players. It has also introduced US village post which
will increase its reach in the rural areas. Also with
development of e-commerce in urban cities new
service “Metro Post” is initiated which will help
online merchants to provide rapid delivery to
customers.
• Royal Mail
Royal mail is offering its low income customers such
as those on unemployed, pensioners, an opportunity
to buy stamps at the 2011 rate for the holiday
seasons. It also plans to launch a new parcel tracking
system for reverse logistics services. The project is
given the green signal and will start by the mid of
2013.
• India Post
India post at present is focused in filling up the
financial service gap in India. With its diversification
strategies in both core and non-core activities. India
Post is primarily focused towards its rural customers
and its financial services will not only take care of
banking needs of rural poor also converge micro-
remittances with micro-insurance services.
Table 3.2: Snail mail snapshot
6 of 13
D. Evolution of Indian Postal System
The establishment of the modern postal system in
India can be traced back to the second half of the
18th century. This postal system, established by Lord
Clive in the year 1766, was further developed by
Warren Hastings by establishing the Calcutta G.P.O.
under a Postmaster General in the year 1774. In the
other Presidencies of Madras and Bombay, the
General Post Offices came into existence in 1786 and
1793 respectively. The Act of 1837 first regulated the
Post Office on a uniform basis to unite the post office
organization throughout the three Presidencies into
one all-India Service. The Post Office Act of 1854
reformed the entire fabric of the postal system, and
the Post Office of India was placed on the present
administrative footing one hundred and fifty four
years ago on 1st October 1854. The statute presently
governing the postal services in the country is the
Indian Post Office Act, 1898. (De, 2007)
Besides providing postal communication facilities,
the post office network has also provided facilities
for remittance of funds, banking, insurance services
and even international mails from the latter half of
the 19th century.
E. Performance of Indian Postal Service
Like every other postal service of the world snail
mails in India is also at decline and this poses a
serious threat or need to innovate and incorporate
information system in order to focus on the areas of
higher revenue. The graph below shows performance
of various mails in the last decade.
 Source: (Snail Mail , 2013)

F. Services Provided by Indian post

Table 4.2: Service provided by Indian post office

Mailing Services Banking Services Postal life Insurance Services
• Ordinary mail • Post office Savings Bank • Suraksha Scheme
• Speed post • International Money transfer • Gram Santosh Scheme
• Business Post service • Gram priya scheme
• Express Parcel Post • Distribution of Mutual funds & • Sumangal Scheme
• Media Post securities
• Retail Post • Electronic Fund transfer
• Greetings Post • Warrant Payment
• International Mails
Source: (De, 2007)
We can interpret that majority of the responses i.e.
IV. QUALITATIVE STUDY USING FOCUS 61% of the respondents were from the urban region
and 17% of the population was from rural region and
GROUPS
22% of the respondents are from semi urban region.

The study on postal department is carried out using • User

primary data as well as secondary data collection
method by preparing structured questionnaire which
User
was distributed to all the post office users. The
34.00%
questionnaire was made using the variables such as
ambience, awareness, efficiency, timely delivery,
customer preferences, and employee service delivery. 66.00%
For analyzing the data sample size used was 150. The
data collected through their responses is analyzed
Regular Occasional
using SPSS tool. All the variables are analyzed using
crosstab analysis to find out the dependency of one
variable over the other. The hypothesis presumed is
tested using chi-square test. Majority of the users i.e. 66% occasionally visit the
Total 12 variables were identified which would post office and when analyzed with their comments
make an influence to this study. Firstly demographic these users use postal service when there is no
variables such as location and type of user were medium left. And 34 % of the users were the one
collected from the customers present in various parts who mostly send the mails in bulk and are leveraged
of the country. with discounts.

A. Respondents Profile • Communication Problem

We can see that 49% of the user haven’t faced any
• Area

Area Communication Problem

Rural
17% 8%
0% 49%

Semi
Urban
22% Urban 43%
61%

Urban Semi Urban Rural 7 of 13 Most of the times Sometimes Never

communication problem while using postal services • Quality of service offered
in the post office.

• Ambience

Quality of Service
Ambience
3%
Highly 3% 5%
Dissatisfactory

25% Dissatisfactory 13%

28%

25% Neither Satisfactory

19% nor Dissatisfactory 49%
30%
Satisfactory

Strongly Disagree Disagree

Highly Satisfactory
Neither Agree nor Disagree Agree
Strongly Agree

It is clear that 28 % respondants agree with the
ambience but majority of the responses i.e. 50%
disagree with the ambience and since most of the
respondents are from urban region Indian post must
work on ambience in this region.
We see that 49% the people are happy about the
quality of service provided to them and just 18 % of
the people disagrees it.

• Reliability
Customer Friendly

Reliability
Strongly
Disagree
Strongly Disagree
Disagree 8% 7% 8%
Disagree
25% 22%
Neither Agree
nor Disagree 37% Neither Agree nor
Disagree 7%
Agree 23%
Agree 50% 13%
Strongly Agree
Strongly Agree

• Customer Friendly Employee

We can see that 50% of the user think that Indian

postal services are reliable and this shows positive
The graph shows that 37 % of the people feels that
sign of growth for India post and now they have work
postal services are not customer friendly while 25%
of user agree with what is served.

8 of 13
with the fact that how these people use maximum • Language spoken
service provided by the India post.
We can see that 74% of the user feels that postal
• On time mail delivery employee speaks in local language with them and just
15 % of the employee speaks in Hindi.
On time Delivery
• Postal services are cheaper than courier
Strongly Disagree 5% 2%

Disagree
17%
Cheaper
Neither Agree nor
Disagree 17%
Agree 59% 8%
Yes
Strongly Agree
No 34%
58%
Not Known
59% of the user perceives that Indian post delivers
the mail on time and just 19% of the user disagrees to
this fact.
• Efficiency services

Efficiency
4% We can see that 58% of the user find Indian postal
3% services cheaper than other courier services and this
Strongly
Disagree factor also encourages them to use postal services.
Disagree

• Awareness about e-post

Neither Agree 35%
nor Disagree 41%

Agree
17%
Awareness About e-post
Strongly Agree
0% 37%

63%
41% of the users from the above graph do not
consider Indian post as efficient but 35 % of the user Yes No
agree to it and this shows a very unclear picture of
Indian postal efficiency from user point of view.

It is clear that 63% of the users are not aware about

the e-post initiative. And among this majority are
Language Spoken
urban user which shows a gap of lack of promotion
11%
for the new services and Indian post must work on it.
English
• Usage of post office financial services
Hindi 15%

74%
Local
Language 9 of 13
We can see that 45 % of the user use financial
services because they find the services are at low
interest rates and even trustworthy. This also justifies
the recent
Here we can see that 46 % of the people strongly
agrees that limited working hours is the greatest
disadvantage. User wants to use Indian post but due
limited working hours they are forced to use private
courier and also they think private courier are more
accessible than Indian post.

Usage of Post Office A. Results

Financial Services
1 Postal Network in Indian scenario
Trustworthiness

15% Indian Postal Department a backbone, a lifeline

Low interest 25% of India’s information and communication network
rate
15% and core of the nation’s socio economic development
Better Schemes for the last 150 years. It has touched the lives of
45% millions of Indians, be it through banking, insurance,
Not Aware money transfer, and mail or retail services. The
largest in the world with the network of 154866 post
offices in the country of which 139040 are in rural
project given to Infosys for diversifying the financial area, which comprises 90% of the overall network
services for India Post. and considering the 70% of rural population of India,
Indian postal department is definitely the
• Preferences indispensable medium of communication.
The postal department is involved in various
Preferences activities, few of them are processing, transmission
and delivery of mail. There are almost 5.7 lakh letter
boxes from where mails are collected and processed
and conveyed by road, rail and airline to every part of
24% the country to provide the last mile delivery. The
operations at postal department encompass the entire
umbrella of basic postal services which includes sale
76% of stamps, insured articles, booking of registered
articles, value payable articles, savings bank
transactions, booking of parcels and remittance of
money through money orders. Conventionally these
Indian Postal Services Private Courier Services services were provided manually. But considering the
growth in demand of services and the need for
providing benefits of technology to citizens, counter
We can see 76 % of the user prefer private courier operations are gradually computerized to provide
services over Indian post. And just 24% use Indian more range of services from the single window and
postal services. lead to more prompt and error free services.

• Limited working hours a disadvantage In the 11th five year plan the government of India
approved the IT modernization Project of India post
Limited Working hours an Disadvantage for computerization of all the post offices,
5% administrators, mail offices and the major thrust of
7%
the next five year plan is to complete, implement and
Strongly Disagree
13% sustain the initiatives set. In the 12th five year plan i.e.
Disagree the implementation period of new and upgraded
46%
Neither Agree Nor
Disagree 10 of 13
Agree 29%

Strongly Agree
processes, a new paradigm of Enterprise resource
planning, integration and interlinking of applications,
enhanced productivity, cost effective services and
greater access. This web of network would help India
Post to retail products and services of various other
service providers’ viz. e-government initiatives, non-
government financial institutions, banks and mutual
fund houses in the remote and rural areas.
2 Steps taken by Indian postal department to
incorporate information systems in their services
To study the above objective secondary data from
various websites, journals and reports were
considered. Recently India post have completed 150
years of its service to its Indian citizens. In this 150
years India post have faced various obstacles and
even witnessed the changing need of the Indian users.
‘India Post 2012’, modernization program aimed to
bring agility, transparency, scalability, flexibility to
India post’s operations. Under this program an
Rs.700-crore project was awarded to Infosys and to
plan out the whole project in the span of 2 years. This
project would help India Post to leap forward in its
insurance and banking operations across its 150,000
post offices. This initiative will encompass Financial
Services system integration with the help Infosys’s
Flagship Finacle Core Banking and McCamish
Insurance products. (Infosys & India Post)
In order to reduce the gap in the banking operations
Infosys will also install 1000 ATMs for Indian postal
department and will also implement an electronic
content management system to take hold of the
millions of documents which are generated as a part
of financial operations of India Post.
A special training program will also be conducted by
the company to train more than 35000 postal
employees on the deployment and usage of new
system installed.
This program will help in enhancing various financial
services and bring at par with the best in the banking
industry and it will also increase the effectiveness
and expand the reach of postal operations with
technology enablement of postal employees.
11 of 13
3 To identify the critical success factors in the
adoption of information systems in Indian postal
department, by the employees
1. Demographics of the postal employees were
taken into consideration which includes
Education level, gender, Household monthly
income, years of service in post office and their
post office location. From the study it was found
out that education level of the employees’
decreases as we go down the hierarchy of
organization structure and same was the case
with monthly household income. But at the
same level of hierarchy household income
changes with the location of the post office.
2. It was also found out that male female ratio of
employee in urban and rural location changes
significantly with 10:1 in rural areas to 10:7 in
urban areas.
3. Although post offices provides all the services
but major source of revenue for the post office
was considered to be the Savings account in
rural areas, as majority of transactions of cash in
rural areas take place through Indian post. The
post office earns around Rs.150/- per account
per year.
4. Since Indian post office are governed under
government of India, postal employees
perceives that they don’t have any competitors
in the courier industry as they possess the
largest postal network in the world but this also
shows lack of competitiveness and complacent
nature of postal employees.
5. When asked about the services outsourced they
mentioned that majority of the data entry work
is outsourced.
6. Although government have rejected the petition
of Indian post regarding multi-stored apartment
should have mail boxes for all the occupants at
the ground floor but the postal employee highly
criticizes it.
7. When asked about the training given to the
employee during transition from conventional to
digital services, all the employees were given
training and continuously they updated by their
system administrator as and when problem
arise.
8. With the increase in Information technology all
the post office feel that there should be system
administrator between 4 post office which
currently is governed at district level, and at
present this eats up huge amount of time during
system failure.
9. With the increase in digital infrastructure all the
post office feels that in future post office at
village level should act as internet kiosk as it
would further increase their efficiency in this
digital era.
10. The major concerns which were raised by most
of the post offices was regarding the pay scale
and it was mentioned that the employee till
today didn’t benefited with the Sixth pay
scheme. Another concern was with the lack of
manpower.
4 To study the perception of Indian citizens
towards Indian postal department
1. Urban people i.e. 35% are highly dissatisfied
with the ambience since they have high
expectation from the service provider.
2. While in the case of rural people things are
completely different. They major task at the
post office is to avail the services and are least
bothered about the ambience.
3. From the above graph we can interpret that
majority of the user i.e. 40% spent less than 15
minutes in a post office to avail the services.
4. 54.7% of the urban people face communication
problem because of the varied language spoken
in different parts of India and this also suggests
that there should a common medium of
12 of 13
communication so that at least communication
doesn’t hinders the growth of postal department.
V. DISCUSSION
This extensive study on the postal department was
performed to study various aspects of postal
department. This analysis shows that customer uses
post offices because they consider it as reliable. The
huge investment in information technology is
justified by the fact that they need to improve on their
delivery front and provide more services under its
umbrella.
While most of the post offices of the world have
already incorporated information technology for e.g.
Australian Post using augmented reality concept
while customizing its mailing services. So the study
indicates that there is wide scope of improvement in
the postal department but with the huge population of
India and focus of Indian post offices on rural people
there present working is justifiable.
In our analysis we have seen also that people want
ambience and service and this directs us to the
probable suggestion that a cost of the services at Post
offices can marginally increase and this cost could be
in the form of investments in enhancement of
infrastructure by incorporating information
technology and giving better experience to Indian
citizens.
Since the majority are the urban respondents and
prefer high degree of customer friendliness and
therefore 49% considered postal departmental
services as inefficient due to their high degree of
expectations and this also suggests that while
planning any post office in the urban region postal
department must consider the needs of the citizens
they by enhancing the services and also it extends the
need of computerization in the post offices.
In the study it was found that majority of the user
complained about limited working hours so one of
the proposed solution could be to establish end to end
services in the urban areas.
 I would also suggest few factors for India post to
successively sustain the incorporation of information
systems in the long run namely
1. Restructuring of the departments,
2. Reduction in the internal politics,
3. Service development & diversification
4. Geographical expansion.
The other factor which must be addressed explicitly
is continuous improvement & innovation which is the
key to success in the long run.
VI. CONCLUSION
In future Indian postal must adopt different strategies
for different region and concentrate more on the
region of higher revenues. The scope of the
suggestions which are proposed is primarily based on
four major underlying criteria namely
1. Extent of relationship between postal operator
& the government
2. Size of home market
3. Degree of diversification
4. Type of ownership.
Recently Indian post has started customized stamps
for the user as well as the corporate and I think
customization which the need of the hour must be
incorporated with Information systems to climb the
ladder of growth.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank Dr.Jeevananda.S, Prof
Lakshmi Iyer, Prof V N Lakshmi Prasad, Prof
Sudhindra S of Christ University, Bangalore, Indian
Post office, Bangalore for their support and valuable
inputs during the entire study.
13 of 13
View publication stats
REFERENCES
Accenture high performance delivered . “Achieving
high performance in the postal industry.”
2012: 4.
Capegemni. “Innovation management in the postal
industry.” Capegemini Postal Innovation
Study 2010: 6.
Corporation, Australian Postal.
“http://www.messengerpostcouriers.com.au/
AboutMessengerPostCouriers/tabid/64/lang
uage/en-AU/Default.aspx.” 2010.
http://www.messengerpostcouriers.com.au/.
De, Barun Kumar. “Management of Posts and
Telegrams.” Public System management.
New Age International, 2007. 177-182.
Department of Posts.
“http://www.indiapost.gov.in/Our_Network.
aspx.” 15 March 2013.
www.indiapost.gov.in.
“http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-
04-03/news/29374910_1_public-sector-
enterprises-galbraith.” 3 April 2011.
www.economictimes.com.
“http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-
12-06/news/35647707_1_india-post-
autonomous-market-leader-electronic-
content-management-system.” 7 December
2012. www.economictimes.com.
“http://indiapost.nic.in/aboutePost.aspx.” 2007.
www.indiapost.nic.in. 12 12 2012.
“Post Office Bill.” 28 Aug 2011.
Vittal, N and G Pritchard. “India Post: From
Cindrella to Princess.” Ideas For Action.
Macmillan, 2002. 218.