 | Web Technology Transforms Post Office into Customer-Orientated Services Organization |
Belgium’s 1,350 post offices are receiving a facelift to become genuine customer-oriented points of sale. To implement this strategic transformation with minimum delay, the Post called upon Microsoft to develop the supporting IT infrastructure. The PostStation project provides a suitable marketing platform, and integrates and automates all current and future activities carried out at post office counters.
| The Belgian Post has 1,352 post offices and employs 4,500 staff who perform many diverse activities. They sell stamps and process regular mail, registered mail, telegrams and parcels. They also supply third-party products such as mobile phone and telephone cards, lottery tickets, stamps for fines and fishing permits. They provide financial services – current and deposit accounts, issuing postal orders and subpoenas – in collaboration with the Post Office Bank. Finally, they perform a number of internal functions, such as money transfers and collecting and processing data for accountancy or inventory purposes.
Until now, post office counter staff have performed most of these activities by hand, which is time-consuming and requires duplicate or repetitive data input. Many tasks were more administrative rather than commercial by nature, and any software applications being used were neither user-friendly nor customer-oriented.
“We would like to meet employees’ and customers’ expectations by appreciably decreasing the administrative constraints inherent in the daily operations carried out at the counters and in the back office,” says Erik Vertommen, the Post’s service team manager. At the Post Office’s request, Microsoft set about designing ‘PostStation’, an entirely end-to-end solution to integrate all front-office and back-office processes, including all financial transactions and document exchanges. The objective of the project was clear: to transform the network of post offices into an active marketing organisation.
“The essential assignment was to give the Post Office a customer-oriented sales channel as quickly as possible, while enabling a genuine accountancy system,” says Vertommen. “The advantage for the Post Office – currently in full evolution in order to move from the status of a nationalised business to that of an independent public company – is to start from scratch in this matter. Management is ready to invest in innovation.”
PostStation is a browser-based application, equipped with a three-level architecture for presentation, business logic, and data. The project encompasses up to 5,000 workstations in all of the 1,350 post offices, each connected via ADSL to the central network. The system is built on 10 or so application and Web servers grouped into a server farm and connected to an Microsoft SQL Server 2000 cluster for the database. Data is stored on a SAN (Storage Area Network). The central system is also connected to the Post Office’s mainframe financial system and with the Post Office Bank. The client terminals are based on Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional and Internet Explorer 6.0 (with their own HTA and HTC extensions), and the systems runs at the server level on Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server, Microsoft SQL Server 2000 and Microsoft Application Centre 2000. The development was carried out in Microsoft Visual Studio 6.0. Microsoft started the project on a Distributed interNet Architecture (DNA), supplemented by self-generated extensions, and is currently evolving it to the Microsoft .NET platform. All the developments were initially undertaken by the Post in partnership with Microsoft Consulting Services and Euricom. “We have used the latest Microsoft technologies to build a Web-centric solution, thus avoiding the need to install and maintain a server in each post office,” explains Luc Lefever-Teughels, managing partner at Euricom. | | Customer Profile | | | The Belgian Post has 1,352 post offices and employs 4,500 staff. Besides traditional mail and parcel processing and delivery activities, the Post also sells third-party products, provides financial services, and performs internal functions such as money transfers and data processing. | | | Post office staff performed most activities by hand, which was time-consuming and required duplicate or repetitive data input. Many tasks were more administrative rather than commercial by nature, which made it difficult to create new customer-oriented sales channels. | | | PostStation – an end-to-end Web-based technology solution running on Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server and Microsoft SQL Server 2000. The system integrates all front-office and back-office processes, including all financial transactions and document exchanges. | | | - Enables overall strategy to transform into an active marketing organization.
- Ensures new product offering can be made available quickly.
- Allows market data analysis and business intelligence.
- Integrates with existing applications.
- User-friendly, frees up staff to serve customers.
- Reduces development costs.
| | | - Microsoft® Windows® 2000 Advanced Server
- Microsoft® Windows® 2000 Professional
- Microsoft SQL Server™ 2000
- Microsoft Visual Studio®
- Microsoft Application Center 2000
- Microsoft Consulting Services
| | |
A knowledge transfer was made to give the Post’s ICT Department management and control of the system. PostStation was then launched, in May 2002, with eight pilot post offices and it was operational in 80 post offices by the end of the year. It will be running in 500 post offices by the end of 2003, and all the others by the end of 2004.
Ultimately, PostStation will be processing more than a 100 million transactions per annum. As a centralized but open and scalable system, it reliably integrates this information exchange with support for the Post’s marketing activities. Particularly satisfying for the Post has been the system’s ability to integrate a series of peripheral appliances which are in constant use at post office counters: scales, printers, barcode readers, bank card terminals, etc.
As counter staff no longer have to rifle through price lists and procedural manuals to find the correct prices and conditions, they have their hands free – literally and figuratively – to serve the Post Office’s customers. Even verification of a customer’s signature has been automated.
“We are delighted by the project’s user-friendliness,” says Vertommen. “Thanks to the wizards that we have incorporated, the system is totally transparent at the user level.
He adds, “Where PostStation has been introduced, the process of training post office staff takes only two days. And an important part of this time is used for gaining further knowledge of Windows, such as learning how to handle the mouse and the graphic interface – an innovation in comparison with the former DOS application.”
PostStation is key to the Post’s overall strategy to achieve efficiency and marketing dynamism. Its implementation has allowed for the timely introduction of new products and services, and ensures all offering can be made available quickly in all points of sale. This also helps to reduce development costs. “It’s important for all data to be stored at a central location," says Lefever-Teughels. “This avoids any replication problem. The centralised SQL Server database plays a crucial role in this process. ”
With PostStation, information at all levels has become far more fluid. Accountancy data is processed more quickly, and the system is delivering a wealth of marketing information. This enables the use of marketing data analysis and business intelligence to provide invaluable knowledge of the Post’s market and customers.
"PostStation illustrates that a product such as SQL Server has reached full maturity and that it is ready to be implemented by the largest corporations," commented Bruno Segers, general manager of Microsoft Belgium. “The project also proves that our company and its people, in Belgium as elsewhere in the world, have evolved in their approach, which enables them, more than ever, to meet the needs of their clients.”
Johan Vinckier, CIO of the Post Office and member of its management committee, concludes: “During the PostStation project, Microsoft has showed itself to be a true business partner, ready to devote all its strength to assist the client in implementing key applications for business projects.”