Strategies Adopted By Indian Postal

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

1. Introduction

Last decade India has seen traditional state-owned and regulated public utility industries being transformed by reforms, which have fundamentally changed the way these industries are regulated. The former reliance on state control and regulation has given way to greater reliance on competition and market forces, which has led to a greater focus on efficiency, innovation & meeting the needs of consumers.

But, these reforms have largely bypassed the Postal sector. The Postal sector in India remains dominated by a state owned vertically integrated monopoly, largely still protected from the forces of competition. This monopoly is however being eroded. Electronic communication in all its forms - fax, Internet, electronic mail and electronic bill payment are undermining the core of the Postal business. At the same time express carriers are threatening the "higher end" market for fast delivery of documents and small packages. This competition may erode the ability of the Postal incumbents to sustain their universal service obligations.

The Postal sector is one of the core infrastructure sectors of the economy. Improved efficiency and customer responsiveness in this sector has the potential to stimulate growth, to promote globalization and to facilitate the rise of e-commerce. Liberalisation of the Postal sector is not simply a matter of removing existing regulatory controls. Reform of this sector needs to be handled thoughtfully and with attention to employment and universal service issues. Specific attention must be paid to introducing new regulations, which ensure non-discriminatory access to essential facilities.

The Indian Postal system is one of the ‘not equal’ departments of government of India. Unlike telecom department with which it was a part till 1985, the Postal department has more favourable public image. 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 is spent in the salaries of its 6 lakh employees. In fact in past Postal services has become a metaphor for do good socialism. In 1960s, Galbraith described India’s socialism as ‘Post office socialism’.

Should the Postal department continue to be a Cinderella in the future also, is the question of the hour. In the 21st century it is high time that the Postal services also utilises Information technology (IT) and ensures that quality of services is enhanced significantly. The Indian Postal department is making valiant efforts to use IT to improve its services. But the efforts made so far are miniscule when compared with the size of the problem. There are 1, 50,000 post offices in the country. About 25,000 are departmental sub post offices. In the 8th plan, the multipurpose counter machines were installed only in about 800post offices. And it is growing at about 10% per year. With this growth rate it will take about a century to cover existing post offices. One of the major sources of problem with Indian Postal department is that it does not have a strong core of technical experts.

Thanks to the computerization of passenger reservation system in the railwys , 40 to 50% more work can be handled today with the same staff. Even the studies shows that 503 counters out of 4,180have 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.

Literature Review

Title: Providing digital public services through secure digital postal systems

Author:  Church, L.  Escher Group Holdings, DMG Bus. Centre, Dublin, Ireland 

Abstract: As a result of the technological revolution, postal systems that were once viewed as efficient, trusted and inclusive have rapidly come to be seen as out-dated, expensive and slow. A direct effect of this decline is that the ability of posts to fulfil their universal service obligation (USO) is slowly being eroded. Even though posts are still recognised as essential to citizens, they are showing evidence of decline Ironically, research shows that, in order to protect their personal information online, citizens still seek trusted and efficient systems with which to interact, The aim of this paper is to present a privacy-enhanced Digital Postal Solution (DPS) designed to create public value through reducing citizens' privacy concerns while providing secure government 2.0 services. Additionally, the DPS restores, in digital format, the full gamut of traditional universal services afforded by posts to citizens in earlier times. It also provides every citizen with a private digital space, where they can securely access, process and store unofficial and personal information such as bills, receipts, health and financial records. Additionally, it provides citizens with a platform where they can avail of web 2.0 technologies to interact with government, making way for a more transparent and collaborative relationship between government and the public.. In summary, from this space, citizens can begin to fully and safely interact with digital society.

Title: An Analysis of the Service Structure of China Post

Author: Zhang Hong Fen, Sun Hao, Sun wan-jun

Abstract: 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.

Title: Quality of Service Objectives, Performance and Measurement in Relation to Community Universal Postal Service

Author: Antonia Niederprüm, Andreas Hense, Dr. Gabriele Kulenkampff

Abstract: This study offers the first survey of quality of service (QoS) objectives, performance and measurement in the present Member States (MS) as well as in the ten Accession Countries (AC), that will join the European Union in May 2004.

QoS regulation: status and latest developments The Postal Directive aims at improving quality of postal service, to foster the establishment of the internal market for postal services, to set the appropriate regulatory framework for this major reform and to allow postal operators to adapt to their changing commercial environment. To this end the Postal Directive provides for QoS rules and regulations. These are generally defined as minimum requirements for the provision of postal universal services. However, except for intra-Community cross-border transit time objectives within the Postal Directive there is no precise specification of these rules. This is left to the MS. Thus, as long as the general framework provided for in the Postal Directive is respected the MS have the opportunity to reflect their national characteristics and needs in setting national QoS objectives.

Since the enforcement of the Postal Directive some significant developments have been taking place. Today a wide range of QoS objectives and requirements can be observed on national level. In most countries the domestic transit time performance of priority or 1st class letters has significantly been enhanced. The average performance of intra Community cross-border transit time has considerably improved since 1998.

The European Standardisation Committee (CEN) has been entrusted with developing European measurement methods (standards) for a number of aspects concerning the quality of postal services. These CEN standards for postal services have been developed by a dedicated Technical Committee within CEN (TC331). So far, there are five European standards available for a harmonised QoS measurement of various aspects of the quality of postal services (transit time, loss, complaints and redress procedures).

Title: Operations research in postal services — a survey

Author: Jatinder N.D. Gupta, LeRoy J. Krajewski

Abstract: 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.

Title: Universal service obligations in the postal sector: The relationship between quality and coverage

Author: Joan Calzada

Abstract: This paper examines competition in the postal sector when one private incumbent and one entrant play a three-stage game. First, firms choose their coverage. Then, they choose the quality of the mail. Finally, firms choose the price. I modify the traditional model of product differentiation proposed by Mussa and Rosen [Mussa, M., Rosen, S., 1978. Monopoly and product quality. Journal of Economic Theory 18, 301–317] in order to consider that firms decide their quality and coverage. Valletti et al. [Valletti, T., Hoernig, S., Barros, P., 2002. Universal service and entry: the role of uniform pricing and coverage constraints. Journal of Regulatory Economics 21 (2), 169–190] show that when an incumbent is regulated by a uniform pricing constraint the entrant will choose a low level of coverage to increase the incumbent’s uniform price and weaken competition. In this paper, I show that by increasing product differentiation, the entrant can obtain the same price increase with a smaller reduction of coverage. Acknowledgement of the strategic link between quality and coverage can be very useful in the design of a regulatory policy. The paper also considers a mixed duopoly in which the public firm covers the entire market and offers high quality service. In this context, I explain that the mixed equilibrium implements the first-best qualities and coverage levels.

Title: Regulatory and Competition Law Remedies in the Postal Sector

Author: Damien Geradin, David Henry

Abstract: European Community law has played a pivotal role in opening to competition economic sectors previously under the control of public monopolies. As with other sectors such as telecommunications, air transport, electricity, gas, and rail, the postal sector has succumbed to the wave of liberalisation. Liberalisation in the postal sector has forced stagnant state-owned monopolies to modernise themselves in order to compete with new entrants which are nibbling at the fringes with innovative business strategies. 

As is the case in network industries, the postal sector is subject to market failures. It finds itself in a position whereby the postal incumbents for letter mail usually remain protected by exclusive rights while the same entities are increasingly competing on the international mail, parcel and logistics markets. This situation has the potential to have a detrimental effect on consumer welfare. In order to prevent the postal incumbents using their market power, remedial action is necessary to allay such fears. Another market failure requiring intervention relates to universal service. There are indeed areas in which postal services will not be provided by the market because they are not profitable. Hence, universal services need to be defined and mechanisms have to be developed to fund these obligations without, however, distorting competition. In this paper, we will focus on the first category of market failures, i.e. the bottlenecks that may prevent competition in the postal sector. There are two regulatory instruments to impose remedies in network industries, sector-specific regulation and competition law. In this paper, we explore how these two approaches have been used to facilitate the arrival of competition in the postal sector. Until recently, the Community institutions have been reluctant to use regulatory intervention and competition law to challenge the public monopoly models. Regulatory requirements have, however, been imposed through Directive 97/67 and, over the last few years, competition rules have been applied much more rigorously in the postal sector, with the result that there is an increasing corpus of case law.

Title: Enhancing Competition in the Postal Sector: Can We Do Away with Sector-Specific Regulation

Author: Damien Geradin

Abstract: Over the last ten years, the European Commission has been trying to increase competition in the postal sector. In order to achieve this goal, as well as other objectives such as the enhancement of the quality of postal services in the EU and the maintenance of universal service, the Commission adopted a first postal directive in 1997. Directive 97/67 sought to progressively reduce the scope of the postal incumbents' reserved area, but also imposed a range of regulatory obligations on postal operators. This directive was amended by Directive 2002/39, which further reduced the scope of the reserved area and clarified a certain number of regulatory provisions. The Commission is expected to issue its proposal for a third postal directive by the end of this year, initiating the process of full accomplishment of the internal market for postal services by the original target date of 2009 as indicated in the 2002directive. 

While Directives 97/67 and 2002/39 have certainly contributed to open the postal sector to competition, the level of competition achieved in this sector is quite uneven. Some segments of the postal market are now subject to intense competition. Yet, others are still largely controlled by postal incumbents. The level of competition within one market segment can also considerably vary among Member States. While some Member States have completely liberalized their postal sector by going further than the requirements contained in the postal directives, others decided not go further than these requirements. 

Experience teaches that creating competition in freshly liberalized industries is not easy. Incumbents will generally retain considerable market power for a number of years after liberalization. Telecommunications incumbents, for instance, still largely hold strong market positions although the sector has been fully liberalized for almost ten years. In addition, the Commission has recently acknowledged that liberalization efforts in the gas and electricity markets had failed to reach their targets. Similar findings can be made in the postal and transport sectors. 

Several factors contribute to the difficulty of creating competition in these industries. Incumbents generally hold a number of significant advantages compared to new entrants, such as considerable expertise, an established brand name, the ability to achieve economies of scale (due to size) or scope (due to vertical/horizontal integration), as well as special connections with public authorities, which often remain shareholders of these firms. Another potential barrier to entry in these industries (which are often referred to as "network industries") comes from the fact that incumbents will typically hold elements of network infrastructure, which are needed by new entrants to compete on the market. 

Research Methodology

3.1 Statement of the Problem: Information technology have made many hitherto unthinkable services a reality. It has pervaded the everyday lives of individuals, organizations and corporations and became a part and parcel of our everyday activities. One of the prominent application is the automation of the menial task.

Every organization public or private incorporates information systems to increase its efficiency. However public enterprises organizations are found sluggish in incorporating information systems. One of such enterprise is Indian Postal department which is considered as one of the oldest enterprise in India. In recent years growing access to inexpensive internet, have reduced the dependence on this enterprise. Considering the amount of investment and employment involve, this department cannot be left untouched and must be in pace with the other private players in the market.

This study would help me identify strategies which Indian Postal Department has adopted to bring sustainability for better delivery of their services to reach to the user.

3.2 Objectives:

To study the postal network in the Indian scenario

To study the steps taken by Indian Postal Department to incorporate Information Systems in their services.

To study the perception of Indian Citizens towards Indian Postal Department.

To identify the critical success factors in the adoption of information system in Indian postal department by the employees’.

3.3 Variables Identified: For the purpose of achieving the above objectives I will be working with the following variables:

Cost

Speed of Delivery

Efficiency in its services

Time spent in the system

Quality of service

Reliability of service

Accessibility

Ambience of premises

Language

Awareness of various kinds of service

Communication

Preferences

3.4 Research Design: In order to achieve the above objectives the sample size of 150-200 respondents who receive services from various post offices present in Bangalore would be considered. Also to add more objectivity to the research structured interview will be conducted with Post Office employees. The sample size of 20-30 respondents will be considered for the same. For this various post offices around Bangalore will be visited. The primary data collection method by distributing questionnaire to regular user of Postal services will be used.

3.6 Hypothesis Adopted:

Null Hypothesis: Indian users are not aware about the e-post services initiated by the Indian Postal Department.

Alternate Hypothesis: Indian users are aware about the e-post services initiated by

the Indian Postal Department.

Null Hypothesis: Indian Postal Departmental services are not reliable when compared to its competitors.

Alternate Hypothesis: Indian Postal Departmental services are reliable when

compared to its competitors.

Null Hypothesis: Users prefer Indian Postal services over Private Courier services.

Alternate Hypothesis: Users prefer Private Courier services over Indian Postal

services.

Objective 1: To study the postal network in the Indian scenario.

Indian Postal Department a backbone, a lifeline of India’s information and communication network and core of the nation’s socio economic development for the last 150 years. It has touched the lives of millions of Indians, be it through banking, insurance, 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 area, which comprises 90% of the overall network and considering the 70% of rural population of India, Indian postal department is definitely the indispensable medium of communication.

The postal department is involved in various 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 the country to provide the last mile delivery. The operations at postal department encompass the entire umbrella of basic postal services which includes sale 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 services were provided manually. But considering the growth in demand of services and the need for providing benefits of technology to citizens, counter operations are gradually computerised to provide more range of services from the single window and lead to more prompt and error free services.

In the 11th five year plan the government of India approved the IT modernization Project of India post for computerization of all the post offices, administrators, mail offices and the major thrust of the next five year plan is to complete, implement and sustain the initiatives set. In the 12th five year plan i.e. the implementation period of new and upgraded 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.

Post Offices

1,54,866

Rural POs

139040 (89.78%)

Urban POs

15826(10.22%) ))%))

India Post- the Last Mile Reach

Extra Departmental Post offices 129,402

Departmental Post offices (25464)

2

Departmental Employess

209047

Gramin Dak Sewaks(257856)

On an Average, 7814 people are served by a post office (5992 in rural and 2382 in Urban)

On an average, 21.23 sq. km. area served by a post office

Organization Structure:

India Post under the ministry of communication and Information technology has minister in charge in the cabinet rank with state ministers. The Postal Services Board (PSB), an apex body of Department of Post comprises of chairperson and six members. These members of the board look after areas of Postal Operations, Personnel Management, Technology Induction, Postal Life Insurance and HRD & planning.

Postal Circle:

In our country postal network is divided into 22 Postal circles for administrative convenience. Each of these circles is headed by Chief Post Master General. These circles are further divided into Regions which comprises of groups of field units, called Divisions. Each of these region is headed by Postmaster General. Apart from these circles there is one specialized wing called the Army Postal Services which takes care of the needs of Armed forces.

Operational Units:

Post offices are generally categorised as Head, Sub and Branch Post office. Among these branch post office are located in rural areas while Sub Post Offices which are basically referred as Departmental offices are located both in rural as well as urban areas. And Head Post office are situated in tier 1 and tier 2 cities.

Mail Network Optimization Project:

To improve the quality of mail processing, delivery and transmission, department of post has undertaken this optimization project. It is concerned with streamlining of major mail operations and to standard the whole supply chain of delivery process. One of the well-known Speed Post service comes under this project. For speed post operations a tracking system is also developed which emphasises on greater benefits of the customers.

Various Financial Services Offered by Indian Post Offices:

The Indian Post office is considered to be the oldest and largest banking institution in the country operating around 238 million saving account in more than 150000 post offices. At present services offered under this are Savings Account, time deposit, recurring deposit, Public provident fund, kisan vikas patras, Senior citizen savings scheme.

In this regards a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has being signed between Ministry of Rural Development, New Delhi and Department of Post to facilitate the implementation of disbursement of wages (Post, 2011-12) under MGNREGA Act. This disbursement through post office accounts is operational in 19 postal circles of the country

International Business and Cooperation:

Under the ambit of Universal Postal Union (UPU) multilateral transactions among designated postal operators of different countries are performed. The post office is becoming as an important medium for international trade in Indian sub-continent, thereby enabling organizations to transfer goods, information and money across the borders for commercial purposes. Also it facilitates people to people contact throughout the world.

Quite Recently (http://news.oneindia.in/2007/03/15/hrudaya-post-launched-in-karnataka-to-help-heart-patients-1174128920.html, 2013) which enables rural citizens to send their reports through India post and get the best advice about their diseases and this whole process is done at the very nominal cost.

Objective 2: To study the 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 programme aimed to bring agility, transparency, scalability, flexibility to India post’s operations. Under this programme 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. (Cavale, 2012)

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 programme will also be conducted by the company to train more than 35000 postal employees on the deployment and usage of new system installed.

This Programme is 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.

In 2007 Deutsche Post – the largest postal, logistics entities of the world desired to develop strategic partnership with India post thereby strengthening their global operations. These two entities are at discussions to initiate operations in specific segments, like sharing infrastructural facility, last mile delivery and technology innovations.(Mishra, 2007)

One department, One minister, One contract, one winner but large number of lobbies, the primary reason why Project Arrow (Kochhar, 2012), was initiated which aims to change the face of India Post which at present appears to have disregarded and criticized a lot due to its technology disablement. Project Arrow was initiated to increase the employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction of Indian Postal Department who predominantly works in rural parts of India. This system will bring together and integrate all the systems viz. rural ICT system integrator, rural ICT hardware, financial services system integrator ,data centre ,change management, network integrator, mail operations- therby making India post a Single enterprise.

Since postal system plays a crucial role in mobilization of resources and that too in rural areas, planning commission has noted that department of post needs to ensure additional revenue generation through non-tariff methods such as introduction of corporate setup and introducing IT based financial services and will lead to two major advantages: raising resources from the market and faster decision making.

Objective 3: To study the perception of Indian citizens towards Indian postal department.

To achieve this objective, sample size of 150 respondents who receive services from post offices present in various parts of the country was considered. A structured questionnaire was prepared and findings are following.

Firstly demographics of the respondents was recorded

Area 2. User

3 Ambience 4 Time Spent in the system

5 Employee are customer Friendly 6 Quality of Service Delivered

7 Reliability 8 On time Delivery

9 Efficiency 10 Communication Problem

11 Language Spoken 12 Postal Services Cheaper than Courier Service

13 Awareness about E-post 14 Usage of Post Office Financial Services

15 Preferences 16 Limited Working hours is an Disadvantage

From the above questionnaire responses crosstab analysis was formulated to determine the relevance between different variables

Analysis 1 Area Vs Ambience

Case Processing Summary

Cases

Valid

Missing

Total

N

Percent

N

Percent

N

Percent

Area * Ambience

150

100.0%

0

0.0%

150

100.0%

Area * Ambience Crosstabulation

Count

Ambience

Total

Strongly disagree

Disagree

Neither Agree nor Disagree

Agree

Strongly Agree

Area

Urban

35

16

15

25

1

92

Semi Urban

2

14

10

7

0

33

Rural

1

7

4

10

3

25

Total

38

37

29

42

4

150

From the above graph following findings can be suggested:

Urban people are highly dissatisfied with the ambience since they have high expectation from the service provider.

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.

Analysis 2 User Vs Time Spent in the system

Case Processing Summary

Cases

Valid

Missing

Total

N

Percent

N

Percent

N

Percent

User * Time Spent

150

100.0%

0

0.0%

150

100.0%

User * Time Spent Crosstabulation

Count

Time Spent

Total

Less than 5 min

Around 15 min

Around 30 min

Above 30 min

User

Regular

22

19

7

3

51

Occasional

42

41

14

2

99

Total

64

60

21

5

150

From the above graph we can interpret that majority of the user spent less than 15 minutes in a post office to avail the services.

Analysis 3 Area Vs Communication problem

Area * Communication Problem Crosstabulation

Communication Problem

Total

Most of the time

Some time

never

Area

Urban

Count

5

35

52

92

% within Area

5.4%

38.0%

56.5%

100.0%

% within Communication Problem

41.7%

54.7%

70.3%

61.3%

Semi Urban

Count

3

20

10

33

% within Area

9.1%

60.6%

30.3%

100.0%

% within Communication Problem

25.0%

31.2%

13.5%

22.0%

Rural

Count

4

9

12

25

% within Area

16.0%

36.0%

48.0%

100.0%

% within Communication Problem

33.3%

14.1%

16.2%

16.7%

Total

Count

12

64

74

150

% within Area

8.0%

42.7%

49.3%

100.0%

% within Communication Problem

100.0%

100.0%

100.0%

100.0%

From the above graph we can interpret that

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 communication so that atleast communication doesn’t hinders the growth of postal department

Analysis 4 Area Vs Efficiency

Area * Efficiency Crosstabulation

Efficiency

Total

Strongly disagree

Disagree

Neither Agree nor Disagree

Agree

Strongly Agree

Area

Urban

Count

2

49

12

26

3

92

% within Area

2.2%

53.3%

13.0%

28.3%

3.3%

100.0%

% within Efficiency

50.0%

80.3%

46.2%

49.1%

50.0%

61.3%

Semi Urban

Count

1

7

12

13

0

33

% within Area

3.0%

21.2%

36.4%

39.4%

0.0%

100.0%

% within Efficiency

25.0%

11.5%

46.2%

24.5%

0.0%

22.0%

Rural

Count

1

5

2

14

3

25

% within Area

4.0%

20.0%

8.0%

56.0%

12.0%

100.0%

% within Efficiency

25.0%

8.2%

7.7%

26.4%

50.0%

16.7%

Total

Count

4

61

26

53

6

150

% within Area

2.7%

40.7%

17.3%

35.3%

4.0%

100.0%

% within Efficiency

100.0%

100.0%

100.0%

100.0%

100.0%

100.0%

Since the majority are the urban respondents and prefer high degree of customer friendliness they 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.

Analysis 5 Area Vs Reliability

Area * Reliabilty Crosstabulation

Reliabilty

Total

Strongly disagree

Disagree

Neither Agree nor Disagree

Agree

Strongly Agree

Area

Urban

Count

32

4

9

38

9

92

% within Area

34.8%

4.3%

9.8%

41.3%

9.8%

100.0%

% within Reliabilty

97.0%

40.0%

47.4%

50.7%

69.2%

61.3%

Semi Urban

Count

0

5

6

21

1

33

% within Area

0.0%

15.2%

18.2%

63.6%

3.0%

100.0%

% within Reliabilty

0.0%

50.0%

31.6%

28.0%

7.7%

22.0%

Rural

Count

1

1

4

16

3

25

% within Area

4.0%

4.0%

16.0%

64.0%

12.0%

100.0%

% within Reliabilty

3.0%

10.0%

21.1%

21.3%

23.1%

16.7%

Total

Count

33

10

19

75

13

150

% within Area

22.0%

6.7%

12.7%

50.0%

8.7%

100.0%

% within Reliabilty

100.0%

100.0%

100.0%

100.0%

100.0%

100.0%

From the above graph we can interpret that majority of the people of any area agrees to the fact that postal services are reliable. This means that people perceives good image for Indian post offices, it just lags to the fact that they are not efficient in urban areas due to variety of reasons which is the area of concern for the postal department.

Analysis 6 Area Vs Preferences

Preferences * Area Crosstabulation

Area

Total

Urban

Semi Urban

Rural

Preferences

Indian Postal Services

Count

20

8

8

36

% within Preferences

55.6%

22.2%

22.2%

100.0%

% within Area

21.7%

24.2%

32.0%

24.0%

Private Courier Services

Count

72

25

17

114

% within Preferences

63.2%

21.9%

14.9%

100.0%

% within Area

78.3%

75.8%

68.0%

76.0%

Total

Count

92

33

25

150

% within Preferences

61.3%

22.0%

16.7%

100.0%

% within Area

100.0%

100.0%

100.0%

100.0%

The above graph say that majority of the people prefer private courier services, although they consider indian postal services to be cheaper but this factor doesn’t drives people to indian post offices. In our previous analysis we have seen 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

Hypothesis Testing

Null Hypothesis: Indian users are not aware about the e-post services initiated by the Indian Postal Department.

Alternate Hypothesis: Indian users are aware about the e-post services initiated by

the Indian Postal Department

To test the above hypothesis Chi square test is performed using the variables Cost, Quality of service and Awareness.

Cheaper * QoS * Awareness about Epost Crosstabulation

Count

Awareness about Epost

QoS

Total

Highly Dissatisfactory

Dissatisfactory

Neither Satisfied nor Dissatisfied

Satisfactory

Highly Satisfactory

Yes

Cheaper

Yes

1

6

10

22

4

43

No

1

0

3

3

0

7

Not Aware

0

1

2

1

1

5

Total

2

7

15

26

5

55

No

Cheaper

Yes

1

4

9

28

42

No

4

6

18

17

45

Not Aware

0

2

3

3

8

Total

5

12

30

48

95

Total

Cheaper

Yes

2

10

19

50

4

85

No

5

6

21

20

0

52

Not Aware

0

3

5

4

1

13

Total

7

19

45

74

5

150

From the crosstabulation alone, its impossible to tell whether these differneces are real or due to chance variation. We will therefore go for Chi Square test to be sure.

Chi-Square Tests

Awareness about Epost

Value

df

Asymp. Sig. (2-sided)

Yes

Pearson Chi-Square

7.139b

8

.522

Likelihood Ratio

7.839

8

.449

Linear-by-Linear Association

.372

1

.542

N of Valid Cases

55

No

Pearson Chi-Square

9.867c

6

.130

Likelihood Ratio

10.136

6

.119

Linear-by-Linear Association

4.663

1

.031

N of Valid Cases

95

Total

Pearson Chi-Square

16.027a

8

.042

Likelihood Ratio

17.572

8

.025

Linear-by-Linear Association

5.183

1

.023

N of Valid Cases

150

The chi square test measures the discrepancy between the observed cell counts and what we would expect if the rows and column are unrelated. The two sided asymptotic significance of the chi-square statistic is greater than 0.05, so it is safe to say that the differences are due to chance variation, which implies that no matter how the quality of services and how cheaper the services are, Indian user remain unaware about the e-post initiative. However not all users says that they are unaware about the e-post initiatives.

Since the value is greater than 0.05 we will accept the null hypothesis i.e. Indian users are not aware about the e-post services initiated by the Indian Postal Department.

Null Hypothesis: Indian Postal Departmental services are not reliable when compared to its competitors.

Alternate Hypothesis: Indian Postal Departmental services are reliable when

compared to its competitors.

To test the above hypothesis chi-square test is performed using the variables Speed of delivery and reliability.

Reliabilty * On time Delivery Crosstabulation

Count

On time Delivery

Total

Strongly disagree

Disagree

Neither Agree nor Disagree

Agree

Strongly Agree

Reliabilty

Strongly disagree

1

2

7

23

0

33

Disagree

1

4

4

1

0

10

Neither Agree nor Disagree

0

8

4

6

1

19

Agree

1

12

10

49

3

75

Strongly Agree

0

0

0

9

4

13

Total

3

26

25

88

8

150

From the above table it can be interpreted that users agree to the fact Indian post office delivers the mail on time and reliable and this is further proven by chi-sqaure test

Chi-Square Tests

Value

Df

Asymp. Sig. (2-sided)

Pearson Chi-Square

51.411a

16

.000

Likelihood Ratio

48.541

16

.000

Linear-by-Linear Association

4.102

1

.043

N of Valid Cases

150

From the above table we can see that two sided Asymptotic significance values is less than 0.05 in which case we cannot accept our null hypothesis that Indian Postal departmental services are not reliable when compared to its competitors.

And therefore we accept the alternate hypothesis.

Null Hypothesis: Users prefer Indian Postal services over Private Courier services.

Alternate Hypothesis: Users prefer Private Courier services over Indian Postal services.

To test the above hypothesis on preference we will analyse variables viz. reliability, efficiency and user preference. We will be using chi-square test for this purpose

From the above table we can see that in terms of Efficiency and reliability Private courier scores more than Indian post and now let’s see what does the chi-square test suggests

Chi-Square Tests

Preferences

Value

df

Asymp. Sig. (2-sided)

Indian Postal Services

Pearson Chi-Square

19.725b

12

.072

Likelihood Ratio

17.634

12

.127

Linear-by-Linear Association

6.892

1

.009

N of Valid Cases

36

Private Courier Services

Pearson Chi-Square

58.232c

16

.000

Likelihood Ratio

70.582

16

.000

Linear-by-Linear Association

38.886

1

.000

N of Valid Cases

114

Total

Pearson Chi-Square

86.288a

16

.000

Likelihood Ratio

97.501

16

.000

Linear-by-Linear Association

55.911

1

.000

N of Valid Cases

150

And the two sided asymptotic significance value is less than 0.05 which suggests that our null hypothesis is not accepted.

From all the hypothesis test as well as crosstab analysis we have seen that Users are unaware about e-post initiatives, but they consider Indian post as reliable. Also when comes to preference level users preference is more towards private courier than Indian post.

This raises the concern over our problem statement that strategies adopted by Indian postal department is not effective enough to bring sustainability with the incorporation of information systems

Objective 4: To identify the critical success factors in the adoption of information system in Indian Postal Department by the employees.

To study the above objective a method of observation of postal employee and structured interviews were conducted at few places. The study suggests the following points:

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.

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.

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.

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.

When asked about the services outsourced they mentioned that majority of the data entry work is outsourced.

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 criticises it.

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.

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.

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

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.