BHUBNAESWAR: India Post is all set for a facelift. The Department of Posts (DoP), represented by the unassuming postman, will shortly add another role for him as Postal Business Correspondent.
The postmen will not be only responsible for the delivery of the mails/ money order as they have been doing traditionally. Instead, they will work as the business correspondents of the India Post. They will sell other services of India Post like, speed post, registered post, logistics post, electronic money order [EMO], postal life insurance, and rural postal life insurance, saving banks etc.
India Post has unveiled an ambitious plan to train its 55000 postmen as the business correspondents to take on the challenges of market and competitors, chief postmaster general Mrs Helida Abraham said here while inaugurating a five day “training of trainers” on Monday at the city-based B-school, Xavier Institute of Management (XIMB). Twenty five officers from different parts of the country are participating in training programme.
“XIMB will be training about 200 trainers of India Post to train the postmen. It is a gigantic task to train the all the postmen because of their huge number, diversity in their working languages, difficult working conditions, and more than 150 years of history of the department,” coordinator of the training programme and XIMB faculty, prof Niraj Kumar on Tuesday told “The ET”.
These trainers are being trained to train the postmen in skills in business etiquettes, customer relationship management, self initiatives and work planning. It is planned to convert postmen into a professional postal business correspondents by providing trainings in their business approach and also in their presentation skills.
“You should not be surprised if you find a smartly dressed postman delivering you a speed post with all professional business etiquette,” added Prof. Kumar.
In its bid to bridge the gap of about Rs 6000 crore in revenue generation and expenditure, Indian post is looking to tap the non-core business opportunity to enhance its revenue generation. “Our government has made a lot of capital investment in India Post, particularly in 11th plan, and now we need to take benefits of those investments. This is right time to grab the opportunity to give good competition to competing organization not only in our core business, mail delivery but also in other services which we are offering. Our postmen could be the brand ambassador of India Post" Mrs Abraham said.
“Entire country has been divided in to four regions and during the initial phase 50 officers from each region will be trained who will have responsibility of training of the postmen of given region. While selecting the potential trainers, India Post is ensuring that all the language and geographical conditions are adequately represented” informed Prof. Niraj Kumar.
XIMB had done a detailed training need analysis of the postmen before developing the training module. The B-school has done training need analysis of selected front line officers of India Post, like, assistant superintendent of posts (ASPs), inspector of post (IP), and postmen. In first stage, XIMB did the Training Need Analysis of all the Assistant Supdt. Of Posts (ASPs) and Inspector of Post (IP) the middle level most crucial cadre of India Post.
“We identified rural marketing and marketing communication skills, team building and leadership skills, selling techniques and target setting and creating and managing appropriate management information system as the major issues and accordingly trained more 250 officers from across the country”, Mr Kumar said.
In second stage, XIMB did the training need analysis of Postmen and decided to put the trained officers on the job to train the postmen as the postal business correspondents. As the postmen meet many customers personally, it will be easier for them to have one to one communication and to convince the customer.
“Postmen know customers and their requirements very well. In rural areas they are still part of the rural community and with such a huge network, postmen can play a crucial role to increase contacts with customers and increase business”, Mr Kumar added.
The union government has already earmarked Rs 1877.20 crore for the deployment of the information communication technology (ICT) network over a three year period covering 2010-13. The government is also mulling to give banking license to India Post. The postal department already works as a quasi bank, providing a host of savings products, postal life insurance, pension payments and money transfer services through its 1.55 lakh branches, more than any other bank.
Source: Economic TOI
