24-09-2014, 03:54 PM
Project Arrow
Transforming India Post
1408304032-CaseStudy.doc (Size: 1.5 MB / Downloads: 96)
Executive summary
Project Arrow is a vision that was articulated and translated into action in a short period of time. This study highlights that the process of change can be effectively executed in government enterprises that may often be perceived as archaic, slow moving, and bureaucratic. This case study captures the essence of creating and managing change in India Post, a government enterprise, with a view (a) to improve customer service and (b) compete with private sector couriers to reestablish the preeminence of India Post. Most important, the case study serves to highlight that leadership vision, employee commitment, proper planning, and execution focus – even in a government enterprise – can result in a successful transformation.
Like any large government organization with a huge employee base, time-worn processes and systems, frequently changing leadership and imposed social obligations, the process of change needs an across the-board buy-in. There are significant barriers to get a buy-in. These barriers range from entrenched vested interests to human cynicism, which initially tend to stall change. This buy-in cannot be generated unless there is a commitment from leadership with a clearly articulated vision, well-defined goals, and unflagging commitment to execute in a time-bound manner and with a relentless focus on the end goals. However, at the same time, not totally ignore the fact that changing mindsets and an entire work culture have to be given time or takes time.
Project Arrow initially started off as an attempt, by the leadership to improve the ‘look and feel’ of Post Offices. While planning this facelift, the leadership team discovered that it was equally, if not more, essential to launch a comprehensive program to improve core operations. In the absence of operational improvements, cosmetic changes’ impact would decrease in a short time, leaving the organization unchanged. This realization kick-started the development of a comprehensive and integrated approach to improve the services of the post office to more effectively fulfill its assigned mandate to the “Aam Aadmi” (the common man). The study looks at the challenges faced in the process of evolving and implementing the strategy given the complexity and history of a large 150-year-old public sector organization. Elements of creating a buy-in needed to address a wide range of constituencies ranging from grassroot employees, officers (who could be apprehensive of the impact this project would have on them), streamlining the Information Technology (IT) systems, getting the right investments, improving employee capability through training, and above all, getting the trade unions to understand and support the change.
The attempt to transform India Post is not the first attempt at improving a government-run organization. There are enough examples of a revamp being successfully undertaken, such as Indian Railways, National Thermal Power Corporation, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), and many of the public sector banks. What makes this unique is that the transformation was being attempted over a very aggressive timeline. All the government/public sector organizations, which were transformed and guided by leadership vision and commitment, underwent the change and became more efficient and customer oriented. In a nutshell, the improvement at India Post under Project Arrow can be seen in the larger context of ever increasing capabilities of enterprises in the public sector under central government.
India Post: A large complex postal network
1.1 An Overview
A simple and innocuous question was what triggered this case study.
“When was the last time you visited a post office?”
None of the individuals (outside the Department of Posts) associated with this case study could recollect their last visit. This journey has been a revelation and an education.
Indian Postal Service (India Post), is the world’s largest postal network, and has 155,204 post offices: 139,046 in rural areas and 16,158 in urban areas. It employs over half a million employees (approximately 566,000 people). Its mandate is to provide services, such as mail delivery, money transfer, saving bank operations, and life insurance products across the length and breadth of the country.
The Indian Post Office was established in 1837 by the British East India Company. In time, the Indian postal system developed into an extensive, dependable, and robust network providing mail services to almost all parts of India, Burma, the Straits Settlements, and other areas controlled by the East India Company.
India Post, apart from railways, and more recently, mobile telephone operators, is the only institution in private/public sector that connects the remote parts of India to the rest of the world. Rural India, with a low penetration of mobile telephony (13 percent) and Internet (less than 2 percent), still depends on postal mail as a preferred, nonsubstitutable medium of communication. In addition, India Post also acts as a financial intermediary to large parts of rural India by providing services, such as savings account, money transfer, and insurance. These areas would have remained untouched by ‘formal financial services’ provided by public and private financial players due to commercial considerations. Hence, meeting social obligations of providing services to “Aam Aadmi” (the common man) is an important component of the post office charter.
Increasing service offerings through tie-ups
With rural economic growth, there has been an increase in the demand for financial services. India Post’s vast network in the rural markets is an effective, ready-made channel for public and private sector banks and service providers, who are trying to expand their reach in the rural areas. India Post has increased the range of its financial offerings by collaborating with different banks and financial institutions. Its partners are attracted by the opportunity to leverage India Post’s mammoth network and skilled staff to reach customers in areas that are outside their geographic network or are unviable on a stand-alone basis.
Several nonfinancial public sector units (PSUs) and multinational companies (MNCs) have also expressed interest in using India Post’s wide network in the country. These joint ventures can help India Post become a commercially sustaining self-sufficient organization that acts as a one-stop, cost–effective, multiservices provider. The table below shows some of the public/private sector organizations that have tried to tap the unparalleled reach of the India Post organization.
Project Arrow – Executing the Vision to Transform India Post
The Minister of State for Communications and Information Technology, Mr. Jyotiraditya M. Scindia, wanted to transform India Post into a world-class organization. This vision acted as the strategic driving force for the initiation of Project Arrow.
Project Arrow’s initial focus was on improving the ‘look and feel’ of the post offices’ infrastructure. A team of India Post’s senior officers were asked to suggest ideas to make post offices aesthetically more pleasing and customer friendly. The department involved an external consultant to facilitate the process. As the process of improving the ‘look and feel’ unfolded, the team also decided to focus on core operations of the post office. Based on their assessment, the team came to the conclusion that:
• There are significant areas within core operations, which, if improved, will allow the organization to deliver improved quality of services to customers
• The added focus on operational excellence will also enable India Post handle competition and regain market share
Thus, the leadership came to the conclusion that while the ‘look and feel’ is important, the core operations of a post office are equally, if not more, important.
Therefore, what started out as a project to give a facelift to the external look of post office buildings and physical infrastructure, transformed into an exercise to improve core performance and make India Post a “Window to the World” for the ‘Aam Aadmi’ (common man). For the first time, an integrated approach was used to overcome the service issues at post offices by attempting improvements in all key facets of the operational and customer experience dimensions of the post office.
Given the complexity and scale of India Post, Project Arrow stands out as an execution activity of integrated initiatives involving employees from all levels and functions. The following factors make this a unique project:
• Integrated project that covers
Technology
Processes
Aesthetics
• Paradigm shift in the employees’ mindset (making them both technologically savvy as well as customer/service oriented). The added challenge was that a large proportion of these employees were close to superannuation and did not have either the drive or interest to learn new “tricks” just before their retirement
High Impact and Easy to Implement” – Mantra for Choosing Focus Areas
The assessment led to two themes – “Get the Core Right” and “Modernize Look and Feel”. These simple catch phrases served to drive the point home across the entire spectrum of what the intent of Project Arrow was. The ‘Get the Core Right’ theme seeks to improve service levels so that citizens can get efficient, faster, and consistent service. The ‘Modernize Look and Feel’ theme seeks to address the customers’ experience whenever they visit a post office. If post office standardizes the physical infrastructure in customer centric ways, then probability is high that customers will get a consistent experience. This means that post offices have a similar look and feel, which creates a brand that is easily identifiable and ensures consistent expectations from post offices.
The large number of issues identified during self-assessment, coupled with the large size of the India Post organization, meant that the project team needed to prioritize the issues which it would address first. The mantra to choose an action item was “high impact, easy to implement.” The team started to assess issues which would be ‘easy to implement’ and yet were expected to have a relatively higher impact on achieving the project goals. Easy-to-implement issues were defined as those which did not require significant investment of money or time in training, technology, or processes and required limited organization-wide coordination.
Project Implementation
Project Arrow was planned in phases, with the number of post offices increasing in every subsequent phase. Each stage was treated as a learning opportunity and the learning used to improve planning and implementation for the subsequent phases. Thus, each phase not only saw an increase in number of post offices being converted, but also witnessed a change in the way the project was being implemented.
Phase I, which started on May 1, 2008, covered 50 post offices. Greater emphasis was placed on the ‘Look and Feel’ aspect during this phase aimed at standardized branding across the system and more pride among the staff. In addition, the project team continued to assess the core activities of post offices and identify ways to improve operational efficiency. The team noted that there were no standard measures or goals in place to evaluate whether the project was actually resulting in increased efficiencies at post offices. Based on the learning of Phase I, the project team identified focus areas and KPIs to measure the efficiency of the post office operations. These focus areas and the KPIs were standardized in Phase II and subsequently the performance of all post offices under Project Arrow was measured using these KPIs.
Sustainability
All large-scale changes need time to be accepted and, more important, institutionalized. The other challenge that large change management projects, such as Project Arrow, face is sustainability in the long run. There are developments in certain areas that point to Project Arrow being a success in the long run. What is now required is a wider organizational will – in large part being driven by the leadership – to ensure that the gains made are not lost due to shift or loss of focus.
5.1 Leadership Focus
Leadership focus and commitment is the main driving force in ensuring a smooth execution of this project. As originators of the idea, the leadership exhibited high level of ownership in dealing with the challenges of conceptualizing and implementing Project Arrow.
Participation of the leadership in monitoring of Project Arrow’s KPIs has instilled a high level of accountability across all levels of the organization. With scaling-up of implementation in the near future, this intensity of leadership monitoring needs to be maintained; otherwise, there is a risk that the gains made in the project will not be sustained. Leadership can display this focus by:
• Making regular follow-ups and seeking status updates that will be effective in establishing the continuing importance of the project and ensuring desired outcomes.
• Real-time monitoring using technology – video conferences and online tools – demonstrates leaderships’ active involvement and impresses upon staff the need to adhere to project requirements.
5.2 Upgrading and Maintaining IT Infrastructure
IT systems and connectivity are essential for effective management and monitoring of the large postal network. Many postal services are online and many activities, such as tracking, are performed using the IT systems. New versions of software have been installed and these provide the facility for data extraction. All the senior officials have access to the data and the circle heads can use it to identify the challenges that certain post offices are facing in their region.
• The postal department is looking at recruiting candidates with basic computer skills.
• Existing employees with minimal or no computer skills are being trained. The ones who show desired aptitude and skills are being appointed as system administrators.
• A National Data Centre is being developed as the command center for data from across the postal network.
• Automation of the standard monitoring process using IT tools is an effective way of ensuring adherence to the performance standards. This reduces human intervention and control, and tends to offer a long-term, reliable solution for ensuring monitoring.
Conclusion
Project Arrow demonstrates that changing a large and complex organization, which is mired in legacy systems, is possible. Public sector enterprises (PSEs) in India are considered inefficient and bureaucratic, with minimal customer service culture. There have been instances in the past when PSEs have successfully transformed themselves, such as the Indian Railways and BSNL.
The fact that India Post embarked on a transformational exercise is commendable. The fact that it was able to deliver some improvements highlights the results a strong leadership and a committed workforce can achieve. A change in culture and an improvement in functioning can ensure that the organization becomes more customer-centric, generates higher revenue, and is able to expand the portfolio of efficient services it offers to ‘Aam Aadmi’.
While it is still early days, the model has proved to be scalable across regions, urban-rural complexities, and size of the post office. The leadership, now more than ever, needs to be focused on ensuring that it maintains its sense of ownership and drive for results to address sustainability challenges.