TCS gives the world’s largest postal network a digital makeover

Homegrown IT services major Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has helped state-run India Post digitalise close to 1.5 lakh post offices in the country, which is home to the world’s largest postal network.

TCS said in a statement that at the heart of the digital transformation was its Core System Integration program, where the company implemented an enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution for mail operations, HR functions, finance and accounting.

The solution will cater to the future scaling requirements of India Post, which requires HR support for more than 5 lakh employees and currently processes over 3 million postal transactions a day. TCS claimed that this was one of the largest SAP (systems, applications and products) implementations globally.

In 2013, TCS announced that it had won a six-year contract from India Post to implement an end-to-end IT digital transformation services initiative in order to service its customers better.

As part of that endeavour, the company said that it has also implemented its Point of Sale (PoS) solutions in over 80,000 terminals.
  
Additionally, TCS has also handed out close to 1.3 lakh hand-held devices that are being utilised by ‘Gramin Dak Sevaks’ or Branch Post Managers to provide postal services, banking and insurance services in remote villages that are off the grid.

“In a digital era, postal services across the world are reinventing themselves to stay relevant to a new generation,” said Debashis Ghosh, business group head-public services at TCS.

“We are proud to have partnered with the Department of Posts in this pioneering, mission mode initiative to build a world class, future-ready digital platform that the nation can be proud of,” he added.

The company has also built a web portal for tracking consignments, as well as a multilingual call centre for customer support.

“A program of this scale, spread and complexity, required meticulous planning and adroit execution,” said Salim Haque, member of the Postal Services Board, the apex management body for the department.

India Post has been making attempts to modernise itself to stay relevant in the digital era.

India Post Payments Bank (IPPB), the payments bank arm of the postal department, had last year started using QR codes to facilitate payments.