IMPLEMENTATION OF ITELLA MAIL LOGISTICS SYSTEM IN GHANA POSTAL SERVICES
ABSTRACT
Information technology is one of the major drivers of innovation, economic growth and social change. The emergence of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has led to a paradigm shift in the Postal Services industry, where innovation has become a competitive tool in the logistics chain process. Unlike the traditional way of receiving, sorting and delivering letters by human, the modern real-time based practical approach brings the public faster and more reliable services.
To respond to this change, this thesis aims to explore the inefficiencies in the Ghana Post postal system, identifies bottlenecks and adapt the Finnish system of Itella logistics modern approach as problem solution in improving the Ghana Post postal system. The primary data collection method used to gather data for this thesis was a qualitative method. The method of enquiry was an open-ended questions and face to face interview. The interview was analyzed through a SWOT analysis tool to identify strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities.
The main findings of the thesis are that, there is a mismatch of Itella system with Ghana Post Company system. The technology used in the Itella system makes it impossible at the moment to adapt it into the Ghana Post system. It is very advanced system. This makes the two systems incompatible due lack of resources on the side of Ghana Post. But there are many ideas that Ghana Post can learn from Itella to improve their current system. One recommended services were the IPost service that Itella provides to their customers that enables them to post letters electronically which provides zero carbon footprint. Also the Smart Post services that provide self-service to customers is an interesting service that could be transferred. The limitation of this study is that, time could not permit the study to explore all the current improvements of Ghana Post due to time constraint.
Introduction
1.1 Motivation of the thesis
This thesis work is chosen mainly to show my concern about my home country Ghana. In Ghana, there are many business sectors and industries which are managed by the state and no one takes the personal responsibility of those companies if they are not performing well which will eventually lead to folding up. Due to my interest and area of studying, I decided to choose Ghana Postal Services to get it upgraded and to be efficient as the other postal services in advanced countries. My current work and location have really helped me in having a good decision to choose Itella Corporation (Finnish Postal Services) as my guide. Although Itella cannot be perfect in all, that’s why the research will be carried out to detect and correct its short-comings so that the target company will not be experiencing the same problem in future. The objective is to explore the inefficiencies in the Ghana Post Company postal logistics system. The rationale behind this objective is to identify bottlenecks in the postal value-chain and adapt the Finnish system of Itella logistics modern approach as problem solution in improving the Ghana Post Company postal system. The practical implication is to improve the system for Ghana Post to maintain its competitive edge at the market in Ghana as a public sector industry. This improvement will help the company to respond to the paradigm shift in the postal industry where innovation has become a competitive tool in the logistics chain process. To investigate the problems to help the thesis in recommending solutions and a more efficient approach, the need to understand the current situation in Ghana Post is very imperative. This is discussed in the subsequent sections. The problem statement followed by the need of the project and the methodology used to collect data for the thesis.
1.2 Background information of Ghana Postal Service
The postal system in Ghana is owned and operated by the Government. They come under the Ministry of Communications. The Ghana postal system provides a letter and parcel service both nationally and internationally as well as a courier and registered mail service. The company aims to provide the best security that is reasonably possible for items that are posted with them. Development of the postal services took off in 1854 as part of the colonial administration. In 1995, the Ghana Postal Service was established as the Ghana Postal Services Corporation. Since 1998, the company has been known as the Ghana Post Company Limited. Ghana Post makes a very significant contribution...
