Posti

Posti steps up its data capability – new customers created in minutes

Amidst a major business transformation, Posti is modernising and updating its data capability with the aim of making the customer the focus of its business. The cooperation of Solita and Posti has resulted in a radical improvement in the speed of creating new corporate customer accounts. “Previously, it took a week for Posti to bring a new corporate customer on board. Now with our centralised customer data management, it takes minutes to create the account, thanks to automation,” says Riku Tapper, head of Posti’s data portfolio.

 

Results:

  • Posti has achieved a new level of basic data and customer data management.
  • Posti’s basic data can be exploited by different business functions in more ways.
  • The customer data platform offers an in-depth look into customers and improves customer service.
  • Improved corporate customer data quality and reliability.
  • Increased corporate customer data transparency.
  • New corporate customer account creation radically upgraded: what previously took a week now takes mere minutes.
  • Processes need less manual labour and use more automation.

Posti was looking to use data to modernise its business and make it more customer-oriented.

Solita and Posti started tackling the data challenges by correcting the latter’s base processes and introducing flexibility to systems. The objective was to make up-to-date and real-time data available to business operations.

“We lacked a systematic way to control our master data at Posti. We had to fix very fundamental issues with a business focus. Instead of simply implementing master data management and a technological solution, we sought out actual sore points,” says Riku Tapper, Director of Data and Automation at Posti.

“Master data” refers to enduring data that changes slowly. Typically, master data includes customer, product, and organisation data, for example.

Posti’s business has experienced a sweeping transformation in recent years. Parcel volumes have grown more than ten per cent annually while letters have shrunk to a similar degree. In 2021, Posti’s net sales were EUR 1.6 billion with over 70 million parcels processed.

“In a changing world with tougher competition, we need to better exploit data and meet the new needs of customers. Posti will use data to improve its customer service in digital channels. Good data capability is therefore key,” says Tapper from Posti.

“In a changing world with tougher competition, we need to better exploit data"Riku Tapper, Director of Data and Automation at Posti

Aiming for enhanced customer insight and satisfaction

In 2018, Solita and Posti began to build the Customer Data Platform, CDP, in Microsoft’s Azure cloud to make it possible to combine data from different sources. The system would also include automation and data analytics for marketing.

Up to that point, Posti had used many different customer data systems and Excel files that were disconnected from one another. Data had to be retrieved and filtered from different locations, which was slow and difficult.

Solita and Posti began to plan and build a Master Data Management (MDM) solution to improve the availability and quality of data with the main emphasis on the management of corporate customer master data.

”Master data management is a tool and capability that all companies should have.”
Harri Mauno, Head of Data and Analytics at Posti

The primary objectives for Posti were to improve customer service and increase transparency. Better internal efficiency and a reduction in manual labour were also sought. The amount of data only continues to grow, along with the requirements of efficiency and automation.

“Master data management is a tool and capability that all companies should have. Posti has a long history and many legacy systems. One of our objectives is to combine the old systems’ data. It will take time to hack our way through the integration jungle. The road will be long, but we have already achieved tangible results,” says Harri Mauno, Head of Data and Analytics at Posti.

In future, the mission of the business will be to serve the needs of its customers as well as possible. This will also require a change in Posti’s company culture, changing how IT and business cooperate, for example.

Business objectives as drivers of progress

Posti evaluated a number of system platforms in 2020 and chose the Semarchy xDM platform.

“Semarchy has played a key role in our upgrade, and it will be a part of Posti’s future master data development,” says Mauno from Posti.

Solita and Posti used agile development methods in their cooperation, taking the approach of business-driven value creation. The solution’s architecture was designed to be modular to allow flexible development of business applications and internal processes.

“Semarchy is a good tool for full data life cycle management, and it makes it easy to maintain the keys and identifiers of old systems, for example. Data is now readily available for different use cases through modern APIs,” says Perttu Salli, Head of Solita’s Data Management business.

“Instead of just building systems, we wanted to help Posti change their culture for developing new solutions. In agile development, the focus must always be on the business impacts achieved,” says Janne Pullinen, account manager for Posti at Solita.

”Previously, it took a week for Posti to bring a new corporate customer on board. Now with our centralised customer data management, it takes minutes to create the account, thanks to automation.”
Riku Tapper, Director of Data and Automation at Posti

Posti reaches a new level of customer insight

The maintenance of important data at a company like Posti becomes difficult if a lot of manual work is involved. The MDM and CDP projects have increased the automation of processes, reducing manual labour and costs.

Customer data is now more transparently available to both customers and Posti, and its maintenance as self-service has progressed. The customer data platform has enhanced Posti’s customer insight. This has improved the customer experience and been a boon for Posti’s development of new digital services.

One of the most tangible results is the radical acceleration of the corporate customer creation process.

“Previously, it took a week for Posti to bring a new corporate customer on board. Now with our centralised customer data management, it takes minutes to create the account, thanks to automation,” says Tapper from Posti.

The OmaPosti Pro application offered by Posti to corporate customers includes extensive self-service options, and customers are increasingly using the application. The development of the customer data platform has allowed new services to be introduced into the application easily and flexibly.

"What’s great about Solita is that they challenge us and want to understand our business needs."
Harri Mauno, Head of Data and Analytics at Posti

Cooperation focused on customer and business benefits

“Solita has a solid professional team, which has made our cooperation easy,” says Tapper.

The cooperation is focused on customer and business benefits.

“We made sure that no project went ahead as a pure IT or data project; they needed to have a real impact on business. Everything we did was aimed at improving customer satisfaction,” says Janne Pullinen from Solita.

“What’s great about Solita is that they challenge us and want to understand our business needs. Our relationship has been open and fair throughout our cooperation,” says Mauno.

Watch also the presentation of Riku Tapper, Posti Group in Solita Summit 2022:
The Digital Transformation of Posti – The Data Perspective
Riku Tapper, Director, Data & Automation, Posti Group

Interested? Contact us

Janne Pullinen

Account Director

[email protected]

+358 400 480 967