04 Jul 2016

BotswanaPost has restructured its operations so as to improve on customer service . This was revealed by Botswana Post CEO Mr Cornelius Ramatlhakwane.

Speaking at a press briefing, Mr Ramatlhakwane said the scan revealed that BotswanaPost organisational structure was top heavy with 44 per cent of the total payroll being consumed by only 18 per cent of staff based at head office.

“We had more than 107 temporary staff at the branches while support staff was centralised at head office,” said Mr Ramatlhakwane.

To address this, he said they have redesigned their business model into four major functions with more people pushed to the customer facing front line to improve customer service and improve revenue to labour cost ration.

He said this said new model is called the ‘Value Centre Organisation’, which is being derived from the lean principles of high performance.

According to Mr Ramatlhakwane, the four functions are Operation and Technology, Commercial, Finance and Administration and Human Capital and skills Development.

Mr Ramatlhakwane noted that initially they had four regional manager each managing about 30 post offices but now they have 12 Value Centre Managers who are managing 10 post offices each.

“With this new regional structures, the managers are able to connect with their staff and involve them in daily decision making as well as model the behaviour they want to see and in return get the desired results,” he said.

He said that in the new remodeled organisation they have created a leaner organisation from a structural and workflow standpoint with targeted spans of control averaging 5-7 reports to a line manager.

On the other hand, he said they have increased the number of the former regional managers now value centre managers from 4 to 12 countrywide adding that this has improved these managers’ spans of control to 10 post offices per manager from 30 post offices per manager.

“Overall, we have created 107 new positions, thus increasing our approved staff complement from 743 to 850,” he said, adding that this has helped to absorb all temporary staff, graduate trainees and interns to full time formal employment.

Mr Ramatlhakwane said they have re-engineered their mail processes resulting in elimination of 53 wastage pit-stops in their mail operations.

For his part, Botswana Post board chairperson Mr Polokoetsile Motau said in 2011, Botswana Post adopted a strategy called ‘Icon of Excellence’ to run for a period of 5 years up to March 2016.

Mr Motau said the Icon of Excellence Strategy was designed to drive their Diversification and Transformation Programme so as to advance towards a diversified Service Provider with a target of P500 million revenue and 60 percent cost to income ratio.

He said over the years, Botswana Post has experienced substantial growth in revenues with the last published annual report for 2014/15 recording an increase of 18 per cent (P366 million) from the previous year.

“The company’s total revenues including our former subsidiary Botswana Couriers and Logistics grew by 29 per cent to P430 million,” he said adding that their current forecast is that they would achieve a rather modest revenue figure of P440 million for the 2015/16 financial year.

Mr Motau said that the above figures would exceed their P500 million target when they include their former subsidiary upon conclusion of audit. ENDS