How mobility is reshaping
a 17th century company In 2009, Post Danmark A/S and Posten AB merged to form PostNord, the leading supplier of communication and logistics solutions to, from and within the Nordic region. Both of these companies had rich histories extending back into the 17th century. PostNord is state owned, 60 per cent by Sweden and 40 per cent by Denmark. The company employs over 35,000 workers that help to deliver 5.2 billion letters and 130 million parcels annually. PostNord prides itself on being a trusted business partner, with a mission to connect people and businesses reliably, efficiently, and on time.
The Business Challenge
The early 2000’s saw an increase in competition within the postal industry, atthe same time that electronic communications began to reduce the demand for traditional postal services and the delivery of letters. Fortunately, this decrease in traditional business was offset by the rise of e-commerce, an increasingly important channel for PostNord.
PostNord’s main mobility challenge was to improve customer service, while ensuring that carriers were working efficiently and effectively in all rural locations, under all conditions. Before implementing a mobile solution, parceldelivery required a physical signature from the customer. But without any way to electronically record the delivery, customers were required to travel long
distances to collect their parcels from a central delivery point. As the number of parcels grew, the need to meet customer demands and provide home deliveries escalated. PostNord needed to capture customer signatures at the point of delivery, and make that information available to the sender in near real time. The initial mobility deployment was attempted without any mobility management support. Asset tracking and management quickly became a pain point as keeping track of the mobile devices was a manual task.
The solution
After comparing several different mobility management solutions, it became apparent that SOTI MobiControl was the best bet to manage mobile devices within their company. Björn Heijbel, head of IT at PostNord Sweden, explains, “After SOTI demonstrated MobiControl we knew it was the right solution for us, especially with the detailed logging of each mobile unit’s exact location, and the ability to configure and update the devices remotely. Gaining control of our mobile fleet was the main reason why we chose SOTI MobiControl.”
SOTI MobiControl enables PostNord to run their mobile devices in kiosk mode. This prevents the user from accessing other applications, websites, device controls and critical data. It keeps workers focused and improves productivity, while at the same time increasing data security. Just as important for PostNord, SOTI MobiControl made it possible to deploy new and updated apps to devices across Sweden quickly and easily.
PostNord was also looking for an experienced integrator to assist with the expansion of mobility within the organisation. Through competitor research and analysis, PostNord chose to work with Optidev who has in-depth experience of working with companies in the logistics industry and had previous experience and expertise with SOTI MobiControl.
The results
SOTI MobiControl was well received by the postal carriers, as well as the managers at the local post offices and the IT staff at PostNord Sweden. PostNord took advantage of the opportunity to deploy, configure, manage, and update mobile services across the company. SOTI’s rapid provisioning made it possible for employees to receive mobile devices much more quickly, with very little IT time and effort. This made it an easy decision to expand the rollout to wider aspects of PostNord’s logistics chain, such as urban postal carriers.
As well as an increased level of control of the mobile devices, MobiControl has dramatically decreased IT and software support costs. End-user support can now be carried out remotely using SOTI MobiControl’s integrated remote control. This enables IT staff to view and discuss the activity and status of each device in real-time to help the end-user in the field.
By January 2017, an additional 6,000 devices will be deployed to enable information of delivery capture, and some 200 new devices will be deployed into the retail network to support Christmas peak volumes. This final phase of the project will assist in the delivery of smaller parcels in urban areas and make all PostNord deliveries more efficient and secure.
