Gunawan Hutagalung, Postal Director of the Directorate General of Post and Information Administration of the Ministry of Communication and Information acknowledged that the present postal administration is still done traditionally. Therefore, he sees a need to promote postal digitalisation to encourage the postal sector’s transition so it can better serve the nation.
“Posts like the one mentioned by the Minister earlier must stay relevant in the industry. However, our current issue is that the business process has not been fully digitalised and is still utilising a traditional method,” he explained following the Inauguration of Primary High Leadership Officials in the Ministry of Communications and Informatics’ Ops Room in Central Jakarta.
Through policy facilitation, he will continue to enhance digital transformation for post throughout Indonesia. Furthermore, the Ministry of Communication and Information will build several digital platforms encouraging postal organisers to transform digitally for the benefit of postal operators.
“Digitally, online business has not yet reached its full potential. This is what we’re encouraged to do. Ditpos will soon complete projects concerning courier, postal, and financial inclusion concerns,” he stressed.
One of Indonesia’s Post services (Pos Indonesia) digitalisation efforts, in partnership with the Ministry of Communication and Informatics’ Directorate General of Post and Information Administration, is the Digitalisation of Universal Postal Services (LPU) in 2022.
Pos Indonesia employs barcodes for all LPU shipments circulating in Indonesia to measure the performance of the journey time of LPU shipments on Indonesian territory. Shipments, including postage stamps, can now be monitored via the website.
The barcode for domestic LPU shipments is affixed at the post office. LPU shipments that the country of origin has not assigned a barcode are placed at the International Processing Centre (IPC) in Jakarta as an import gateway.
Along with it, Pos Indonesia launched an update to the LPU postal mail delivery operation method. This counter application can determine the postage rates used while sending letters or postcards, among other things. The application is also integrated with the Customs Declaration System (CDS) application for exports to international destinations to ensure compliance with domestic and international requirements.
Meanwhile, Thailand’s Ministry of Digital Economy and Society (MDES) is implementing the Digital Post ID. By designating the Thai Post Office as a governing authority, the government agency is advancing to strengthen digital innovation infrastructure to convert the form of addressing information into a digital address, known as Digital Post ID.
The MDES oversees programmes aimed at improving Thailand’s delivery system, which has been dependent on five-digit postal codes for almost 40 years. The Digital Post ID makes it easy to locate people in Thailand by providing them with a digital 1post ID number that can be converted into their address coordinates down to the household level.
To make having a digital post ID more accessible, Post offices and logistics companies will eventually have QR code label printers that digitally affix a post ID to shipments or envelopes. Personal information will not be displayed on the address of the box or envelope, so both the recipient and sender may be guaranteed that their privacy will be respected.
Earlier in 2020, a similar efforts were made in Vietnam. Vpostcode, a nationwide postal address coding technology developed by Vietnam Post, is used in the country. It contains information on address codes and the locations and coordinates of over 23 million addresses.
Users can assign digital addresses to households using Vpostcode. The code consists of two parts: one of five national postal codes and two of seven open location codes that give address codes and positioning on the digital map platform. It has the potential to solve the challenges of finding medical addresses, fire prevention addresses, and service addresses on a digital map.
