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CLIENT CASE STUDY

Royal Mail Group: Executing document management services

Learn how Accenture is using postal solutions to provide document management services to help gain efficiency and save costs.

Overview

Royal Mail Group operates one of Europe’s largest mail and parcel delivery networks. It delivers a six-days-a-week, one-price-goes-anywhere postal service to more than 29 million addresses across the UK.

In March 2007, the postal organization was awarded a contract for office services. As part of this contract, it had to manage the post of a third-party public services organization. The post, once opened and presorted, was required to be delivered to various identified offices of the client.

With Accenture’s help, Royal Mail was able to design, build and implement an end-to-end scanning and indexing solution in just 18 months to support the document management services for its client. The new postal solution enabled Royal Mail Group to process more than 385,000 batches, comprising nearly 20 million documents and more than 155 million images. Building upon its success at the Royal Mail Group, Accenture is currently providing a variety of service management support functions for clients across the United Kingdom.

Opportunity

Royal Mail Group wanted to modernize operations and improve productivity, building a strong reputation as a world-class postal organization. The group was also looking to capitalize on the growth in online retailing to extend its parcel business and provide the right products at the right prices to maintain customer satisfaction.

In March 2007, Royal Mail was awarded a contract to manage the post of a third-party public services organization. Once opened and presorted, the post was required to be delivered to various identified offices of the client. The company identified this as an opportunity to grow its document management services—automated services to track and store electronic documents on behalf of customers. Royal Mail housed the equipment and processes to manage the mail sorting operations. Following a five-year contract awarded in 2009, Accenture was asked to help Royal Mail to support the document management services for all inbound mail at eight third-party customer’s locations.

Solution

The Accenture team undertook the initial development and ongoing service support for the duration of the contract. It was also responsible for end-to-end technical service management, including management information and the processing of supplementary personal identification documents. The team leveraged its postal solution skills to design, build and implement an end-to-end scanning and indexing service for Royal Mail Group in just 18 months.

To assist the postal organization, the Accenture team established a service-led organization using a market-leading service management framework. Based out of Accenture’s United Kingdom Delivery Centre in Newcastle, the service operated from 7:00 am to 5:30 pm, with staffing levels suited to accommodate the early morning demands of the postal workers’ day and reduced coverage in the afternoon to deal with any reporting and maintenance matters. Accenture currently provides a variety of service management support functions for clients across the United Kingdom.

Results

Accenture achieved service level agreement (SLA) conformance in excess of 95 percent over the five-year duration of the contract, demonstrating that the solution provided to Royal Mail Group was both stable and robust.

The new postal solution enabled Royal Mail Group to process more than 385,000 batches, comprising nearly 20 million documents and more than 155 million images.

Royal Mail Group has ably demonstrated that it can serve the document management needs of its customers. In addition, the postal organization acknowledges the benefits of collaborating with the Accenture team. As part of the terms of the agreement, ISO27001 certification required that customer satisfaction surveys were carried out on a regular basis. These surveys were issued to all operational contacts of Royal Mail Group, as well as other suppliers—and 98 percent of responses rated the postal solution from the Accenture team as excellent or good.