INFO301 Students NZ Post Case Analysis Group Competition
Congratulations to our INFO 301 students who took part in a business challenge, the NZ Post Case Analysis Group Competition.
This year’s INFO 301 students took part in a business challenge outlined by Paul Reid, New Zealand Post Group’s GM Innovation and Strategy. The project required them to respond to the impact of declining mail volumes, assess the potential of information systems to create new sources of business value, and draw on frameworks taught in the course to identify key issues and make recommendations.
The winning group, Atisha Patel, Jigna Patel and Hoe Kit (Andrew) Chin proposed increasing NZ Post’s revenue and foot traffic through the rollout of digitised postal kiosks in a strategic partnership with the petrol chain Z. Runners-up, John McInnes, Ben Inkster and Holmes Parfitt, outlined a strategy for increasing Kiwibank’s business client base through the mobilisation of account managers and use of video conferencing technology. Paul Reid (GM, NZ Post) and Vaughan Harrison (Director, PricewaterHouseCoopers) were the judges.
The winning groups received gift vouchers from NZ Post. Authors of the best two individual reports based on the same business challenge will be presented with awards in December by ISACA’s Wellington chapter, with the top student from the course receiving a $750 award from ISACA.
Atisha, Jigna, and Andrew: Digitised Postal Kiosks (Winning project)
The aim of our project was to present a solution based on NZ Post's goal of moving into a digitised future and also maintaining profitability due to the significant decline in postal volumes. We believe that eliminating NZ Postal stores all around NZ and substituting them with Kiwi Bank branches with digital postal kiosks will be a step in the right direction and will help NZ post become a successful company. In addition, providing an incentive scheme where customers can collect post points for every time a customer uses the kiosk and can receive 'Z' petrol station voucher once a certain amount of points has been reached can be a way of getting more customers to use the kiosk. NZ Post can maintain profitability through the kiosk transaction fee and card and cut costs such as staffing, overheads and space.
Ben, John & Holmes: Mobilisation of Kiwibank account managers (Runner up)
Our project focuses on the growth of Kiwibank in order for it to become more sustainable as it's own entity for NZ Post Group due to the permanent decline of mail in the postal industry. The opportunity for growth lies in SME business banking as Kiwibank is yet to establish a strong presence in this sector, and 97% of companies in NZ are classified as SMEs which demonstrates the potential. By utilising tablet technology (for mobilisation) and video conferencing software (for improved accessibility), Kiwibank account managers will be able to increase the amount of face-to-face interaction with business owners in order to establish stronger relationships, and develop a superior level of customer service that will lead to a strategic advantage over their competitors.