By Business & Finance 
The GPO, Dublin
An Post, Ireland’s national postal service, has selected Oracle software and cloud services to transform its operations and set a new standard for how Ireland’s leading organisations use digital technologies.
With near real-time insight into its operations across the board, the company will now be able to roll out new services to customers more quickly while minimising fraud, reducing all reporting times, and more easily manage over 2 billion transaction messages it processes each year.
An Post serves 1.7 million customers every week, through its national network in excess of 1,100 post offices and more than 2,000 PostPoint payment channels at retail outlets across Ireland.
An Post has implemented several elements of the Oracle stack as part of its business transformation programme.
Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Foundation Edition has enabled An Post to optimise its cash management by delivering a same-day view of cashflow and the ability to access this information via easy-to-use dashboards.
Using Oracle Advanced Analytics, An Post are enabled to minimise fraud with real-time alerts on suspicious transaction activity, and this will enable provision of the monthly financial results in a matter of minutes and automatically run weekly cash accounts at the touch of a button.
Additionally, with more than 9,000 employees in An Post, Oracle’s analytics solutions allow An Post to rapidly collect, process, and deliver consolidated HR data.
John Cronin, chief information officer, An Post, commented: “We operate the largest electronic network in Ireland, including information on retail purchases, energy and mobile phone bill payments, and foreign exchange transactions. It’s therefore crucial we’re able to manage all these processes to an exceptionally high standard so we can deliver the best possible service to our customers.”
Oracle Ireland managing director, Paul O’Riordan, commented: “An Post’s successful implementation of Oracle engineered systems, software and cloud services is a ringing endorsement for how companies that make the most of big data and cloud computing can improve the way they work. From much faster internal processes to smarter employee management to new, exciting services for its customers, the company has in one fell swoop set a new standard for technical innovation among organisations operating in Ireland.”
