Focus on reports results in EMS growth for Russia

Today’s EMS service offered by Russia Post is booming with a staggering 50% growth in imports from 2015 to 2017. However, roll back the clock three years and the situation was very different: in 2015 Russia Post EMS was losing money due to issues delivering international express items. This trend had to stop as Russian customers were relying on EMS for e-commerce.

Therefore, Russia Post EMS conducted an in-depth analysis using their monthly EMS Cooperative reports to identify weaknesses in their operations. This close scrutiny highlighted three main issues: delivery delays; transmission delays and code anomalies, so for each they devised improvement actions.

A key issue was delivery delays. Using the reports they focussed on the 53 regions that covered 80% of EMS imports. Staff were motivated to improve through training and they worked to provide realistic targets through updated EMS delivery standards. In 2017, Russia Post adopted the latest UPU standards for EMS so now customers receive online more information about their item.

A totally different solution was needed to fix the delays in data entry and transmission. This time the focus was technical support for staff including a decisive change of IT provider and investment in portable devices tp allow online data-entry. The results were immediate, a drop from 35% EMS import penalized for transmission delays in 2015, to around 2% today.

The final area was anomalies in Office of Exchange (OE) and delivery offices codes. The solution was to follow up on unapproved codes to ensure that the codes are updated in the standards. In 2015 anomalies accounted for 20% of total penalties, today the figure is less than 1%.

It was a very successful strategy as shown by recent export and import trends for Russia Post. Their meticulous work using the reports and working with staff will continue to ensure that Russian customers across the whole of the country continue to receive an excellent international EMS service.