Agency
for
w s h
uesting
uc at on
uestioning
Cyber Express
Jewish cultural
for adults
and learning opportunities
Israel's Postal Authority is looking at niche markets
to meet the challenges of the cyber age.
JUDY SIEGEL ITZKOVICH SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
-
M
ail services have been bring the purchases to their doors.
around at least since
One example of this potential
King Ahasuerus dis- is a popular Orthodox toy and sta-
patched his anti-Jewish tionery supply store in Jerusalem.
decrees to all corners of his vast Located in a dingy basement in
empire through a well-organized Rehov Mea She'arim, the store is
constantly visited by parents
cavalry force.
Since then, of course, mail ser- • looking for children's gifts, and
vices have ceased to be the kindergarten teachers seeking
exclusive lot of rulers. But tech- arts-and-crafts materials with a
nologically, it may now seem a bit Jewish theme.
anachronistic to lick a stamp,
This old-fashioned but well-
stick it on a letter and send it on stocked shop is in the process of
a lengthy and sometimes ardu- setting up an Internet site for sell-
ous journey through a series of ing its goods around the world.
sorters and messengers before ar- The Postal Authority expects to
riving at its destination.
be a primary beneficiary.
Could it be that in-
stead of being hand-
delivered, letters in
the 21st century
will consist only of
electrons coursing
through computers
and telephone cables,
reaching their desti-
nation in split sec-
onds?
While well aware of
the technological
changes that threat-
en the economic feasi-
bility of Israel's postal
services, Moshe Tery
says the Postal Au-
thority will meet the
demands of a profit-
oriented balance sheet.
The new director-
general of the Israel
post office doesn't see pa-
per and envelopes disap-
pearing from the scene in the
near future. While there are
Israel's 5,000 salaried postal
bound to be user-friendly com-
puter screens that send and re- workers and 2,000 contractors ac-
ceive e-mail with merely the touch cept, sort and deliver two million
of a finger, many people either pieces of mail each working day
have no access to computers or (540 million pieces a year) — and
the figure is growing by 10 per-
simply fear them.
Bank statements and other of- cent annually.
The process has become high-
ficial correspondence will contin-
ue to be sent through regular ly computerized, using some of
mail, according to Mr. Tery. Peo- the most advanced equipment in
ple want the actual, original doc- the world. Scanners can read and
ument in their hands, he says, decipher hand-written ZIP codes
and some won't even settle for a and dispatch them to the proper
fax.
sorting bin with few errors. The
"And then there is, of course, authority is negotiating with an
the mailing of packages, which Israeli company for a program
could never be replaced by e- that reads addresses scrawled on
envelopes. If this works with a low
mail," he says.
Indeed, package deliveries may degree of error, it could further re-
be the greatest potential of the duce the need for human sorters
Postal Authority, as futurists pre- and speed up delivery beyond its
dict more and more people will current 1.5 days for the average
purchase goods from computer domestic Israeli letter. At present,
screens rather than stores. The the average wait in line at an Is-
post office is five minutes.
mail messengers will have to
A card-carrying Likud mem-
ber, Mr. Tery was brought to his
position by Communications Min-
ister Limor Livnat at a rather
difficult time for the Postal Au-
thority. Mr. Tery replaced Ran
Levin, who resigned following a
scandal involving the alleged mis-
handling of millions of pieces of
lost Likud campaign literature.
Though he wasn't found re-
sponsible for the affair, Mr. Levin
quit. His aides hinted there was
"a lot more wrong" in the Postal
Authority.
Ironically, Mr. Levin had been
brought in from a management
position in the Israel Education
Ministry two years before by then-
minister Shulamit Aloni to fix the
chaos created by the dismissal of
the previous director-general.
Mr. Tery refuses to say a bad
word about anyone, or even to ex-
plain the exact condition in which
he found the Postal Authority
when he arrived there nearly five
months ago.
"There are wonderful, profes-
sional, dedicated people here," he
declares.
"I made some personnel
changes within the organization,
but didn't bring in from the out-
side more than one person. There
is also much to be done here in di-
rect-mail advertising, which ben-
efits the mail and was not
exploited properly in the past."
Hearing that Israel's 5 million
citizens are generally pleased by
the improvements in mail service
and the functioning and appear-
ance of the 710 postal branches,
Mr. Tery admits that there is still
room for improvement.
"Mail delivery is the only ser-
vice in the country requiring
daily visits to every home and
office across Israel. It involves
human beings, so things can go
wrong."
Looking for niche markets, the
Postal Authority is keen on filling
in for the commercial banks
when, as expected, their branch-
es no longer open on Fridays.
Postal banks in every postal
branch could carry out all major
transactions.
Another key function could be
computerized information kiosks
that would allow residents
throughout Israel to do business
electronically, obtaining printed-
out forms from the branch com-
puters, or even filling them in
on-line. ... •
(c) Jerusalem Post 1997
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