Nowadays stamps are full of surprises! Alongside the usual stamps there are commemorative issues, personalised, even scented variants available. They are avidly collected by individuals, and provide another channel of communication for businesses. They have benefitted from the implementation of environmental protection and safety technologies (ISO 14001). They may be self-adhesive or even produced electronically…
This constant innovation around the humble stamp is the very raison d’être of Phil@poste; a national center of expertise in France, reporting to the Postal Services Directorate at La Poste (the French Post Office). The range of products and services offered by Phil@poste is extremely wide: postage stamps, ready-to-post products, security, fiduciary and government products, postal orders…
Underpinning this expertise is a profound and up-to-date understanding of the world philatelic market, in-depth know-how of specific design and manufacturing techniques, an organization which allows the business to serve its customers anywhere in the world, and recognized expertise in distance selling, e-commerce and delivery.
To meet the needs of this extremely specialized and high-volume market (three billion stamps are sold every year…), Phil@poste is undertaking a massive overhaul of its information system, based on a new IT masterplan. Its commercial management system is the first stage in this program. Now fully unified, it is based on the Infor ERP LN software, as well as on I-flow for workflow management and Cognos for operational reporting.
Commercial management bringing people together with simpler business processes
Phil@poste wanted to open up its commercial information system, to facilitate interfacing and interoperability with other applications, and to implement new functions in line with changing needs. Commercial management in particular has to adapt to the multitude of customer requirements, whether from individuals or businesses. At the end, all commercial workflows will be integrated with production management, providing end-to-end management. The twin aims of this are to improve service delivery while at the same time optimizing resources. The challenge is to design commercial management processes that facilitate the development of new services (different means of payment, subscriptions…), especially via the Internet.
A systems integration project driven by the implementation of ‘best practices’
Phil@poste has embarked on a global process of rationalization: clarifying roles, optimizing processes, modelling all the components of order processsing. Bull has helped Phil@poste with the re-engineering of its business processes (orders, stocks, distribution channels…) and will be leading the integration project for the new commercial management system, from overall design to comprehensive implementation of the solution. As a result, throughout this 18-month contract based on commitment to results, Bull has been responsible for replacing the former commercial management applications with Infor ERP LN, I-Flow and Cognos solutions, managing successive switchovers, simplifying the 30 or so variants of business processes to optimize them and align them with the standards set out by the ERP software, developing around 50 interfaces, and interfacing three real-time Internet sites with Infor ERP LN. Finally, Bull will be providing training and support for almost 100 users, helping them adopt the new working practices.
