An Post, the state-owned corporation that manages postal services in the Republic of Ireland, presents an interesting and well-documented case of successful innovation in the public sector, which is often plagued by inefficiency and lackluster performance. Established in 1984, An Post is now one of Ireland’s largest public employers. For most of its history, An Post’s operations did not meet the breakeven point, let alone make a profit. This only changed in 2014, after eight years of losses. This is why it came as a surprise when An Post made the headlines in 2018 as one of the rare public services to have successfully adopted advanced technological solutions to address customers’ orders and feedback and make them significantly more manageable and streamlined. Interaction with customers can be particularly tricky and time-consuming, and this is where platform innovation and visualization tools can help. For An Post, this service is provided by the Oracle Analytics Cloud platform and An Post’s own Customer Experience Management portal. Oracle Analytics Cloud is one of the most comprehensive cloud analytics platforms, offering self-service visualization, powerful inline data preparation to enterprise reporting, and self-learning analytics. Today, An Post’s portal allows a select few corporate customers, including Amazon, Sky TV, and the Inditex Group (which owns brands such as Massimo Dutti and Zara), to visualize their parcel traffic on An Post’s cloud service. There are plans to make this data visualization tool available to more of An Post’s customers. The move to data visualization services was so successful that the state-owned public service was honored with the 2018 Analytics Innovation—Global Excellence Award, celebrated in October 2018 at the Oracle Open World ceremony in San Francisco.

Questions for Case

1. Why was Oracle’s system important for An Post?

2. What additional challenges does a state-owned service face when adopting innovative solutions?