An executive journey
WITH his contract recently renewed, Post Fiji Ltd chief executive officer Dr Anirudha Bansod has big plans for the future of Fiji’s postal services.
In an exclusive interview, Dr Bansod spoke of his journey with the postal service industry and the innovations yet to come for the company in both digitisation and community driven projects.
According to Dr Bansod Post Fiji is undertaking a refurbishment project beginning with a select seven branches in order to streamline services and waiting times to offer the public a more efficient and aesthetically pleasing experience.
Dr Bansod also spoke of his journey with Post Fiji, having held his position for three years, including throughout the pandemic period.
“To run a postal service is not an easy job. The reason is because consumer behaviour has changed, the way the people communicate with each other is very different now.
“People are more in tune with instant communication like electronic media and mobile phones and emails. And I started analysing the revenue, and our mails were constantly dropping down and I anticipate this will keep on going down, the numbers for mail specifically.”
This led him to push focus to other services during the pandemic, including the sale of groceries and essential items through Post Fiji outlets, allowing the company to simultaneously serve the community and provide a much needed retail service in otherwise less accessible areas and retain its employees so staff would not suffer.
This has proven a wise decision as some post shops continue to retail groceries at competitive prices in rural areas and despite an ideology of prioritising the people over maximising profits, revenue from grocery sales continues a steady rise.
The company has also branched out into providing access to insurance policies through the Life Insurance Corporation of India to rural areas.
Having held a number of prestigious positions in both academia and industry, Dr Bansod appears to have a good head on his shoulders when it comes to management and positive transformations, resulting in a number of internal initiatives that have benefitted his staff and employees.
A major decision made during the pandemic to prioritise staff welfare allowed for not a single employee being let go during the pandemic.
Unpaid isolation, reduced pay and reduced hours were also off the table for Dr Bansod who did not want employees, many of whom were front-line workers to suffer any further during an already difficult time.
He believes giving back to employees and providing them additional support in times of peril builds a positive mind-set where those employees will then return the support with their productivity and loyalty to the company.
“We have a very cordial relationship with the team; we laugh, we smile, we enjoy, we tease each other, but when it comes to the work we know what we are doing, we are also very focused onto that. So that starts percolating downwards.
“It will take some time to adopt that culture and mind-set into the entire post Fiji family but one of the thoughts definitely is to change the mind-set and culture, and change management is definitely needed so that we can move to the transformation stage which is the last stage of change management.”
Dr Bansod has also been the hand behind Fiji having representation on the Asia Pacific Post Cooperative board as of earlier this year.
Despite being an institution that has existed over 150 years, there was reportedly no attempt to be elected onto the Universal Postal Union boards prior to Dr Bansod becoming the CEO.
He also continues to teach at the university level, relishing his time engaging with young minds and learning from his experience teaching.
“I always enjoy teaching because it helps me to learn while teaching and see how the students cultivate their knowledge in the industry.
“So I always look for those sorts of people who are very productive, performance driven, innovative, critical analysts, and that really helps me in my industry as well.”
Having taught at a number of universities prior to becoming the CEO of Post Fiji, Dr Bansod holds a vast academic knowledge of marketing but was drawn the vacancy in Post Fiji, saying, “After a few years in the academic career I realised that my background is more into the industry and I was missing that.
“And I went back to the industry platform, that’s where my passion and my interest is so I went back into the industry.”
Dr Bansod intends to continue in his current position at Post Fiji for another contract term and is currently in the process of implementing a number of promising initiatives that are likely to benefit both his staff and the public.
To run a postal service is not an easy job. The
reason is because consumer behaviour has changed, the way the people communicate with each other is very different
now.
– Dr Anirudha Bansod