MEDIABLOG
At 405 million francs, Swiss Post again generated a profit in 2018. This is despite the negative interest rate situation at PostFinance, the steady decline in letter mail and the turbulent year at PostBus. In an interview on the annual result, Alex Glanzmann, Head of Finance at Swiss Post, praises the company’s employees. But he also indicates where the challenges facing Swiss Post lie in the future.
Swiss Post’s branch network, which employs 5,500 staff, is to be transformed into a modern organization: the networking of the extensive experience of these employees at the customer front will be improved and the scope for entrepreneurial freedom at the grassroots level strengthened. Teams will be created that will work at several branches in a district, where they will be responsible for all Swiss Post access points. As a result of the new team organization, the management structure will also be adapted. Positions will be filled starting in May 2019 at the earliest. The new team organization will have no impact on the number of branches in the postal network.
Swiss Post will be subjecting its e-voting system to a public hacker test from 25 February to 24 March 2019. This will fulfil the directives issued by the Swiss Confederation and cantons. The test – known as an intrusion test – will allow registered IT specialists to put the system through its paces by attempting to manipulate the result of a fictitious ballot contest. Swiss Post will incorporate the results of the hacker test into the development of its e-voting system. Swiss Post publishes today the source code to its system, which independent experts can scrutinize to prepare thoroughly for the intrusion test. This rare approach is not causing any sleepless nights for Denis Morel, Head of E-voting at Swiss Post, as he reveals in our interview. But he is always curious about the creativity and sophistication of highly specialized hackers.