Toward Complete Digitalisation of Postal Items Clearance in the Republic of Croatia

The initial idea of this paper is determining the need and possibilities of the complete digitalisation of postalitems clearance (collection, acceptance, receiving, reception phase). Although many postal service providers have already digitalised a significant portion of their technological processes, including the clearance of postal items, it hasn’t been completed yet. There are certain situations that require traditional manual completion of requests/data for sending postal items. This unnecessarily burdens collection capacities, increases the time needed for providing postal service (although it is being measured only after the collection of the postal item), what proportionally affects the quality of service and customer satisfaction, regardless objectively the measured or “only” the subjectively experienced. Significant differences exist among postal service providers, depending on the type of users and the type of postal items/services. The paper analyses relevant examples for the situation in the Republic of Croatia. The achieved level of digitalisation, not only in the society as a whole but among almost all postal service providers as well, represents a solid foundation for extending this approach to the remaining part of the postal items collection. In addition to reducing the negative effects, such efforts would enable potentials for further automation of postal processes, standardisation of procedures, and sharing of certain network resources by multiple postal operators, bringing various benefits to both users and postal service providers as well.