***Only candidates with the relevant right to work will be considered***

KEY INFORMATION

Job Title: Post office Business Development and Customer Experience company

Sector: Services

Position Type: Short-Term Consultancy

Duration/Level of Effort: Up to 60 days over four months (February 2024 onwards)

Position Location: Ramallah, Post office

Reports to: This role reports to Tasdeer Workstream Lead 2 and Post Office Director 

FCDO Trade Facilitation and Customs Support (Tasdeer)

The Trade Facilitation and Customs Support programme (Tasdeer) is a programme funded by the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) and implemented by Cowater International.

The objective of the Tasdeer programme is to improve the Palestinian private sector’s competitiveness and the PA’s capacity in the fields of trade, customs and import policy regulation and administration. The Tasdeer programme aims to increase sustainable private sector-led economic growth and job creation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and the PA’s fiscal sustainability while ensuring equitable access to increased trade and improved institutional capacity. Gender Equality and Social Inclusion is a main tool and objective for Tasdeer to ensure the benefits of the programme are equally accessed by the diverse groups of men and women in the supply chain.

Tasdeer is designed to be flexible and adaptive and works politically and technically to make progress across four keys interrelated Workstreams:

• Workstream 1: Support to expedite the movement of goods and reduce transaction costs. This workstream aims to develop systemic interventions that will seek to expedite the movement of goods and contribute to impactful reductions in transaction costs for Palestinian imports and exports.
• Workstream 2: Support to improve Palestinian trade-related institutions and business enabling environment. This workstream aims to improve Palestinian trade-related institutions and strengthen the trade operating environment.
• Workstream 3: Support to improve the private sector’s skills and innovation to export and create jobs. This workstream aims to support activities that will help Palestinian firms increase their exports through the application of a market-driven approach. This market-driven approach will identify potential buyers/markets while exploring the linkages between the buyer, the firms, and its suppliers.
• Workstream 4: Support to improve PA’s Customs readiness to assume functions from Israel to collect revenues from trade-related taxes. This workstream aims to provide technical assistance to enhance the capacity of the PA Ministry of Finance Customs Department including the possible transfer of additional custom functions from Israel to the PA and to limit fiscal losses from inefficient clearance mechanism of trade-related taxes between the PA.

The interventions implemented by each workstream are designed to take into consideration the roles and needs of women, youth, and people with disabilities, including those in marginalized areas (i.e., East Jerusalem, seam zone, area C and Gaza), ensuring that all interventions and activities are GESI responsive.

Information on The Postal Office intervention

In recent years, service provision has significantly improved and the postal office management, led and supervised by the ministry of Telecommunication and Information Technology, especially after reaching an agreement with the Israeli side in 2016 and joining UPU as an observer member in 1999 which gives Palestine all the members rights except voting. 

The improvement in the postal service have not been recognised as expected by the Palestinian public and especially the business sector, mainly due to lack of a concrete and well-articulated marketing strategy. The Post office aims to to develop and implement a marketing and promotional strategy that will increase awareness of the new and improved services. Moreover, the post office plans to continue the development process through improving the existing services (and customer experience) and introduce new service that further facilitate the trade and e-commerce in Palestine.  

In line with the project goals to support the Post office work, Tasdeer intends to support the Ministry of Telecommunication and Information Technology (MTIT) in promoting their new services among the Palestinian SMEs “Small and Midsize Enterprise”, improve the postal office customer experience and assess the current services to design new ones that targets Palestinian startups and MSMEs.    

Objectives of the Assignment

Tasdeer is seeking company to assess all services provided currently by the post office including the viability and quality of services for the following objectives:  

1. Understand the suitability of the provided services, identify gaps in the efforts to improve the offered services as required by customers with focus on SMEs.
2. Understand the satisfaction and customer experience in the currently provided services in the efforts to improve the delivery of services and propose recommendations for improving customer satisfaction.

The hired expert(s) are expected to incorporate analysis of GESI groups’ experiences utilising Post Office services to ensure that subsequent upgrades improve Post Office experiences for all stakeholders and customers.

Scope of Work

The hired expert(s) work should include the following:

• Evaluate existing service provision, including:
  • Draft an assessment report of the current post office services and the customer experience provided with special focus on services provided to SMEs and GESI individuals and make recommendations for improving customer experience.
  • review previous assessments based on the PO work with UPU including ORE, and identify gaps based on the PRE, DRE, and the 2IPD.
  • Conduct field research to identify the needs and requirements of SMEs and evaluate potential opportunities for improved service delivery.
  • Assess the communication tools currently in use at the Post Office to engage with customers (for example, website, social media, mobile app) and suggest new tools if needed.  
  • Review and suggest adjustments to the way in which currently available communication tools are utilised by the Post Office for customer engagement. 
  • Conduct a review of international best practice in comparable services from equivalent institutions and deliver a presentation to stakeholders identifying notable examples.  
• Support the Post Office to upgrade services, including:
  • Design a three-year upgrade plan for improving/upgrading the current services, including, but not limited to, development of a detailed workplan for implementation of these activities based on achievable targets and a benchmark with international players based on the 2IPD.
  • Suggest new services to be offered by the post office to improve the business environment for SMEs.
  • Identify the resources/capacity needed by the post office to improve/ maintain its services.
  • Identify the responsible department in the Post office for each activity in the upgrade plan.
• Support the Post Office to design and implement a monitoring system to provide ongoing monitoring of service provision, including:
  • Identify the requirements to implement an internal system that can measure the change in demand and other data related to customers.
  • Design a monitoring tool and corresponding documentation, such as a framework or operations manual, that measures Post Office service performance and aligns with existing Post Office monitoring systems.
  • Provide limited, ad hoc support to the Post Office during the implementation of the monitoring tool.
  • Train the post office staff on the service monitoring tool
• Presenting the findings of deliverables to the stakeholders and delivering update presentations to the Post Office management as requested.

In addition, all activities of the assignment should consider gender, small-scale youth, and PWD traders, for the duration of the assignment.

Roles and Responsibilities:

Based on the scope of work, the hired company is expected to be responsible for:

1. Holding meetings with Post office senior management to ensure strong understanding the Post Office plans and goals.
2. Holding meetings with stakeholders, including SMEs and customers, to understand their concerns with existing service provision, and identify opportunities for more effective, high-quality service provision.
3. Ensuring that all assessments and plans are coherent with the general policy of the Palestinian government.
4. Assessing the current capacity and service provision at the post office.
5. Assessment and benchmarking: the expert(s) will create a benchmark to measure changes resulted from the suggested improvements.

Desk Research: collect and review relevant documents that can be utilized in understanding current service delivery and the target audience.

Deliverables:

The deliverables for this assignment are as follows:

1. Inception report (including methodology and workplan)
2. Assessment report, evaluating current services and benchmarking. Assessment will include identification of resources needed by the post office.
3. Assessment report on the past work with UPU
4. Report presenting suggested new services and expected impact.
5. Development plan
6. Monitoring tool
7. Delivery of training of Post Office staff
8. Closing report

The scope and deadlines of all deliverables will be agreed between the expert and the Tasdeer team during the inception of the assignment.

Geographic coverage and duty station:

The hired company is expected to be in a close cooperation with The Post office and Tasdeer. They are expected to be based in Palestine, with the ability to conduct field visits to Post Office sites and meet with stakeholders.

Qualifications:

• 7+ years’ experience in customer experience, marketing, sales, and business development
• Strong knowledge of business-to-business marketing best practices (certification is a plus)
• 3+ years’ experience in e-commerce
• Proven experience in monitoring and evaluation is a plus.
• Experience in conducting field research and sector assessment. Previous work with governmental organization is a plus.
• Experience designing and delivering institutional training.

APPLICATION PROCESS 

interested companies are encouraged to apply as soon as possible, no later than 4:00 pm Sunday 4th of February 2024 to [email protected]. We will assess applications on a rolling basis.

Companies must submit the following to be considered:

• A full CV of all implementing and supporting staff
• Submit a short technical proposal that highlight methodology and workplan with specific roles and responsibilities that will be followed during implementation.

For your application to be considered, please upload your documents as follows: Candidate Last Name, First Name, date, Title of the Position. 

Cowater International is an equal opportunity employer, basing employment on merit and qualifications as they relate to professional experience and position expectations. Cowater does not discriminate against any employee or applicant on the basis of race, religion, sex, gender identity, disability, age, or any other basis protected by law.

We thank all applicants, however only those shortlisted will be contacted.

ABOUT US

With more than 35 years’ experience, Cowater International is Canada’s global leader in management consulting services specializing in international development and has managed the implementation of over 800 projects in more than 80 countries around the globe. We work with governments, partner organizations, communities and civil society to design and implement sustainable solutions that generate lasting social, financial and environmental impacts. Our adaptive approach to management has led to our award-winning work and recognition as one of Canada’s Best Managed Companies in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021. Headquartered in Ottawa, Canada, Cowater International also has corporate offices in Montreal, Quebec; London, United Kingdom; Nairobi, Kenya; and Brussels, Belgium, in addition to project offices in a wide variety of other locations across Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia.

We thank you for your interest in building a better tomorrow with Cowater International.