Whistl
prospect of running something which I didn ’ t know what I did or didn ’ t understand . I said I ’ d do it for a year as a restructuring sort of focus but I have loved it . The change you can make and the influence you can have is what excites me . You can determine the speed of change within the company .”
Indeed , Whistl now processes 26 percent of all UK mail through its seven hubs and is eyeing up further expansion into parcels and international deliveries , of which IT will play a crucial part . It already sorts four billion items a year through its core sorted , unsorted , international and hybrid services , which allows
Lieneke Happel , IT Director customers to electronically upload what they want to post with Whistl sorting the printing and delivery . The company also conducts targeted doordrop media and leafleting campaigns with customers , based on careful analysis of client and third party data . Major customers include Sky , Barclays and Aegon .
Keeping it simple Approaching IT from a customer experience standpoint with a holistic business strategy in mind has paid dividends .
“ I think two things really help me in my job today ,” Happel explains . “ One is that I have an overall business view on running IT . I have experience in managing resources and costs that lead to results . The second is trust . The team I work with know that I know the business . “ The one bugbear I had was the gap between business and IT . IT is simply a department within the business and the business is simply a series of departments . I immediately had to
74 July 2016