A logística dos Correios: uma analise da integração territorial a partir das agências de Correios

Abstract

The Brazilian Post and Telegraph Company is responsible for the provision of postal services in Brazil, being present in the 5,570 municipalities and being responsible for guaranteeing universal access to basic postal services to all population, regardless of location. In this way, due to the vast presence in the territory, the Post Office plays a role of territorial integration agent, connecting places, people, public institutions and companies. To understand this role of the Post Office, this study presents a notion of the concepts of logistics and territorial integration, and the way these concepts are perceived in the provision of postal services. Therefore, it was intended in this study to analyze the extent to which the presence of the Post Office in the municipality of Bom Sucesso and in the districts of Macaia and Machados contributes to the territorial integration of its users through the provision of the services of the company. For this, the case study method was used, through the use of questionnaires to conduct interviews with the employees of the Bom Sucesso agency and with the users of the Correios residing in the municipality and its districts. In addition, the use of secondary data, obtained on the official website of the Post Office, as well as in the Reports of the Post Administration, was used in order to enrich the results. Thus, it was possible to know the perception of the employees of the Bom Sucesso agency in relation to the role of the Post Office in the integration of the territory, as well as the users' perception of such role, besides reporting difficulties faced by users of the Post Office in the provision of services by part of the company and the suggestions for improvement for them. In this sense, it was verified that, in the view of the employees, the Post Office functions as an important agent of territorial integration because, in small towns such as Bom Sucesso, the capillarity of the services provided by the Post Office and the social actions carried out by the company, Santa Claus from the Post Office, bring access to information, basic postal and financial services and the social inclusion of the entire population, especially the less favored. In the view of the users, in general, all consider the provision of postal services, of a postal or financial nature, very important for the community in which they are inserted and for society, since, for them, such services bring practicality to day-to-day, whether it is the receipt of letters and parcels at home or the most accessible alternative to carry out banking services through Banco Postal. In addition, users consider the projects and social actions developed by the Post Office important for society insofar as it promotes solidarity and benefits the needy population. However, for users residing in Bom Sucesso, the opening hours of the agency, and the queues found in the service to the public, are the great difficulties encountered in providing the services of the Post Office in their city. As for the residents of the districts of Machados, the main difficulty is the absence of a Post office in the district and, for the residents of Macaia, the difficulty is related to the limitation in the provision of postal services through located there. In this way, the solutions found by users for such difficulties were, respectively, the hiring of personnel, the installation of post offices at Machados and the expansion of services provided at Macaia. It was concluded, therefore, that the accomplishment of this study was important in that it made it possible to visualize in a practical way the work of the Post Office as agent of territorial, social and economic integration of the small localities. Also, it is suggested as future studies, the application of research in the most deprived regions of the country, as is the case of the North and Northeast regions.