WHAT'S THE USPS GOT UP ITS SLEEVE?

The following is a perspective by postal commentator Gene Del Polito for Direct magazine. The views expressed are solely the author's.

The financial picture over at the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) has been looking pretty good. There is no doubt that the Postmaster General has done a yeoman's job in keeping a firm grip on the postal fisc. Once again, it looks as if the USPS will finish its current fiscal year with a reasonable stash of cash.

Thus far, however, the Postal Service's show has been one-sided, i.e., "cost-sided." Very little has been seen from the USPS on what others might characterize as its strategic plan for growing future mail volume and revenue. The time the USPS bought by fat-trimming is running out. If that's the only act the Postal Service has then it soon will find itself on the horns of another fiscal dilemma. The dilemma, one would suspect, will be made a lot worse of postal reform is enacted and the USPS doesn't move quickly enough to transform its governmental-bureaucratic culture into more of an entrepreneurial mode.

When the PMG took his turn at the plate testifying before the President's Commission on the Postal Service, he characterized the Postal Service as having only one real asset to market, i.e., its rate schedule. Well, you would have thought the dawning of that realization some three years ago would have been enough to stimulate an exploration of how that rate schedule could be re-engineered to meet the changing needs of 21st century business environment.

For the past three years, the USPS has been playing its cards close to the vest. Or, to use the jargon currently in fashion at L'Enfant Plaza, it's been doing its thing "under the radar screen."

Now, when it comes to growing mail volume and revenue, and when it comes to adding real value to mail as a business development and transactional medium, maybe the USPS has been holding a few aces up its sleeve. If the aces are there, the time is quickly coming for the USPS to show its hand. One of these days the USPS Governors, the General Accountability Office, or Congress itself is going to call the Postal Service's hand to see what it's been holding. It would be downright embarrassing to find that all the USPS has is bluster and bluff and not enough to beat even a simple pair.

Okay, the past several months spent on postal reform and the postal rate case have commanded much of the USPS' attention. One would expect, however, that a $70 billion organization with over 700,000 employees would be able to do a little multi-tasking.