US Postal Service 2005 Annual Report Download - page 27

2005 Annual Report United States Postal Service | 17
For our customers, value is defined by quality of service,
price, and ease of use. Over the next five years we will
continue to improve the value of our products to promote
growth. We will add new features to First-Class Mail to
make it a more powerful communication tool for adver-
tisers and financial service providers. Small businesses
remain an enormous engine of the nation’s commerce,
and we are developing ways to make advertising mail more
accessible and easier for them to use. In the advertising
market our focus will be to offer services that help our
customers’ businesses grow. Customers will see continued
improvements in package delivery services as we continue
to automate operations, increase ease of use, and expand
track and trace capabilities. These changes will better
serve households and small businesses that use end-
to-end package services. Improvements will also benefit
consolidators who rely on us for delivery only. We earn
85% of our revenue from businesses and institutions, all
of whom have choices in how they communicate, bill, and
ship. To meet the needs of large business customers, we
will develop integration strategies to tailor pricing to take
advantage of the benefits of customer preparations, pack-
aging and drop-shipping capability utilizing our network
where possible.
Customers are finding that our services are more conve-
nient. Services are available via usps.com, 1-800-ASK-
USPS, by mail, self-service kiosks, grocery stores, ATMs
and through new expanded business hours at Post Offices
in the evenings and on Saturdays. The Web is making it
easier and faster to deposit commercial mailings, as trans-
actions such as manifesting, postage payment, and entry
scheduling move from paper to electronic media.
Each day we receive and deliver almost 700 million pieces
of mail. Distribution and transportation of these letters,
parcels, catalogs, and magazines occur across a network
of more than 37,000 Post Offices and retail outlets and
675 mail processing facilities. The mail is securely and
reliably delivered to more than 144 million addresses. Over
the past four years, we have improved our operations to
produce better, more consistent service with fewer re-
sources. Today, we deliver fifty percent more mail than we
did two decades ago, with the same number of employees.
In the next five years, there will be more change. Delivery
has become our largest cost center and will be the focus
of intensive efficiency efforts. We will streamline the entire
mail flow, to make it more flexible and responsive to the
changing needs of our business. In the longer term, we will
create a standardized network that contains fewer types
of processing facilities. Larger regional distribution centers
will serve as primary nodes for multiple products, and
smaller local processing facilities will process all mail with
destinations in their geographic areas. These changes will
reduce costs and improve reliability.
We will continue to implement industry best practices
throughout the mail value chain to eliminate costly rework
and standardize operations resulting in benefits for both
us and our customers. We, and the mailing industry, must
work together to raise quality levels by assuring correct
and complete addresses and routing information. As
we streamline our networks and deploy new automated
processing equipment, new tools will help us handle fluc-
tuations in demand at the lowest possible cost. Tracking
systems will show how mail flows across operations and
advance notification systems will report how much mail is
arriving. Planning models will calculate required resources.
We will hold ourselves accountable to our customers to
deliver more consistent quality and higher levels of cus-
tomer service. The higher the quality of service targeted,
the greater the importance of identifying and maintaining a
skilled and committed workforce. Our goal is an environ-
ment that encourages employees to strive to be the best.
Therefore, we will continue to build a performance-based
culture and improve the skill sets of our workforce at all
levels. In our training and leadership development we will
emphasize teamwork and customer focus. Our employees
are known for a deep commitment to service, which is wit-
nessed daily in the thousands of communities they serve.
Building on this commitment, we will increase employee
involvement at all levels and will continue to recognize high
performers. Employees will have the opportunity to move
up in the ranks of the organization through outstanding
performance and career development opportunities.
We exceeded most of the aggressive targets that we
set in our first phase of Transformation. In the course of
executing that Plan, our employees gained new levels of
confidence in the organization’s ability to meet challenges.
Despite the challenges ahead and the unresolved status of
pending postal reform legislation, we are confident that we
will also achieve the goals we have set for ourselves in this
next phase of Transformation.
Services (Products)
The Postal Service is the centerpiece of the U.S. mailing
industry. We provide a wide variety of services and prod-
ucts to meet almost any mailing need. Some of our major
services and products are: