~~~MAR 14TH  by

BRYCE ON POLITICS & MANAGEMENT

- How far behind is the USPS operating behind its competitors?

The United States Postal Service (USPS) recently announced it is going to suspend Saturday deliveries of mail. Actually, we shouldn’t be too surprised as paper based mail has been diminishing over the years, thanks to e-mail, electronic banking, and rising postal costs. I know many businesses who avoid the USPS as much as possible and prefer the service of other carriers instead. All of this adds up to a decline in revenues and an increase in expenses for the USPS who is now scrambling to reorganize themselves in order to survive.

One of the key lessons I preach when working with young people is,“Everything begins with a sale.” Business functions such as administration, engineering, research and development, and customer service are nice, but all employees should be cognizant of the fact that everything begins with a sale. Consequently, employees should be mindful that everything should be geared towards producing income and minimizing costs. In the case of the USPS, either the product isn’t priced properly, or they’re running an unproductive operation.

One clear indicator is the amount of profit associated with each employee. To illustrate, let’s consider a commercial enterprise, such as the Ford Motor Company, who in 2012 had 164,000 employees. The company had $136.26B in revenues and $128.632B in expenses, leaving an operating profit of $7.628B. If we divide the profit by the total number of employees we find each employee is responsible for incurring $46,512 of the profit. Think of this as a performance measure. It is an important figure which every employee should be cognizant of, yet few companies publicize.

Keep the Faith!

Note: All trademarks both marked and unmarked belong to their respective companies.

Tim Bryce is a writer and the Managing Director of M&JB Investment Company (M&JB) of Palm Harbor, Florida and has over 30 years of experience in the management consulting field. He can be reached at timb001@phmainstreet.com

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