Could Global Ecommerce Give the Postal Service a Lifeline?
An article was published recently in eCommerceBytes on the sad state of affairs at the cash-strapped U.S. Postal Service. The article, more importantly, discusses the strategic report that was prepared by Dr. V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai on how the Postal Service could leverage global commerce to increase its bottom line. The paper was commissioned by The United States Postal Service’s Office of the Inspector General (USPS-OIG).
As the article says:
“Prepared by MIT professor and entrepreneur Shiva Ayyadurai, the report describes the significant role that the Postal Service could play in facilitating global ecommerce, improving its own balance sheet while opening up new channels of economic activity for U.S. buyers and sellers.”
(Source: eCommerceBytes)
Why This News is Relevant:
The Postal Service is No Longer Innovative
The Postal Service has lost touch with its innovative roots. The founding fathers of the USA, including Benjamin Franklin were the founders of the Postal Service. They were great innovators. The Postal Service is an innovation because it is a complex system that was designed to ensure democracy. The Postal Service made it easy and cost effective for any American citizen to send mail to another American citizen at a relatively low cost. This communication system was necessary from the founding fathers’ viewpoint to ensure a vibrant democracy. The entire system was pure innovation. However, the bureaucrats who run the Postal Service today have no touch with the roots of innovation from which the Postal Service emerged.
Know the Truth:
The Postal Service Needs to Go Back to its Roots of Innovation
The Postal Service has lost its spirit of innovation. For example, the Postal Service did not even recognize the importance of electronic communication. Bureaucrats at the Postal Service believed that they were in the mail delivery business, not in the communications business. Had they seen that they were a communications organization, they would have fully embraced digital media such as email and social media. For example, as early as 1997, Dr. V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai, the inventor of email, while running and managing EchoMail, Inc. met with Postal Service officials to urge them to embrace email and to offer email as a Postal Service application.
As Ayyadurai recalls:
“I remember meeting with USPS officials in 1997 to convince them that the USPS’ trusted brand could offer a suite of email services to Fortune 1000 and small and medium businesses faster and better than we could. I recall this official’s comment, ‘We make $50 billion a year, we are like a Fortune 10 US Company. We cannot make such changes to our business model so quickly’.”
(Source: USPS and Email: Email And Its Opportunities For USPS)
The Postal Service can be saved if it recognizes that it is a communications company and embraces digital media including email and social media. The financial possibilities for the Postal Service have been highlighted in an article in FastCompany:
“Criticized as a ‘mail monopoly’ by Cato Institute, the USPS could have a chance to re-train, rather than lay off 35,000 or more workers out of about 500,000 total employees. They would become engineers and customer service agents with some help. Ayyadurai estimates that enabling the workforce to create, sell, and deliver email management and marketing solutions could generate $6 billion for the USPS…”
(Source: FastCompany)
Find Your Way:
V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai Proposes Two Solutions for the Postal Service to Make Billions
In 2012 and 2013, The United States Postal Service’s Office of the Inspector General (USPS-OIG) commissioned Dr. V.A Shiva Ayyadurai, inventor of email to propose new ideas on how email and social media can be used to generate new revenues for the Postal Service. Dr. Ayyadurai’s research institute, International Center for Integrative Systems located in Cambridge, MA produced two stellar reports in 2013. Both reports are available at free cost below. The first report demonstrated how the Postal Service can generate millions by providing a Postal Service email service for Americans. The second report shows the way how the Postal Service can generate billions by participating in what Dr. Ayyadurai has termed International Small Business Commerce.
In spite of these two detailed reports which were approved by the Office of the Inspector General, the United States Postmaster Inspector General’s office has done nothing to follow up on the clear proposals and opportunities provided in these reports. This is appalling, given that the organization is on the verge of bankruptcy and it is central to the democratic foundation of America which Dr. Ayyadurai detailed in a clear article titled The Future of Email: Is Your Email Truly Free, Private and Secure?
Be the Light:
The Postal Service MUST Exist for True Democracy
Communication is the fundamental foundation on which any democracy is built. It is imperative that the Postal Service survive. The Postal Service ensures that free and fair communication is protected by law. This means that when you send a piece of communication from one individual to another, no one can tamper with it. Right now, all of us, when we use free email and social media services, give up our right to private companies. As Dr. Ayyadurai has shown in one of his articles, the Postal Service has a huge opportunity to offer an email service protected by the governance laws of non-tampering of information already in place within the American democratic system. Such a democratic process does not work when you sign up with Gmail or Yahoo. The Postal Service can be innovative and protect our freedom by also finding new ways to use its infrastructure of 500,000 employees and thousands of locations to become an important logistics player in international small business commerce which is projected by Dr. Ayyadurai’s report to be a nearly 270 billion dollar market. We, as citizens need to realize that there are solutions as shown, for example, by Dr. Ayyadurai’s report, for the survival of the Postal Service for many years to come.
Join the Revolution:
Get Educated on How the Postal Service Once Again Becomes Innovative
Sign up to download and receive the two research reports for free. The first research report is titled Email Management & Potential Opportunities for United States Postal Service. The second report is titled International Small Business Commerce (ISBC): Potential Source of New Revenue for the United States Postal Service. Nearly two years have passed by since Dr. Ayyadurai presented his reports and the Postal Service has not done anything. Read the reports and ask your elected official why the Postal Service has done nothing.
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