Bras Half Off

There's an old joke about a department store drawing a crowd with the above ad headline. The correspondence and communications component of the supply chain received a bit of a jolt this past week with the USPS' announcement of cutbacks that would virtually eliminate next day service to adjacent locales, cut out hundreds of sortation centers, and furlough tens of thousands of workers.

Businesses have largely gone electronic for invoicing and payments, for instance, but many smaller companies still rely on hard copy and so-called snail mail. There are generational shifts in personal communications, but a lot of folks who have continued to write checks to pay their bills are going to be rethinking electronic alternatives.

Where this short-sighted last-century approach to cutting costs (rather than inventing new processes) could lead is diminished performance in small parcel handling, which has been an occasionally useful product for businesses looking for FedEx/UPS altwernatives. It's as if Victoria's Secret decided to stop making bras because they are more complicated than tee shirts.

Meanwhile, the layoffs would seem to tip the unbalanced scales even further, with an even smaller USPS workforce supporting a proportionately greater number of retirees, which has been a major component of the cost crunch. So, let's summarize: cutbacks damaging or risking the signature product lines of First Class mail and small parcel handling; negative impacts on small business and personal communications, including the financial flow that completes supply chain transactions; and failure to repair the arguably most broken factor in the USPS business model, retirement benefits. Hmmm . . .

Tip to Victoria's Secret - don't stop making bras.