USPS Office of Inspector General

You can’t cut your way to prosperity. It’s a common saying in business circles, particularly in the mailing industry. The U.S. Postal Service has done a good job cutting costs, yet still needs to grow revenue with new products and services.

Indeed, recent reports suggest a sure way for a post to boost revenue is by offering customers a range of innovative products, such as parcels, logistics, banking, insurance, and digital services. Many of our papers have encouraged the Postal Service to explore these kinds of revenue-generating products and services.

The sometimes elusive concept of “brand” is very real and useful to businesses and organizations of all kinds and sizes. A brand encompasses an array of tangible and intangible elements, from a company’s name and logo to consumers’ expectations of a particular product or service. For instance, the names and logos of Mercedes Benz and Lexus usually make people think of reliable, well-built, luxury cars. Wal-Mart and Target are most often associated with large inventories of everyday goods at discounted prices.

Steve Jobs was famous for the ingenious simplicity of his designs. And, of course, his single button iPhone, now the standard in smart phoning, is a great testament to the value of simplicity.

As in design, simplicity in pricing, and a related simplicity of choices, are appealing to consumers. There is even empirical evidence that consumers will buy more when they aren’t overwhelmed with too much clutter and too many choices.

For the first time in years, the U.S. Postal Service has money to invest in its future. Postal officials have said they expect to spend about $2 billion on capital projects in 2015.

There’s a good chance most of that investment will go toward revamping the 190,000-vehicle fleet – one of the Postal Service’s most pressing needs. Our audit work found that the Postal Service’s vehicle fleet is adequate for delivery needs only until about 2017.

A business is only as good as its employees, which is why more and more organizations are offering flexible workforce policies to attract and retain the best workers. Among other things, flexible workforce policies help employees adjust their work schedules to the needs and circumstances of their personal lives, so they can have a healthier work-life balance. The idea is that happier employees are more committed and productive employees, and that leads to better customer service.