strategic-management

EXHIBIT 1 USPS Summary Financial Data
Years Ended September 30––Percent Change from Preceding Year
need to reduce costs with a continued commitment to strategies such as Intelligent
Mail ® , which are essential to our future. We will be guided by one principle:
we exist to serve our customers. This vision is our commitment to ensuring a
vital Postal Service for future generations. Our vision rests on three major strategies:
(1) Focus on what matters most to customers. (2) Leverage our strengths to
create customer value and profits to invest in continued improvement. (3) Embrace
change in the way we respond to emerging customer needs and a rapidly evolving
business environment.
CASE 14 • THE UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE (USPS) — 2009 139
2008 2007 2006 2008 2007 2006
(Dollars in millions)
Operating revenue $ 74,932 $ 74,778 $ 72,650 0.2% 2.9% 3.9%
Operating expenses $ 77,738 $ 80,105 $ 71,681 (3.0%) 11.8% 5.0%
Income from Operations $ (2,806) $ (5,327) $ 969
Operating margin (3.7%) (7.1%) 1.3%
Net (loss) income $ (2,806) $ (5,142) $ 900
Purchase of capital property
and equipment $ 1,995 $ 2,715 $ 2,630 (26.5%) 3.2% 13.5%
Debt $ 7,200 $ 4,200 $ 2,100
Interest expense $ 36 $ 10 $ 5
Capital contributions of U.S.
government $ 3,034 $ 3,034 $ 3,034
Retained (deficit) earnings
since reorganization $ (4,706) $ (1,900) $ 3,242
Total Net Capital $ (1,672) $ 1,134 $ 6,276
Number of employees 663,238 684,762 696,138 (3.1%) (1.6%) (1.2%)
Actual Mail volume (in millions
of pieces) 202,703 212,234 213,138 (4.5%) (0.4%) 0.7%
New delivery points served 1,199,764 1,818,326 1,847,831
Source: www.usps.com.
History
Communication between colonists, colonies, and England depended primarily on
friends, merchants, and the Native Americans. In 1639, the first official notice of a
postal service appeared in the colonies. It was the responsibility of local authorities to
operate postal routes. A Continental Congress was organized in Philadelphia in May
1775 to establish an independent government. One of its first questions was how to
deliver the mail. Benjamin Franklin led the Committee of Investigation to establish a
postal system. On July 26, 1775, over 225 years ago, the Continental Congress
appointed Franklin as postmaster general. Following the adoption of the Constitution in
May 1789, the Act of September 22, 1789, temporarily established a post office and
created the Office of the Postmaster General. At that time there were 75 post offices and
about 2,000 miles of post roads, although as late as 1780 the postal staff consisted only
of a postmaster general, a secretary/comptroller, three surveyors, one inspector of dead
letters, and 26 post riders.
The Post Office Department was not specifically established as an executive department
by Congress until June 8, 1872 (17 Stat. 284–4). As mail delivery evolved from foot
to horseback, stagecoach, steamboat, railroad, automobile, and airplane, with intermediate
and overlapping use of balloons, helicopters, and pneumatic tubes, mail contracts ensured
the income necessary to build the great highways, rail lines, and airways that eventually