The USPS Is At The Edge of Insolvency - A Warning to All?
Date: September 27, 2011 Posted by: Del Merenda, President & CEO, i-MARK, Inc.
B2b buyers of components and assemblies are searching, evaluating and purchasing products using the Internet, which is fast becoming their primary marketplace for B2B transactions. Many of your competitors are already up-and-running or are busy putting their websites to work. How well equipped is your company to do business on the Internet? If not so well, then don't let this happen to you!
‘The U.S. Postal Service, burdened with huge financial losses, recently announced that it was facing a "new reality" that would include shutting a slew of processing facilities, changing service standards for first-class mail and cutting up to 35,000 positions.
The news comes after the agency recently announced it was studying shutting hundreds of post offices across the nation as its business erodes amid the growing use of e-mail and other Internet tools. The agency has reported a series of financial losses that have pushed it to the edge of insolvency.’ (MSNBC 09/15/2011)
At first glance you might ask, 'what does my manufacturing company have in common with the US Postal Service'? Well for one thing, you both have . . . customers. Customers who find the Internet to be a far easier and more effective place to interact with their existing suppliers, and who are finding new suppliers that can deliver what they need, at the right price, and on time.
However, establishing and end-to-end Internet eBusiness process is a 'lock, stock and barrel' proposition, not to be taken lightly nor accomplished overnight. B2B manufacturers must begin much sooner than otherwise planned because interactive eBusiness can only be successful when you staff, think and operate within a well-established 'new company' eBusiness culture. Small-to-medium-sized manufacturers will be especially challenged by the high cost of eBusiness conversions and the scarcity of deep-Internet eBusiness expertise; unlike their deep pocket enterprise-level competitors who are 'all in'.
Small-to-medium manufacturers will be especially burdened due to high conversion costs, and the deep Internet eBusiness expertise needed to ‘pull it all off’, all while your enterprise-level competitors aggressively invest boundless IT resources into their Internet eBusiness transformations.
Don’t you be left out in the cold or be pushed to the edge of insolvency. Act now to begin your own transition. Seek out quality eBusiness solution providers with extensive B2B experience and excellent track records. They will deliver enterprise-level capability for SMB affordable pricing. If you sell a large number of unique and complex-engineered products with subtlety different characteristics, or products built using rules-based configuration, they are a natural fit for your self-service website, intuitively guiding buyers to find-and-buy from you, just as they now do with so many of your competitors.
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