Necessity makes for strange bedfellows
A former media director of mine started her advertising career at a big New York ad agency on the US Postal Service account. In a feat of heroics, late one evening this resourceful rookie overnighted an important package to her client, only to get a call from the Postmaster General himself the next morning asking to speak with the SOB who had sent a package to postal HQ via Federal Express.
Today, only a few short decades after this powerful fellow made a federal case out of the above ordeal, now the US Postal Service uses FedEx themselves when it absolutely, positively can’t be delivered to foreign address in 2 days or less.
A strange partnership?
That’s sorta my point, if this slightly gargantuan, 200+ year old institution can be open minded enough to see where they can’t deliver to their public, so to speak, and can make the right strategic alliances to fill around their limitations, then what the heck is stopping you’re slightly less bureaucratic organization from figuring out such dilemmas.
I don’t know exactly how it came about, but USPS/FedEx alliance was a huge leap for either or both organizations, from an open mindedness standpoint. As creative as it is or isn’t, it’s a whole lot more practical than having the US government run a whole separate system internationally, virtually duplicating the competition’s machinery and hurting both groups’ profitability.
I think it’s only fair to bring to your attention when such an otherwise ancient, seemingly less-than-progressive organization makes a bold creative move. Among other things it tells us there’s hope for even the most stuck-in-their ways companies. (Even yours?) I mean, if our government wasn’t enjoying the kinds of economies and efficiencies made possible by this progressive partnership, we might be forced to pay upwards of 13-cents for postage stamps. You people are so out of touch.
