Our suppliers help us be successful in our mission of serving the American public. They provide equipment, materials and services that enable us to deliver superior products and services to our customers. Overseeing these relationships is our Supply Management organization, which supports key Postal Service programs by providing timely and lean solutions with its supply-chain partners. In FY2015, Supply Management supported many strategic initiatives including Network Optimization and World Class Package Platform activities. As Supply Management works with its business partners to increase the efficiency of moving the mail, we’re equally focused on reducing the possibility of damaged and lost mail and improving the processes around handling such items. This effort, called Project ICE (Improve Customer Experience), includes multi-organizational project teams that work to identify and correct root causes for damaged and undeliverable mail.
In addition to our commitment to serving the American public, we’re also committed to high levels of service in the delivery of USPS products and services throughout the world. In 2015, we awarded 2,000 air transportation service lanes in nine international regions while reducing the overall cost of these services.
Finally, while the United States accounts for 45 percent of the global market in cross-border shopping, our offerings are limited. Supply Management and Global Business are working together to bring the Global eCommerce Marketplace on line, positioning the Postal Service to become more competitive in providing these services.
Supplier Diversity — The Postal Service is recognized as a leader in multicultural business opportunities and the Supplier Diversity program continues to strengthen our competitiveness in the marketplace. In FY2015, the Postal Service had contract commitments that exceeded $4.5 billion with small businesses, $527 million with minority businesses and $766 million with women-owned businesses. DiversityBusiness.com named the Postal Service the country’s top government agency for multicultural business opportunities, confirming a consistent and quality commitment to providing business opportunities to women- and minority-owned businesses.
Supplier Diversity supports several initiatives that emphasize supplier diversity as a core component of Postal Service operations. These include promoting supplier registration, delivering workshops, conducting one-on-one business meetings and maintaining a prominent presence on usps.com. When they go online, businesses can find information about steps to take to effectively market supplies and services within the postal marketplace. Supplier Diversity also maintains joint memberships with premier multicultural business and trade associations such as the National Minority Supplier Development Council, Women’s Business Enterprise National Council, U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, U.S. Pan Asian American Chamber of Commerce and the National Congress of American Indians.
During FY2015, the Postal Service:
