United States Postal Service

An immense organization famous for embodying the "civil service" mentality uses the BSC to replace its inwardly focused culture with a customer-oriented, bottom-line-conscious mindset.

The United States Postal Service (USPS), which historically operated as a government-supported monopoly, was mandated by Congress in 1970 to breakeven and taxpayer subsidies were eliminated. After becoming self-sufficient in the early 1980s, USPS has become more commercial and revenue-oriented. Today, USPS has more stakeholders than most organizations, touching every business and household in the US, and until recent years, was the largest employer in the country, currently employing 700,000 people (including carriers). USPS provides products and services in several different markets: correspondence and transactions, business advertising, expedited delivery, standard package delivery, publications delivery, and international mail. Even the smallest of USPS' lines of business is a billion-dollar business.

"Several years ago, we set out to transform the Postal Service. In a changing and ever-more-competitive communications market, the Postal Service had to change... Performance had to become the watch word for everyone in the organization. To help us do this, we established a 'balanced scorecard,' which we call the National Performance Assessment...The results were impressive. We had record on-time service and customer satisfaction levels. We delivered early on our 5-year commitment to reduce costs by $5B... Volume grew to 212 B [mail pieces delivered] and revenues to $70B, which is critical as we meet the universal service obligation to our growing base of 144 M customers. We are not content with maintaining Postal Service performance at today's high levels. In partnership with our employees and customers, we continue to transform the Postal Service using the balanced scorecard to measure results and help us drive for excellence."

John E. Potter, Postmaster General and CEO