Trouble in "postal-dise"

An article in the Globe and Mail on October 17th, provided a bit of insight into the state of the British postal organization and the way its citizens perceive it. The story, about the Royal Mail's current branch closures experience, contrasts the public response against a similar experience undertaken by Canada Post many years ago. The simple truth is that the business model on which the vast majority of postal administrations were founded and on which they've sustained themselves, is at a juncture. Either it can persist status quo (perhaps with a little lipstick to spruce it up) and end up extinct in the not too distant future. Or, it can choose to evolve and become something more vital and relevant to the prevailing and developing social and commercial environment.

Many postal administrations are staring at this hard truth light like deer on a divider line: big eyed with wonder and stunned with the realization that this is different. Some, such as the one I work for, have seen this coming and have been preparing: morphing slowly. But change typically comes neither slowly nor suddenly. It comes like a 30-year sensation: ignored until its effect is omnipresent. In hindsight, we can all point to the many little things that led to the change and say, "Shoulda seen it coming." Whatever. It's too late by then.

More important, for people involved or peripherally watching the postal industry, is the fact that when the post office changes it will very likely change in a way that shifts its development arc significantly. Ten years from now we may all be wondering what life was like before . . . After all, how many people persist in remembering Nokia as a resource business?

The quantum shifts in the world, particularly since Gutenberg and then the industrial revolution have had only a positive or benign (at worst) affect on the postal world. Overnight courier and even facsimile proved not to be the giant-killers so many quaked about. The electronic age of the Internet is taking a little bit of time to really ramp up, but (at the risk of being over-dramatic and eventually wrong) this time it's different. The stories are only going to get more frequent and more dire.

Posted by Grayson at October 20, 2003 12:21 PM