Month: December 2010

Logistics make life better

UPS Mail Innovations Opens State-of-the-Art Processing Center near Phoenix

from Market Watch, Nov 30, 2010

UPS Mail Innovations has opened a new mail processing centre in Tolleson, Ariz. The diagram below illustrate the how the UPS mail system helps improve delivery efficiency. “UPS Mail Innovations serves customers that have opted to outsource their mail operations, saving them time and money,” said David Larkin, regional manager for UPS Mail Innovations.

Having had two Comm 101 classes on Logistics, I learned a basic concept of what it is and how a bad logistics system can lower the operational efficiency of a company. However, I didn’t know that the business mail processing is considered as a logistics aspect, and that a poor management over the process could slow down company growth, especially in small and medium enterprises. Business may be paying a small premium per mail piece if they are using the wrong class of mail, which can compile into a large expense. Also, if the mails are time-sensitive or highly valuable, then a mail provider that provides real‐time updates on the in‐transit mail will be very helpful.

Use of social media in business is certainly the one most discussed topics in news nowadays. Recently, SmartBrief and Summus released a report – The State of Social Media for Business 2010 to help business in different fields determine the potential opportunities in developing social media marketing strategy. The report points out that businesses which are currently engaging in social media, use the “Big 5” (YouTube, LinkedIn, blogs, Twitter and Facebook) the most. It also indicates that brand building is the primary reason for social media to play in a role in enterprises.

Last Friday, I attended the International Business Conference 2010. The role of social media in business was one of its two focuses. During the panel discussion, Nancy Richardson, who is the director of digital strategy at lululemon athletica, said that lululemon athletica uses social media only to build relationship with customers. It posts blogs to share yoga tips, and twitter and facebook to facilitate communication, such as to remind them of their complimentary yoga class schedule. Unlike other companies, it doesn’t make use of the comments received from these social media websites as their marketing data. This remind me of the fact that most people who visit these websites don’t really know if their comments or online profile will be used in marketing assessment.