Stories
Stories
3-Minute Briefing: Nagisa Manabe (MBA 1991)
(Photo by Lance Rosenfield)
I think this will be the one and only time that I’ll ever be able to say that everybody in the United States of America is my customer. Even back in the day, when I started at Procter & Gamble, it wasn’t 100 percent of households that bought soap.
I’m probably most proud of our innovations in package delivery. The American consumer has rising expectations about the speed and quality of package delivery. So what we’re working toward is a 7-day, 364-days-of-the-year schedule. Do you know the one day we’re not going to deliver? Thanksgiving. It’s a family holiday. And who is really looking for a package on Thanksgiving?
Year over year, our revenue is up, even if we’re still in the red. And that’s a good thing.
Touring a postal facility, you’ll often see someone hand-sorting beautiful, large envelopes, usually wedding invitations, to ensure they’re not damaged. There’s a huge amount of automation in the Postal Service, but also this true attention to detail.
It’s a little bit ironic, but we are doing much more marketing right now through direct mail, which is a very effective recruitment tool for engaging small businesses. That’s in addition to the same 360-degree approach of Internet search, digital, print, radio, and television that I would have used for Guinness or Captain Morgan when I was at Diageo.
The only real difference between the Postal Service and any of the other brands I’ve worked on is that we are guaranteed to get news coverage, both positive and negative, in a way that many brands would never experience.
I was an investment banker before I went to HBS, and then I went into marketing. I never thought that a course in production and operations management would have anything to do with my life. But some of the stuff you learn as an MBA really helps when you’re the head of marketing for a logistics company.
My parents emigrated here from Japan. There were very few Japanese restaurants in Washington, D.C. when I was growing up, so my grandmother would pack sea-mail packages to us every month or two. When grandma’s package came, we could finally eat Japanese food again.
I study Iyengar yoga and own a yoga studio in Kingston, New Jersey. A few hours on the mat is a calming influence in anyone’s day. I also have two puppies. I find that if you spend 20 minutes playing with your dog every day, you’re a better person.
When I served as a deacon at our church, I wrote condolence notes to folks who had lost a loved one. I have to tell you, when you’re most in need, a handwritten letter is a powerful thing. Sometimes email doesn’t suffice.
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