A franchising of retail operations : the case of the United States Postal Service building a retail network for the 21st century

This thesis is about the effects of changing customer preferences on the United States Postal Service's retail network and offers a process for wider adoption of its current retail partnership program. The Contract Postal Unit (CPU) program represents 10 percent of the Postal Service's current outlets. This is a form of franchising. This thesis reviews franchising theory and highlights key research in the area to develop a business framework. Since many of the foreign posts have also been experimenting with operations similar to the CPU program, the franchising programs of four European posts are reviewed. I conclude by offering an approach that the Postal Service may use to look at how and when its customers use its products and services at their retail outlets and provide several recommendations that the Postal Service might consider if and when the Contract Postal Unit program is expanded.

Department dc:contributor.department

Sloan School of Management.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2010

Author dc:creator

• Sigmon, Kelly M. (Kelly Marie Berg)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• John Van Maanen.

• Sloan School of Management.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/59128

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/59128