Go Lean…Caribbean

Go Lean Commentary

The American company Amazon is the model for the Caribbean Postal Union (CPU): our means for delivering the mail.

This is surprising! One would think the American model would be the US Postal Service (USPS). No, the book Go Lean…Caribbean posits that the USPS is a failing enterprise, as of late; they lose money every year, have excessively high overhead expense base and an under-funded pension (Page 99). Why would anyone want to model that?

The focus of the CPU is not postal mail, but rather logistics. So we would want to model a successful enterprise in this industry space, like Amazon, not just another postal operation.

But Amazon does so much more than just sell books online. They are the epitome of an electronic commerce company. They operate a number of business operations online and off-line; and they run these companies well. They provide a good example of lean technocratic efficiency. So Amazon is a good model, not just for the CPU but the entire Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The book Go Lean…Caribbean, serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic CU.

This concept of “lean” is very prominent in the book, even adapting the title, Go Lean, for the quest for excellence in Caribbean economic empowerment and governing efforts. The label “lean” is indicative of this quest; the word is used as a noun, a verb and an adjective. This point is pronounced early in the book (Page 4) with these statements:

The CU will lean on, lean in, lean over backwards, and then lean towards…The CU will embrace lean, agile, efficient organization structures – more virtual, less physical, more systems, less payroll.

The foregoing news article and VIDEO demonstrate Amazon’s commitment to a lean business model with their deployment of a proprietary smartphone.

By: Keith Wagstaff, Technology Reporter
The long-rumored Amazon smartphone was officially unveiled Wednesday and, yes, it has a 3-D screen. Well, technically Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos called it “dynamic perspective,” but it gives the new Fire Phone the illusion of depth with no glasses required thanks to four face-tracking cameras built into the front of the phone. While it features a 4.7-inch Gorilla Glass screen, users don’t necessarily have to touch the screen, thanks to controls that let people scroll through pages by tilting the phone. It also unveiled a service called Firefly, which makes it easier to buy items on Amazon by scanning and recognizing more “100 million different items” including books, movies and other products. The Fire Phone (32 GB), which ships July 25, is available now for pre-order for $199 with a two-year AT&T contract.

NBC News / CNBC – Cable News Channel (Posted 06-18-2014; retrieved 06/19/2014) –http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/gadgets/amazon-unveils-new-3-d-fire-smartphone-n134561

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

From the first glance, a benefit of the Fire smartphone is obvious for Amazon’s core business ^[a]. A consumer can scan “more than 100 million different items” and process a direct purchase directly from the phone – any electronic media would be delivered instantly to the phone, while a chattel good would be delivered within days, using Amazon’s already matured logistics network. Evidently, the execution of this business model requires hardware (smartphone) and not just some software (app).

This is win-win.

This entire model demonstrates the advantage of leading with technological innovations, even for non-technical endeavors.

This synchronizes with the Go Lean roadmap for elevating Caribbean society. The CU will employ technologically innovative products and services to impact its prime directives; identified with the following 3 statements:

• Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
• Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines.
• Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.

The book posits that the Caribbean is in crisis, but that this crisis can be a good thing because a “crisis is a terrible thing to waste”. Therefore the roadmap seeks to change the entire eco-system of Caribbean commerce and the interaction with postal operations. This vision is defined early in the book (Page 12 & 14) in the following pronouncements in the Declaration of Interdependence:

xv. Whereas the business of the Federation and the commercial interest in the region cannot prosper without an efficient facilitation of postal services, the Caribbean Union must allow for the integration of the existing mail operations of the governments of the member-states into a consolidated Caribbean Postal Union, allowing for the adoption of best practices and technical advances to deliver foreign/domestic mail in the region.

xxvii. Whereas the region has endured a spectator status during the Industrial Revolution, we cannot stand on the sidelines of this new economy, the Information Revolution. Rather, the Federation must embrace all the tenets of Internet Communications Technology (ICT) to serve as an equalizing element in competition with the rest of the world. The Federation must bridge the digital divide and promote the community ethos that research/development is valuable and must be promoted and incentivized for adoption.

This roadmap changes everything … in the Caribbean:

• The CPU will be the owner/operator of the Caribbean Cloud web-site dubbed as myCaribbean.gov.
• The CPU will operate a marketplace (like EBay or Amazon.com) to facilitate business transactions for Caribbean-based businesses and consumers (in the homeland or the Diaspora).
• The CPU will provide mobile apps to facilitate contact & commerce within the region, modeling this Amazon FIRE feature.
• The CPU will provide logistics to deliver products (“wet and dry”) to every Caribbean address.
• The CPU will be the owner/operator of the cutting-edge network planned for pneumatic capsule pipelines in the region.
• The CPU will own/operate refrigerated warehouses throughout the region, to distribute “wet” merchandise to destinations.
• The CPU will be the Number One client for the Union Atlantic Turnpike, providing the cargo/parcels on the vessels (ferries, etc.) and thoroughways/tollways/railways built to inter-connect the islands of the homeland and the coastal states.

Creating the CPU and the Caribbean Cloud is “Step One, Day One” in the Go Lean roadmap. This is the by-product of assembling regional organs with multilateral cooperation and a separation-of-powers. The roadmap identifies Service Level Agreements (SLA) that the CPU will adhere to in fulfilling the obligations to its stakeholders: residents and member-state governments. There will be financial penalties for failures to deliver “absolutely, positive” at the agreed-upon schedule. This is how technocracies are structured. The guarantee forms the community ethos that success is not optional!

The Go Lean book details a series of community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to foster the best practices for the delivery of CPU logistics in the Caribbean region:

Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO, incorporated the company (as Cadabra) in July 1994 and the site went online as Amazon.com in 1995. Bezos changed the name cadabra.com to amazon.com because it sounded too much like cadaver. Additionally, a name beginning with “A” was preferential due to the probability it would occur at the top of any list that was alphabetized.