Airborne Express Harvard Business case Essay

r market by entering into strategic code-sharing agreements with international carriers, such as Cathay Pacific , and American Airlines

market. This suggests that the company is highly influenced by the condition of the U.S. economy. UPS is currently in a strong position in terms of increasing shipping volumes (directly affecting the domestic segment) as a result of the improving economic climate and increase in consumer spending. Although the U.S. economy is progressing, consumers remain weary and tend to limit their spending and prefer lower-cost alternatives. The price of raw materials is also a significant factor. Oil prices in particular are highly volatile and a number of external factors such as foreign exchange fluctuations, foreign policy agendas, and supply and demand levels from emerging markets all affect dramatic price changes. The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates 2016 fuel prices will decrease from the previous year, to a predicted price per gallon of $2.38 (Investopedia). As companies like UPS take initiatives to cut costs and maintain efficiency, profit margins have increased from 11.9% in 2011 to an estimated 13.5% in 2016. This increase is a result of implementations such as UPS’s Worldport expansion of utilizing more “fuel-efficient aircrafts to help lower operating costs” (IBIS). With the increase use of e-commerce platforms, U.S. consumers have access to more information than ever before—allowing them to make more informed purchase decisions. Technology has allowed

The Express mail industry in the United States had a volume of $16-17 billion on expedited shipments in the year 1996. In the years before shipment volumes has risen 15-20% per year. However due to higher competition prices have fallen which resulted in a rise of only 10-15% in total revenues. As an example of this stands the revenue and the operating margin of the biggest player that make up 45% of the market. Federal Express’ revenue has more than quadrupled in the ten years prior 1996, however its operating margin has more than halved. (Exhibit 2) The

Although there was no way JetBlue could have prevented the cancelled flights due to bad weather, they should have had risk management plan in effect addressing ice storms before this incident occurred. Another solution to the problem would be to park incoming flights near the gate and send a bus out to pick up the passengers. This way they wouldn’t have to wait in the plane until a gate is available or call other airlines and see if they can use there

Studying FedEx, UPS and their competitive relationship in the decade from mid - 80's to mid - 90's gives a good insight for the companies' and industry's future. The two companies have different strategic goals and are operating in the same industry but in different main markets: FedEx is working on "producing outstanding financial returns" and focuses on the overnight air market while UPS is looking for "earning reasonable profit" and its core business is the two-day ground delivery. However, by 1981, the two companies started to have a strong sense

The industry consists of three major players and six second-tier players. There is intense competition between the players as shown by the price wars between UPS and Federal Express. Although the market is

The threat of new entrants is very unlikely for UPS. This would be an intimidating market to attempt to infiltrate with UPS and its trailing competitors. Whereas the lack of new entrants is a key advantage, the threat of substitutes in place of other industries products is very high. As mentioned before, UPS has three major competitors that offer similar products at a similar price. This is an area that management has to constantly evaluate. UPS evaluates what they have to offer the customer verses their other delivery needs counterparts and the customers have a no bargaining power whatsoever. If the customer is unhappy with the service or the pricing, UPS acknowledges that DHL and the FedEx will be waiting with open arms to assist them and attempt to win their loyalty. The bargaining power of the suppliers is also very low due to cut throat competition. If low prices are what the customer wants and they can easily take their business elsewhere, UPS must try to maintain reasonable fees to keep the customers happy as well as be profitable. With examining four out of five forces, we can assume that the rivalry among current industry competitors is intense and management must be aware of what each competitor has up its sleeve at any given time. UPS has successfully managed to defray a lot of their costs by having such a successful website. Customers can do a number of things on the website from their home without having to call and

By 1976, at a volume of 1,300 packages per day, FedEx’s Courier Pack service was only fulfilling one tenth of a percent of the “emergency rush” market, which totaled 870,000 packages delivered per day. By comparison, at 13,400 deliveries per day, the company’s Priority One “emergency rush” service accounted for one percent of the total market. Clearly both services have potential to gain more share of the rush delivery market, but the Courier Pack’s untapped potential is nearly limitless. Surely, the remaining 98 percent or so of customers using competing services for emergency rush delivery, including Emery Air Freight and USPS Express Service, are not familiar with Fed Ex’s less expensive, and more consistent Courier Pack service, and would switch brands with heightened awareness gained through careful marketing.

In the past there was no thing as overnight express delivery for packages or freight. Then the top 3 competitors in the delivery service industry that held 85% of the market were Airborne Express (AE), United Parcel Service (UPS) and Federal Express (FedEx) and, the remaining market share was among six second-tier companies. In the past few years, the express mail businesses had grown extremely fast due to the ability to provide and fulfill overnight shipping accompanied by next-morning delivery services for both individuals and businesses customers. By 1996, this segment of the expedited shipment delivery had grown to a $16-17 billion dollar industry business in the US alone.

a) Economies of scale—the top three carriers (Federal Express, UPS, and Airborne Express) serve slightly more than 85% of the domestic express mail market. All three carriers deliver a high volume of packages, and thus, are able to spread fixed costs over more units. Also, each carrier has integrated technological systems that improved operational efficiency. In addition, intensive training programs of employees increase service and delivery efficiency.

What was Airborne’s long term strategy to address low willingness to pay among its target customers?

This analysis investigates the management policies of the two primary competitors of the Air Delivery & Freight Services industry. I use ratio analysis to peek under the covers of profitability to understand how management, investment and financial management activities impact the overall performance of FedEx and UPS and study how the ratios change over time for FedEx.

Piedmont Airlines recently invested over $1 million in state of the art equipment and employee development in order to forecast and analyze the appropriate amount of discounted fares to offer per flight. The company discovered that by offering several discounted flights to consumers willing to book their travel well in advance of their departure date left many options available for the business traveler who needed to book much closer to the actual departure date. The analysis was the task of the Revenue Enhancement Department (RED) managed by Marilyn Hoppe. While this state of the art equipment was a step in the right direction, Marilyn believed that there were still a lot of subjective decisions being made and

UPS has been in the package delivery business for 95 years, providing services to businesses and consumers worldwide in more than 200 countries. In 1994, UPS began to investigate the potential of e-commerce and started an internal group focused on enabling e-commerce. UPS redefined its core business and found ways to change its structure and processes, forming new businesses to take advantage of new opportunities. UPS was interested in finding ways to leverage their extensive infrastructure and expertise in basic transportation of goods, services, and

1. From the point of view of the industry incumbents, is the express mail industry attractive? How has Airborne survived, and recently prospered, in its industry? Is its success attributable to its capabilities, its position, or industry attractiveness?