Analysis of Frederick W Smith's Tenure as the Chairperson, President, and CEO of FedEx Corporation

United Parcel Service, a logistics company has established itself through its strong corporate culture, continuous ability to innovate, and its far-reaching global network. The company has maintained a competitive advantage over the years by implementing continuous growth strategies—the first was geographic expansion, next the early adaptation of electronic tracking technologies, and then came a series of acquisitions. Although UPS is financially strong and is able to maintain its role in the courier and delivery industry—it is vital that UPS continue to act strategically as to strive for long-term success. UPS is heavily dependent on the U.S. economy and it is important that it find greater and more profitable ventures

During the 1980s, the air express industry was a medium to attractive industry to already be a major player in, but not a very attractive industry to try and break into. The industry can be characterized by high rivalry from competitors who compete on the same services with very little differentiation, medium power from suppliers who supply the resources necessary to run the business, high buyer power because customers can basically find an equal service from any firm in the industry, low substitution threat from other means of shipping transportation, and low threat of new entrants due to the high initial capital outlay and need of management

As the world’s largest package delivery company and a leading global provider of specialized transportation and logistics services, UPS, continues to develop the frontiers of logistics, supply chain management and e-commerce combing the flow of goods, information and funds. This past October UPS Logistics Solutions was voted #1 logistics provider by Logistics Solutions. When conducting an industry analysis, it is important to explain the competitive forces model (CFM) of UPS. The first component of competitive forces model are the customers. Their customers consist of business organizations, and the general public. The second CFM component is competition. UPS have a lot of competition in its field, but the most competitive company is FedEx. Since FedEx provides the same services as UPS; both are neck to neck in competition, but UPS has an established history, and because of that, they have more loyal customers, and they are worldly known. They have established them-selves as the elite, with their commercial on television. Showing how they can deliver from one place to another with same day delivery and

In the case file for FedEx, Fred Smith the founder of FedEx mentions how business were having trouble figuring out how to get urgently needed packages to the right places quick and Smith knew that the need for business to move packages fast would only grow with time. From the beginning, FedEx was built on a foundation of obsessive customer focus (“FedEx,” 2015). Needs in marketing is the state of self-deprivation (Vander Schee, 2016). The tenacious pursuit of fulfilling customer needs in FedEx’s early days led to developing what is known at the company today as the purple promise, a

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

Operation leaders are tasked to identify the critical success factors and core competencies of their business functions and objectives in order to generate sustainable long-term growth. Critical success factors are actions essential for a business to reach its objectives. (Heizer & Render, p. 42, 2009). UPS’s key success factors are its efficiencies in scheduling, integrating the stream of goods, its ability to provide multiple solutions such as “harmonizing the flow of goods, information and funds across customer supply chains” while enabling consumers to “evolve in new and necessary ways” (Lewis, Forquer & Quinter, pg. 2, 2007). UPS’s environmental factors include their supply chain design and planning, competitors in logistics such as FedEx, distribution services, diversification in the global environment and focusing on differentiation. UPS is also an expert in its industry because the strategy is globally focused and is centered on diversification of its systems (See Appendix1.1)

By capitalizing on this strategy, FedEx was able to boost its average delivery volume in 1976 to 20,726 packages per day via its three services, Priority-One, Standard Air, and Courier Pack, compared with an average of 10,521 delivered daily the prior year. Clearly the company’s calculated use of strategically-located hubs, nighttime flight routes, and limited package size allowed the company to carve out a niche by reliably delivering packages on an immediate, overnight basis.

The “ people service profit” program was implemented through training programs for all leaders working for Fed Ex. This training program was given to all employees in leadership roles, from executives to mangers, and supervisors. The training takes place at the Global Leadership Institute not far from Fed Ex

FedEx is a highly centralized organization, with decision-making for the firm centralized at the Memphis headquarters. While national branches of the company have some autonomy in hiring, head office controls hiring policy. Decision-making on large capital projects is also centralized, because the network structure of the company's distribution means that such decisions have global implications. As a result, FedEx has a heavily-centralized structure where very little power is delegated to local managers. Instead local managers are charged with operating the company's strategy efficiently and effectively.

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.

In any organization, financial analysis is one of the most basic parts of evaluation of a company operation in any business environment. As businesses operate, it is very important that the managers know the real environment for which a firm carries out its activities. The competitions evident in the market are substantial to the decision making process of a firm. Also, firms need to give much attention to the market forces of a particular industry to make sure that they are able to make these forces turn to their advantage. This paper will indicate the UPS 's bussiness enviroment, porter’s five forces, trends in the package delivery industry ,factors for success in the UPS 's industry, UPS 's relative strengths, the appropriate benchmark companies for valuation purposes, and the UPS 's accounting policies and methods,.

FedEx was first established in 1973 as a logistic company with the name Federal Express that be created by founder and first CEO Frederick W Smith. The Headquarters is in Memphis, Tennessee in the US. The company became well known for its fast and reliable delivery service around the world. On its first night of operation FedEx delivered 186 bundles to 25 urban locations in the US with only 389 employees and a 15 Dassault Falcon aircraft. In 1980 FedEx purchased a system for live updates on the packages. In this system, FedEx drivers share the current locations from the trucks to provide updates of the packages to the customers. This information was sent to a central computer of FedEx then the company improved the update system by introducing FedEx.com webpage. This webpage allowed the tracking data to be easily accessible. However, recently, FedEx uses Savvy bundle for packing and tracking the products across couriers. (Baldwin, 2016)

FedEx has not fared as well as UPS in financial performances. FedEx¡¦s total revenue has grown 60% from 1996 to 1999 while their net income has doubled in the same period. FedEx¡¦s acquisition of RPS will challenge UPS for the ground delivery business and affect the sustainability of UPS¡¦s advantage in the ground deliver business. FedEx has been competing well in the higher-end, high-service segment of the package delivery market. Although, digitations of documents and emergence of electronic signatures is threatening the express business which FedEx has the advantage over UPS.

In this short essay, the author will analyze the tenure Frederick W. (Fred) Smith Chairman, president, and CEO at FedEx Corporation. While this paper will not just be a report Smith's tenure, but it will actively analyze his leadership of the FedEx Corporation and how he has affected the placement of the company in the market against its competitors such as UPS. We will see how he has combined the best of Yale and the Marine Corps to give the company a leading edge in the package delivery business.

The company I decided to do my course project on was Fed-Ex. This corporation was incorporated on October 2, 1997. Fed-Ex provides many services such as, FedEx Express, FedEx Ground, FedEx Freight and FedEx services. FedEx Express offers a certain time of delivery within one-three business days. However, FedEx ground focuses on residential and business deliveries with packages weighing up to 150 pounds. Furthermore, FedEx Freight provides service to virtually all United States ZIP Codes (including Alaska and Hawaii). And finally, FedEx Services provides other companies with many sales, markets, informational technology and customer service. FedEx has ben providing their employees with many benefits until the economy went into recession.