FedEx Corporation: Strategic 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

Market dominance, growing market, technology, and globalization are enabling factors for both companies. In a more specific approach, FedEx’s enabling factors are their adaptation to modernization, being able to really take an advantage of technology. Also, their more

Instead, customers value goods and services that are of the quality they expect and that are sold at prices they are willing to pay (Lamb, Hair, & McDaniel, 2017). As Smith mentions in one of his interviews, “If people were going to use FedEx in lieu of having incalculable amounts of money tied up in inventories, it absolutely, positively had to be there when promised” which tied to FedEx first slogan: “When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight” (“FedEx,” 2015). Here FedEx slogan and Smiths words focus on the value they provide to a customer because they want to make sure that the customer receives the worth of what the customer paid for.

The internal environment of FedEx consists of customers, distribution and competitors. This environment determines what FedEx does to succeed in their market.

In this report we focus on the two main competitors in the package delivery industry: Federal Express Corporation (FedEx) and United Parcel Service of America, Inc.

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.

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.

FedEx’s new product Courier Pak makes sense because of its’ high profit margin and potential to generate new volume. Out of the 3 services that Fed Ex provides, CP yields the highest profit margin at 66% while Priority-One is at 55% and SAS is only at 27%. In addition to this, the company believes that it will be able to boost up sale of CP from 1300 to 6000 packages per day. This shows that CP is the most profitable and huge potential for growth.

FedEx is a logistical service company specialized in transportation, e-commerce and business services. The success of FedEx lies on an efficient information system. The business process is as follows:

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)

My company is FedEx. The company's stated mission, as per its website (2013) is that it "will produce superior financial returns for shareowners by providing high value-added logistics, transportation and related business services through focused operating companies." This mission statement highlights the following stakeholders: the shareholders and the customers. A further stakeholder not mentioned but critical to FedEx is the company's employees. For example, an often-cited maxim at FedEx is People-Service-Profit, highlighting that it is the people who deliver the value-added for the customers, and that this is how FedEx delivers profits. The company also mentions its partners as key stakeholders, and there will be the usual tangential stakeholders like governments, competitors, potential customers, and suppliers. Most of these are external stakeholders the internal ones are the employees and the shareholders. All managers, even senior managers, are employees and most are shareholders as well.

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.

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.

Logistics services in the supply chain can be considered as a service offering, with numerous logistics companies competing to offer comparable services to many of the same consumers. As consumers hunt for potential providers in this extremely competitive marketplace, logistics service suppliers should discover approaches to distinguish themselves and their service offerings so as to help them compete. One established method for companies to differentiate themselves is by building strong brands. For instance, FedEx has evidently distinguished itself through successful brand management. The brand value to consumers is usually signify as consumer-based equity which happens when consumers possess a high level of familiarity and awareness with the brand and retains some strong, constructive and inimitable brand associations in memory (Davis, 2003). Brand awareness is referred as the consumers’ capability to recognize diverse brand elements – brand

The main station is located in Memphis, Tennessee in the United States. The company started off by delivering couriers to some American cities, which was the first time for parcel delivery to take place at that time. As stated before, the industry’s goal is to fulfill the needs of customers, developing relations with different companies, and ensure a high investment for its shareholders. This is made possible through their six shared principles: people, service, innovation, integrity, responsibility and loyalty (FedEx). In order to satisfy its clients, FedEx has3 branches which provide customers with different services regulated on different demands; this include FedEx Corporation, FedEx Express, FedEx Kinko’s, FedEx Ground, FedEx Freight, and FedEx Services. It delivers more than 10.5 million shipments daily, covering more than 220 countries. Monthly, it has over 50 million visitors. In order to… it has 1250 express stations, 33 ground hubs, 370 freight service centers, and more than 1800 offices. The company also possessed 656 aircrafts and more than 100,000 motorized vehicles for express, ground, freight and expedited delivery service (FedEx). Through these aspects and values, Smith achieves to develop a company with a productive way in controlling time, space, and