INTRODUCTION
Federal W.Smith had a vision of overnight air express venture. He and his business partners commissioned two independent market research which suggested a market niche for a reliable, time-definite overnight delivery service. Then they executed the vision in 1973, establishing Federal Express.
Today, approximately 90,000 Federal Express employees, at more than 1,650 sites process 1.5 million shipments daily, all of which must be tracked in a central information system, sorted in a short time at facilities in Memphis, Indianapolis, Newark, Oakland, Los Angeles, Anchorage, and Brussels, and delivered by a highly decentralised distribution network. The firm 's air cargo fleet is now the world 's largest. Federal Express
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This is made possible as sensitive corporate data are protected from the outside world by security software known as 'firewalls '. Therefore, only internal users (employees) can venture onto Intranet, the public are denied access.
Intranet is an inexpensive yet powerful alternative compared to other forms of internal communications. With Intranet, many of the paperwork and documentation can be converted into electronic form on the Web and constantly updated to provide real-time information of all types to the users.
Recognising the many benefits that can be reaped from Intranet, Federal Express has acted quickly and have 60 Web sites running inside the company. As part of a company-wide Web push, FedEx is also equipping its 30,000 office employees around the world with Web browsers so they will have access to a slew of new sites being set up inside the company 's Memphis headquarters.
With the implementation of Intranet in FedEx, employees could now share information with their counterparts in other parts of the world via the internal e-mail; collaborative processing and order processing of shipping documents; transmit shipping and company information; produce department pages (new marketing plans, internal job openings etc.); annual reports; company facilities; price
Networking communication, such as the intranet and Internet, provides a collaboration platform that allows business employees to share and edit documents and projects across the organization. Successfully introducing these components into the widget company will make business a lot easier to manage and will help increase productivity.
In addition to that, FedEx came up with new services such as Saturday deliveries, delivery by 10:30 A.M., customer interfaces (drop boxes, drive through stations and express delivery stores) and same day pickup of order. This is to distinguish its services. More on that, FedEx's philosophy of "People-Service-Profit" was successful in insuring a union free workforce devoted to customer focus. In 1978, deregulation in transportation helped FedEx to acquire larger planes therefore achieve lower cost. Trade deregulation in Asia-Pacific enabled FedEx to expand further. The acquisition of Gelco express, Tiger International, and establishment of Airport Hub in Brussels expanded FedEx internationally. Inflation and rising global competitiveness generated the need for "just-in-time" supply model, which was the advantage supported by FedEx advanced technologies.
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.
Federal Express main products are delivering packages to widespread locations within a short time. In this case study, we would focus our discussion on its most profitable services, i.e. Priority One, Standard Air Service, and Courier Pak (Table 1).
Federal Express established itself as a key player in the competitive airfreight industry, just three years after beginning operations, as a direct result of its unique strategic hub system and a policy of limiting package size to under 70 pounds.
The functionality of FedEx is based on a model that encourages a high level of interconnectedness. The company routes shipments from all over the world through regional hubs. There are only a handful of such hubs around the world. Around five cities in the US form hubs the main hub in Memphis, the west coast hub in Oakland, customs clearance in Anchorage, east coast hub in Newark and Latin America hub in Miami. The use of so many hubs indicates that North America remains a key market, which also accounts for some of the
Locations of FedEx Office centers include Australia, Canada, China, Japan, Korea, Kuwait, Mexico, Netherlands, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, and the United States of America.
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)
In order to succeed today, organizations that are competing in global markets are increasing rapidly. The increased use of technologies such as the Internet, intranets, and extranets will definitely revolutionize how businesses will operate and how they will use computers to compete. The Internet and related technologies and applications have changed the ways companies operate their businesses processes and activities. For example, companies can network their offices and share data to be more effective and efficient. However, excessive use of the Internet, intranets, and extranets also create intense
Thus e-business solution need to be mapped out tailored to FedEx Corporation in order to address the above issues. Under the demand pull from the new economy, the technological push from the 'ICT Revolution', and the rapid development of the Internet, it is crutial to implement new strategies, and e-business model.
FedEx Corporation (FedEx), incorporated on October 2, 1997, provides a portfolio of transportation, e-commerce and business services under the FedEx brand. The company offers its services through companies constituting four business segments: FedEx Express, FedEx Ground, FedEx Freight and FedEx Services. FedEx Express offers a range of domestic and international shipping services for delivery of packages and freight. FedEx Ground provides business and residential money-back guaranteed ground package delivery services. FedEx Freight offers less-than-truckload (LTL) freight services. FedEx Services provides FedEx’s
One of the best ways to share information between the employees of a company is with an intranet. Whether this information is shared from the company or among the employees themselves, access to it is crucial to the overall success of the company.
When it comes to strategy, FedEx has done a great job of staying on top in the market place after all these years. FedEx has built a very powerful empire over the last decade, insuring customers with different global delivery services. Different companies have different strategies that work with their company to reach a specific goal, at FedEx the main strategy for success would be customer service. Customer service would have to be the number one strategy FedEx is mostly concerned with and constantly researching new ways to make it easier and more convenient for customers to deliver packages across the world. To help accommodate customers, FedEx has established online databases to ensure customers of package delivery; customers are able to track packages from the convenience of their homes or offices. Something else that FedEx has established are flights, and freights for those international customers, they have also improved services to and from all over Europe as well as Asia, in
With the air cargo deregulations in 1977, the company was able to use larger aircrafts like Boeing 727s to further improve their operational efficiency and performance, leading to rapid growth of the company. By 1980, it had established its position in the industry and had a growth rate of 40% and became the first company to reach the USD 1 billion revenue-mark within 10 years of inception. Following international acquisitions in 1984, Federal Express started its operations in Europe & Asia. In 1994, Federal Express official adopted ‘FedEx’ as its primary brand and became a symbol of overnight parcel delivery services.
2. The impact of intranet on flows of information around a business and the role of the manager /Benefits