Fedex Company Profile

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

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

The main factors inhibiting both companies are each other, both companies have attained a market dominance that is hard to overcome by any of them. In FedEx case, their financials have been their weakest spot. FedEx poor financial performance has been a big problem for the company, proof of this is the downgrade FedEx bonds have had in past years. In UPS, I would say one of their inhibiting factors is their lack of innovation. UPS has not been able to innovate and work with the technological improvements. Part of this is due of being first in the market, UPS was founded in 1907, FedEx in 1971, FedEx has gained a reputation of the leader in innovation and modernization, UPS as the follower. Also, UPS workers union have represented a huge problem for them, workers union strikes have had a huge hit in the company finances.

FedEx has two major customers who consist of businesses and individual customers. These business customers have accounts with FedEx to arrive at their location to pick up packages daily or weekly. Two-thirds of FedEx’s business comes from these customers so FedEx curves their operations to satisfy this clientele. Since FedEx’s competition is trying to acquire some of this clientele they have begun to operate and market to this clientele more effectively. Individual customers are also in FedEx’s internal environment. These customers represent one-third of their business. With increased competition from competitors FedEx has marketed to this market substantially. They have created boxes that are prepaid for shipment as long as the contents fit into the box. This has effectively increased business amongst individual customers for FedEx.

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.

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.

Rivalry among established companies: This industry is highly consolidated with only 3 major players - somewhat an oligopoly. The industry is also characterized by numerous price wars between the 2 giants, namely, UPS and FedEx. Rest of the companies generally follow the trends set by these two firms or fall out. The exit barriers to this industry are high. This is due to the investments in hubs, vans, jets and other capital extensive infrastructure.

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

Another interesting note is that accounts receivable is showing a downward trend for FedEx while showing a flat or consistent trend across UPS. Next, UPS appears to be based more in short-term assets and FedEx weighted more heavily in long-term assets. UPS also relies more heavily on long-term liabilities, whereas FedEx relies more heavily on short-term liabilities. It appears that FedEx is using accounts payable for debt financing while UPS is using long-term debt. Lastly, FedEx is making up for it's under utilization of debt financing with equity financing. Overall, FedEx is showing a trend toward increasing current assets, primarily through cash, decreasing liabilities and increasing equity.

United Parcel Service (UPS), is the world’s largest express package delivery firm that handled more than 4.7 billion packages and documents in 2015. This global transportation and logistics service provider operates in more than 220 countries, and offers an array of supply chain management solutions (UPS Fact Sheet, n.d.). The firm has diversified its products and/or services to include freight forwarding and logistics services via air, ground, rail, and sea. U.S. Domestic Package operations, International Package operations, and Supply Chain and Freight operations are the three operating segments UPS. Through technology advancements UPS delivers online package tracking, e-commerce services, and specialized

DHL 31%, USPS 8%, FedEx 27%, and Amazon 3%. From these numbers Amazon is a very small player in the shipping department. Every competitor, expect DHL, are currently shipping the excess freight that Amazon cannot maintain. With Amazon 's move to acquire more of the market, these competitors need to be on the lookout because portions of their market share can be taken away. These major shipping firms only provide shipping services not offering household products like Amazon. With Amazon starting by semi-supplementing their shipping avenues, Amazon has the potential to grow even larger. The market cap numbers are not a good basis to judge market share on since FedEx and UPS have the majority of the market in the shipping industry. FedEx and UPS are the major competitors against Amazon and its new shipping department. FedEx and UPS had the most recent annual net income of $50.3 billion and $58.3 billion respectively. They represent the majority of packages delivery from individuals, businesses, and online retailers.

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)

UPS and FedEx are the leading parcel carriers in the U.S. FedEx has significantly expanded their capability to compete with UPS’s dominant ground delivery service.

FedEx was established on June 18, 1971, founded by Fredrick W. Smith, in Little Rock, AR. FedEx is a well known American corporation that brings courier global delivery service to its customers. Having such a wide range of portfolios, FedEx has been able to incorporate many different delivery systems for maximum customer satisfactory, with the help of e-commerce, and global delivery service it is no surprise that FedEx has consecutively been ranked amongst the most admired and trusted employers.