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Fedex Express At The Fedex Corporation

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In 1978, the FedEx Corporation sent out its annual report noting that Federal deregulation, recapitalization, and public offering were credited as the impetus for record sales and earnings (FedEx Corporation, 1978). At the close of the report, the chairman of the board credited the employees as the most important factor in such favorable outcomes. Nearly 40 years later, the message and tone of the FedEx Corporation (2015a) Annual Report was again boasting a transformative year, and crediting its employees. But the success of FedEx Corporation, and specifically its air cargo and freight services (known as FedEx Express), does not rely solely on the hard work of people. Instead, success is the result of a vision, philosophy, approach, and perhaps simply some good fortune; all of which can be found in closer look at the making of FedEx Express.
A Brief History of FedEx Express
In 1965, while attending Yale University as undergraduate student, a young Fred Smith submitted a term paper detailing his vision of how the economic and logistical challenges facing delivery of time-sensitive shipments could be resolved using a simple, yet revolutionary, approach (Reichert, 2000). At the time, air freight was primarily transported via air passenger flights. The thesis was that the problem was air freight service being an add-on to air passenger service, and the solution was to create an air freight industry (Reichert, 2000). Although it was 50 years ago that Fred Smith received

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