Case Study Questions
1: How do the IT investment strategies and focus of FedEx and its main competitor UPS differ? Which Company has the better strategy? Why?
The chief information officer of FedEx, Rob Carter states that the IT investment strategies are customer based technologies. FedEx focuses less on operational technology and more on revenue-generating, customer satisfaction, and strategic advantage technology (O’Brien 43). UPS is a much larger company that focuses on operations and the bottom line. UPS is constantly playing catch up with FedEx by mimicking their strategic advantage technology to stay in competition. This means FedEx always has a head start or the upper hand in the competitive advantage.
FedEx has the best
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Is this a good vision for FedEx? Why or why not? How vital is IT to this definition of FedEx’S business? Use examples from the case to illustrate your answer.
The idea that Carter believes FedEx is in the business of engineering time is a good business vision for FedEx because the world and its technology is always changing. With technology comes managing and engineering time, keeping up with the changes in the society we live in. This is a good vision for FedEx because when society changes, FedEx acts upon it, communicates and keeps moving forward. They keep up with society and technology changes by innovating new ideas to remain competitive. FedEx believes in offering solutions that allow you to engineer time so things can happen that weren’t able to happen in the past (Carter/O’Brien 44).
Information technology is very important to this definition of FedEx’s business. Information technology is seen as a competitive advantage for FedEx. FedEx’s main and biggest competitor is UPS, and in second is DHL. Both companies are continually trying to make the challenges harder for FedEx and in particular CIO Rob Carter. UPS and FedEx have been at battle on technology especially customer based technology. “We tend to focus slightly less on operational technology. We focus a little more on revenue generating, customer satisfaction generating, strategic advantage technology (Carter/O’Brien Pg. 43). Carter believes in having
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
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
1. Give examples of needs, wants, and demands that FedEx customers demonstrate, differentiating these three concepts.
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.
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
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.
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.
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)
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.
1. What led UPS to pursue an integrated marketing communications approach? What was the promotional objective as it repositioned itself in the "synchronized commerce" marketspace?
The return on Assets is 8.52% whereas the industry figure is 11.10%. Two of FedEx strategies that have worked are its tie up with the US postal system and its first mover advantage in introducing the tracking system for packages. My assessment of the sustainability of UPS's current performance does not change.
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.
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