Uncontrollable Environment Affecting Organizations, Affecting International Logistic Activities

The advent of Internet has allowed companies to offer their goods and services throughout the world. Not only has the Internet opened up the floodgates of International marketing, it has also brought with it many other challenges such as cultural, political, and geo-economics challenges. In order to be successful in these global markets, companies must be very diligent in handling these challenges.

The industry consists of three major players and six second-tier players. There is intense competition between the players as shown by the price wars between UPS and Federal Express. Although the market is

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

Supply chains must be managed to coordinate the inputs with the outputs in a firm to achieve the appropriate competitive priorities of the firm’s enterprise processes. The Internet offers firms an alternative to traditional methods for managing supply chains. A supply chain strategy is essential

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.

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.

In a market with a vast amount of competitors offering similar products, it is vital that competitors stay at the front of the market. In order to do this, companies, such as Blue Nile, must increase globalization efforts. As the market shifts worldwide, so must companies. Blue Nile, for example, has recently seen success in the worldwide market, although international profits only make up 13% of revenue. Also, companies must offer reliable customer service, such as Blue Nile offers. Along with reliable customer service, online competitors must focus on reliable shipping, lowering costs when applicable. Finally, marketing efforts must be vamped to ramp up customer traffic and build larger customer bases.

Nowadays,, E-commerce is remarkably developing and any company not utilizing the opportunity by investing on their products online will not only become retroactive but also are forced to be reactive. Therefore, companies are cognizant that to enhance competitiveness in market , Internet technology play an important role in the business process and essential to adhere it. According to Shelly and Vermaat (2008,p.91) “ E-commerce is a business transaction that occurs over through an electronic network as the Internet”. As E-commerce are of many kinds and variation, online grocery and food are one its kind.

According to Turban and King (2003), internet technology renders retailers an additional channel for branding, transactions and customer relationship management, the adaptation of which may drive down retailers’ transaction costs, and ensuring faster and higher quality of customer interactions, resulting in enlarging the existing markets and consumer base. M&S realizes this and have tried to sell clothing via high street stores as well as via internet though they have experienced cost cutting, rationalisation and management changes in order to revive their business in recent years. Internet technology might enable sustainable competitive advantage, but problems remain on how to physically organize their online retail operations.

The parcel service industry is made up of four main competitors. These competitors are UPS, FedEx, Airborne Express, and the U.S. Postal Service. Since 2000, American consumers have spent more than $50 billion to ship parcels, packages, and overnight letters. New parcel distribution patterns developed due to the way U.S. manufacturing companies are operating. The Internet has expanded the reach of direct marketing, particularly with retail transactions requiring home delivery. Globalization has also created the need for parcel carriers to expand worldwide.

There are forces which exist in the General environment with which Brinker International (BI) would have to deal with. Forces such as Economic, Technological, Socio-Cultural, Demographic, Political and Global which exist in the general environment adds another dimension and could affect the organizations day to day operations. Managers would need to consider the impact of these forces.

Electronic commerce has been there for a long time now, and it is a practice that is practiced by peoples from Germany, France, and the US on a daily basis. Since its inception around 40 years ago, e-commerce has continued to grow as innovations, technologies and a lot of business reverting to the use of the e-commerce. The aspect of buying and selling of goods in the early 1960s was sluggish with the traditional way of mailing of documents being replaced with the Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), which would later pave a way to the electronic commerce. After the e-commerce, however, the practice was not more reliable as it still had many challenges (Tsolis, 2009). For instance, it was not easy for buyers to see products from the comfort of their homes and more so, the methods of accessing the information were limited.

The continuous development of Internet leads to the growth of e-commerce. The electronic commerce is growing constantly due to the continuously increasing number of mobile and online users in the market, primarily the emerging markets. Besides that, the development of the Information Technology (IT), such as the advance of paying processes and the improvements of shipping method also the main reason to cause the growth of electronic commerce (John Ingham, 2015). Most consumers accept e-commerce as their feasible alternative in the purchase of goods and

It is known to us, “in each industry, the customer is god, is operator's food and clothing parents.” This tells us that customers are important to organizations. With the current intense competition in logistics nowadays, most companies can provide high quality goods, even are willing to cut down prices if reasonable. However, how can suppliers gain a competitive advantage when high quality is expected and price must be maintained at a level to generate a reasonable return? In our views, it is no doubt that how various supplier service activities are valued by customers, more specifically, that is, the ability of logistics

This is a research project aimed at four different topics within e-commerce and the dynamic landscape of logistics within this emerging field. I will first be focusing on current landscape of e-commerce. Secondly the focus will be shifted to a global perspective and the difference of markets based on region. Thirdly I will cover the future trends of e-commerce, and the differences that we may see. Finally, I will present data on select countries and how they are affected by e-commerce currently and the changes that we can expect to see in the future. While researching this broad and developing topic, I have found that there are a handful of takeaways that can be seen in the entirety of this paper: