What Makes A Business Transaction?

“People think about trucking as a meat and potatoes business where you pick something up and then deliver it to a destination, but it’s not that simple, it’s a highly competitive business, and in order to thrive, firms need to implement innovations that will give them a competitive edge.”

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

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate three technology opportunities associated with the transportation and logistics industry. With today’s constantly evolving business environment, consumers are placing demand on businesses of all industries, and they want products and services faster, with more added value, and delivered immediately. Nevertheless, customers are smarter by requiring more quality, innovation, and choice, and at the same time wanting to spend less money and effort. Consequently, every transportation business has to remain highly competitive in researching and developing innovative cost-cutting techniques in order to save money.

In this strategic management assignment, we will see how organization achieve and sustain competitive advantage. As the global leader of the international express and logistics industry, we will study how DHL has gained and achieved in sustaining its position in the logistics sector. To do so, the report will be cut in two parts. Firstly, an introduction will present, explain the subject and then expose

Operation leaders are tasked to identify the critical success factors and core competencies of their business functions and objectives in order to generate sustainable long-term growth. Critical success factors are actions essential for a business to reach its objectives. (Heizer & Render, p. 42, 2009). UPS’s key success factors are its efficiencies in scheduling, integrating the stream of goods, its ability to provide multiple solutions such as “harmonizing the flow of goods, information and funds across customer supply chains” while enabling consumers to “evolve in new and necessary ways” (Lewis, Forquer & Quinter, pg. 2, 2007). UPS’s environmental factors include their supply chain design and planning, competitors in logistics such as FedEx, distribution services, diversification in the global environment and focusing on differentiation. UPS is also an expert in its industry because the strategy is globally focused and is centered on diversification of its systems (See Appendix1.1)

i. DEFINITION: a number of affiliated businesses which function simultaneously in different countries, are joined together by ties of common ownership of control, and are responsible to a common

By 1976, at a volume of 1,300 packages per day, FedEx’s Courier Pack service was only fulfilling one tenth of a percent of the “emergency rush” market, which totaled 870,000 packages delivered per day. By comparison, at 13,400 deliveries per day, the company’s Priority One “emergency rush” service accounted for one percent of the total market. Clearly both services have potential to gain more share of the rush delivery market, but the Courier Pack’s untapped potential is nearly limitless. Surely, the remaining 98 percent or so of customers using competing services for emergency rush delivery, including Emery Air Freight and USPS Express Service, are not familiar with Fed Ex’s less expensive, and more consistent Courier Pack service, and would switch brands with heightened awareness gained through careful marketing.

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.

How can Harley Davidson marketing and sales, personnel interact with its purchasing personnel to further strengthen the supply chain and improve customer loyalty?

As higher demands continued to be placed on GMM’s production and distribution operations, its transportation network lacked collaboration. In effect, each operation was making individual logistics decisions, creating costly redundancies and inefficiencies throughout the supply chain. However, On-time delivery is critical in their business, and they consistently meet their customers' requirements. With cost, service and punctuality always at the forefront, consolidates shipments, manages carriers, and optimizes air, sea and ground routes. (Penske, 2010)

If all companies provide similar delivery services, then prices would be lower and hence revenues will be lower too. If Federal Express creates and sells unique products to the market, then there would be minimum supply of that product into the market and hence the company can increase its profitability. Capacity control can manage business rivalry and increase profitability in the small package express delivery industry by not allowing excess supply of a product into the market. Over time, Federal Express can attract more customers because they have designed products with the most innovative features that the customers desire most hence achieve a sustained competitive advantage over its rivals. Federal Express can use product differentiation and capacity control to improve its business model and offer products with superior features. This can help the company sell its products to new markets, developing a niche, reap profits and maintain an edge over its rivals. Based on this case study, both product and process innovation at Federal Express can increase pricing options for the company and create more value by reducing production costs and this will make the company to continue to maintain above-average profitability (Mulcaster, 2009).

The survivability of TNT will depend on the economic growth of the industry and standard of living. When there is growth in the industry there will be a need for delivery services because companies will need to deliver their stock from one place to another in order to sell. Another positive is the rise in income level and the standard of living; people may move to bigger houses or invest in new ones. This would require the use of a delivery service. If business is growing for one company, they may need to expand or to move to a bigger location, they will need transport to move their inventory. Some small business may then decide to outsource the job to TNT.

The main objective of Porter’s Value Chain was to transfer raw materials into standardize physical products where the product can differentiate from its competitor’s through its value. An explicit emphasis on inbound and outbound logistics explains the model’s appeal to the SCM field.

The transportation sector is continually evolving. Whether moving people or products by land, sea, or air, all transportation strategies need to balance proficient network design and operations with rising intricacy, government supervision, environmental accountability, security risks and demands for flexibility and performance from consumers. Transportation solutions saturate all facets of business and comprise about ten percent of all economic action. Global economic disruption and explosive fuel pricing are driving the need for more restricted operations, ground-breaking service offerings, and inspired business models. The capability to manage change and drive continual process improvements are vital to transportation enterprises that want to uphold competitive advantage and survivability (Transportation and Logistics, n.d.).