Airborne Express 6

One of the key decisions of Airborne Express was to target regularly shipping business customers and purposely passing over residential deliveries and infrequent shippers. Ray Berry, vice president of Field Services Administration, commented this selection of customers: “ Since we can’t be all things to all people, we pick our kind of customer deliberately.” And it

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

The threat of new entry is high because there are no significant barriers of entry in the airline industry. For example, airplanes can be easily leased, defraying the large initial capital investment. Additionally, exit cost in the business is

The industry is defined as the Domestic US Express Mail industry. This includes overnight and second day delivery. In order to assess the attractiveness of the industry, a Porters' Five Forces analysis has been conducted as follows.

The availability of substitutes is medium mainly because there aren’t a large number of substitutes out there for express mail outside of the industry. Most next day deliveries are business documents, parcels, letters, ect, not typically cargo. So substitutes could include email and faxes, both are faster and cheaper than express mailing. Depending on the nature of the business, video conferencing or the old fashion telephone could be used. If the parcel is going somewhere local maybe could use bike messengers, or just hand deliver. There are also the second tier players, like RPS, DHL and TNT, while they are still in the delivery industry; they tend to specialize in areas other than express mail. With RPS, it is second day service at 40-50% less, and a business that does a large amount of overseas or international express shipments may want to substitute with DHL or TNT, who specialize and differentiate themselves in the international market.

a) Economies of scale—the top three carriers (Federal Express, UPS, and Airborne Express) serve slightly more than 85% of the domestic express mail market. All three carriers deliver a high volume of packages, and thus, are able to spread fixed costs over more units. Also, each carrier has integrated technological systems that improved operational efficiency. In addition, intensive training programs of employees increase service and delivery efficiency.

Before when automations were nowhere to be seen, people demand USPS to deliver their mails everyday. Sometimes when there is a large package, it might take weeks for the letters to reach their destination. So retailers assist delivering the packages in a more efficient way. In order for the USPS continue to be on

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.

In the US Express Mail industry, the buyers fit into two segments: businesses and individuals. Express Mail has become the industry standard in some industries such as banking, consulting and financial services since the items inside the package had a high ratio of value to weight. Businesses needed to be able to track the packages and be assured that it arrives on time. That being said, businesses were often high-volume buyers since the shipping managers identified which firm to deal with and concentrate the high-volume of shipments to that firm for a particular project or for the time being. Sales representatives from the firms had to negotiate with stingy shipping managers who sometimes demanded the upwards of 50% or more discounts. The existence of many large volume buyers meant that the buyer power is high. Similarly, individuals also held high buyer power since the Big Three and other second-tier postal services offered largely undifferentiated services.

The evolution of the express mail industry had become a quick on-time shipping and delivery of packages. The service had become effective, reliable, and prompt, which most of the top companies could deliver on these guaranteed promises 96-99% of the time. But, delivery services were only a portion of the services being offered to their customers. Carriers had mastered information management that they shared with their customers. Customers were now able to fill out labels, track the route of their package, and assisted in billing using both via carrier provided software or the Internet.

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.

American airline industry is steadily growing at an extremely strong rate. This growth comes with a number economic and social advantage. This contributes a great deal to the international inventory. The US airline industry is a major economic aspect in both the outcome on other related industries like tourism and manufacturing of aircraft and its own terms of operation. The airline industry is receiving massive media attention unlike other industries through participating and making of government policies. As Hoffman and Bateson (2011) show the major competitors include Southwest Airlines, Delta Airline, and United Airline.

Significant barriers to entry such as high regulatory and capital cost requirements and a fiercely competitive industry along with barriers to exit and the recent failure of airlines such as XL

Particularly when new entrants are diversifying from other markets, they can leverage existing capabilities and cash flows to shake up competition like Apple did when it entered the music distribution business. The threat of new entry therefore, puts a cap on the profit potential of an industry. The threat to Air Asia is relatively less as the capital required to enter the industry is quite high. However, potential new entrants from full service carriers with a surplus capital could be threats in the future and long-term.

Airborne Express has long differentiated itself in the market by structuring itself as a big business only carrier. They have specialized in large unit deliveries through metropolitan areas. Everything they do is aimed to optimize the delivery process and slash cost where ever possible. However, Airborne is now faced with a huge decision. They must decide whether to step away from their differentiation strategy to match the new pricing tactics of the market UPS and FedEx or to continue the old norm of delivery pricing. The new distance-based pricing strategy threatens Airborne’s consistent strategy to cut prices. Clients will seek to ship packages at the lowest cost. The short distance deliveries will be ruled by UPS and FedEx since they are the once who are