FedEx VALUE CREATION AND ECONOMIC PROFIT United Parcel Service

The key success to UPS was efficiency. Every route is time down to the traffic light. Each vehicle was engineered to exacting specifications. The drivers endured a daily routine calibrated down to the minute. This demand for machinelike precision met with resistance by UPS heavily unionized labor force.

The Express mail industry in the United States had a volume of $16-17 billion on expedited shipments in the year 1996. In the years before shipment volumes has risen 15-20% per year. However due to higher competition prices have fallen which resulted in a rise of only 10-15% in total revenues. As an example of this stands the revenue and the operating margin of the biggest player that make up 45% of the market. Federal Express’ revenue has more than quadrupled in the ten years prior 1996, however its operating margin has more than halved. (Exhibit 2) The

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

The United Parcel Services share of the marketplace commands attention: -400,000 (+) employees -$51.5 billion earned 2008 -14% profit margin -90,000 vehicles and 268 jets -Operations in over 200 countries (Thomas, Linder, & Dutra, 2006). Organization has allowed UPS to operate in financial, retail, technology and nonprofit markets as well as logistics. Management Leads with the philosophy of talent cultivation through long-term employment relationships, developing committed, aligned and experienced partners. 54% of full-time drivers started as part-time. 68% of management was promoted from within. 78% of Vice-presidents once held non-management positions with UPS (Thomas et al., 2006). Controlling within UPS develops around the standard of constructive dissatisfaction, the belief that all process can be improved on and all parameters may be extended. Constructive dissatisfaction, a culture of ownership along with continual training and market awareness keep UPS a pioneer. External Factors Globalization has empowered UPS to update their strategy to synchronizing global commerce: of goods, information and funds (Thomas et al., 2006). Once a local delivery service, now UPS is recognized globally, embracing diversity with owners and customers in from every nation. Concerned with environmental impact of big business, UPS has cut carbon emissions, from airliners, 22% since 1990, and plans to cut

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

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.

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

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)

UPS is a global package delivery business that specializes in not only managing the movement of goods, but the information and funds that moves with those goods in more than 200 countries and territories worldwide. UPS’s target market is primarily U.S. companies that ship business to business via ground delivery and whose delivery time is not

Another interesting note is that accounts receivable is showing a downward trend for FedEx while showing a flat or consistent trend across UPS. Next, UPS appears to be based more in short-term assets and FedEx weighted more heavily in long-term assets. UPS also relies more heavily on long-term liabilities, whereas FedEx relies more heavily on short-term liabilities. It appears that FedEx is using accounts payable for debt financing while UPS is using long-term debt. Lastly, FedEx is making up for it's under utilization of debt financing with equity financing. Overall, FedEx is showing a trend toward increasing current assets, primarily through cash, decreasing liabilities and increasing equity.

United Parcel Service (UPS), is the world’s largest express package delivery firm that handled more than 4.7 billion packages and documents in 2015. This global transportation and logistics service provider operates in more than 220 countries, and offers an array of supply chain management solutions (UPS Fact Sheet, n.d.). The firm has diversified its products and/or services to include freight forwarding and logistics services via air, ground, rail, and sea. U.S. Domestic Package operations, International Package operations, and Supply Chain and Freight operations are the three operating segments UPS. Through technology advancements UPS delivers online package tracking, e-commerce services, and specialized

There is intense competition for the Fed Ex Courier Pack in the package delivery market. Airlines by providing same day package service delivery are strongly represented in this market. The strongest competition for CP would be the in the overnight delivery sector which are mainly the air freight forwarders particularly, Emery who is a huge player in this segment of the market.

In any organization, financial analysis is one of the most basic parts of evaluation of a company operation in any business environment. As businesses operate, it is very important that the managers know the real environment for which a firm carries out its activities. The competitions evident in the market are substantial to the decision making process of a firm. Also, firms need to give much attention to the market forces of a particular industry to make sure that they are able to make these forces turn to their advantage. This paper will indicate the UPS 's bussiness enviroment, porter’s five forces, trends in the package delivery industry ,factors for success in the UPS 's industry, UPS 's relative strengths, the appropriate benchmark companies for valuation purposes, and the UPS 's accounting policies and methods,.