The FedEx Corporation, conceived as Federal Express, is an American-based worldwide courier delivery Service Company. It provides strategic and logistical support for a variety of operating divisions, currently known as FedEx Express, FedEx Ground, FedEx Freight, and FedEx Services. These companies operate independently, compete collectively and manage collaboratively (Amsler et al., 2010). For the purpose of this report, focus will be on FedEx Express operations. The company is currently the global leader in the express delivery market, and offers delivery to and from individuals and businesses in over 220 countries and territories (FedEx, 2016a).
Figure 1: Segment revenues of FedEx’s operating divisions
1.2 The internal context of FedEx Express
Table 1: SW (from SWOT) Strengths Weaknesses
INTERNAL ORIGIN
World’s largest express transportation company
Unrivaled global flight system
Includes a fleet of 643 aircraft
Provides service through 375 airports worldwide
Covers every U.S. street address
Services more than 220 countries and territories
Lower market share in Europe and Asia Pacific
Decentralized operations
High prices relative to competitors
Maintenance and repairs costs rose 15% in 2015 mainly due to the timing of aircraft maintenance events
Revenues fell 3% in 2016 mainly due to lower fuel surcharges and unfavorable exchange rates
1.3 The external context of FedEx Express
Table 2: OT (from SWOT) Opportunities Threats
EXTERNAL ORIGIN Upgrading
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
FedEx’s external environment both positively and negatively affects the organizations operations. Their external environment consists of government, weather, and the economy. FedEx does not have a very large external environment because their operations are not affect by many outside sources.
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.
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.
FedEx is a highly centralized organization, with decision-making for the firm centralized at the Memphis headquarters. While national branches of the company have some autonomy in hiring, head office controls hiring policy. Decision-making on large capital projects is also centralized, because the network structure of the company's distribution means that such decisions have global implications. As a result, FedEx has a heavily-centralized structure where very little power is delegated to local managers. Instead local managers are charged with operating the company's strategy efficiently and effectively.
DHL 31%, USPS 8%, FedEx 27%, and Amazon 3%. From these numbers Amazon is a very small player in the shipping department. Every competitor, expect DHL, are currently shipping the excess freight that Amazon cannot maintain. With Amazon 's move to acquire more of the market, these competitors need to be on the lookout because portions of their market share can be taken away. These major shipping firms only provide shipping services not offering household products like Amazon. With Amazon starting by semi-supplementing their shipping avenues, Amazon has the potential to grow even larger. The market cap numbers are not a good basis to judge market share on since FedEx and UPS have the majority of the market in the shipping industry. FedEx and UPS are the major competitors against Amazon and its new shipping department. FedEx and UPS had the most recent annual net income of $50.3 billion and $58.3 billion respectively. They represent the majority of packages delivery from individuals, businesses, and online retailers.
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
FedEx’s new product Courier Pak makes sense because of its’ high profit margin and potential to generate new volume. Out of the 3 services that Fed Ex provides, CP yields the highest profit margin at 66% while Priority-One is at 55% and SAS is only at 27%. In addition to this, the company believes that it will be able to boost up sale of CP from 1300 to 6000 packages per day. This shows that CP is the most profitable and huge potential for growth.
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)
My company is FedEx. The company's stated mission, as per its website (2013) is that it "will produce superior financial returns for shareowners by providing high value-added logistics, transportation and related business services through focused operating companies." This mission statement highlights the following stakeholders: the shareholders and the customers. A further stakeholder not mentioned but critical to FedEx is the company's employees. For example, an often-cited maxim at FedEx is People-Service-Profit, highlighting that it is the people who deliver the value-added for the customers, and that this is how FedEx delivers profits. The company also mentions its partners as key stakeholders, and there will be the usual tangential stakeholders like governments, competitors, potential customers, and suppliers. Most of these are external stakeholders the internal ones are the employees and the shareholders. All managers, even senior managers, are employees and most are shareholders as well.
These are their daily volumes for those services. FedEx has many service areas. They service over 220 countries, territories and every single address in the U.S. FedEx tends to make more than 6 million package tracking requests daily. This is an outstanding number for a company dealing with packaging and locator with tracking numbers. Their express facility has 1,057 stations, and 10 air hubs. While their ground services has 32 hubs and over 500 pickup/delivery terminals. Freight has approximately 355 service centers and nearly 2,000 office locations. Despite all their services FedEx has a mission. Their mission is to produce outstanding financial returns for their shareowners. However, all customer requirements will be met while providing high value logistics, transportation and related business through operating companies. According to FedEx website, “FedEx will strive to develop mutually rewarding relationships with its employees, partners and suppliers” (About FedEx). Safety is their number one concerns and first considerations in all operations. However, all their corporate activities will be conducted according to the highest ethical and professional standards. FedEx values their people, service, innovation, integrity, responsibility, and most of all loyalty. This company strategy consists of three levels; compete collectively, operate independently, and manage collectively. These strategies will help the company accomplish their goals. Standing, as
Logistics services in the supply chain can be considered as a service offering, with numerous logistics companies competing to offer comparable services to many of the same consumers. As consumers hunt for potential providers in this extremely competitive marketplace, logistics service suppliers should discover approaches to distinguish themselves and their service offerings so as to help them compete. One established method for companies to differentiate themselves is by building strong brands. For instance, FedEx has evidently distinguished itself through successful brand management. The brand value to consumers is usually signify as consumer-based equity which happens when consumers possess a high level of familiarity and awareness with the brand and retains some strong, constructive and inimitable brand associations in memory (Davis, 2003). Brand awareness is referred as the consumers’ capability to recognize diverse brand elements – brand
The main station is located in Memphis, Tennessee in the United States. The company started off by delivering couriers to some American cities, which was the first time for parcel delivery to take place at that time. As stated before, the industry’s goal is to fulfill the needs of customers, developing relations with different companies, and ensure a high investment for its shareholders. This is made possible through their six shared principles: people, service, innovation, integrity, responsibility and loyalty (FedEx). In order to satisfy its clients, FedEx has3 branches which provide customers with different services regulated on different demands; this include FedEx Corporation, FedEx Express, FedEx Kinko’s, FedEx Ground, FedEx Freight, and FedEx Services. It delivers more than 10.5 million shipments daily, covering more than 220 countries. Monthly, it has over 50 million visitors. In order to… it has 1250 express stations, 33 ground hubs, 370 freight service centers, and more than 1800 offices. The company also possessed 656 aircrafts and more than 100,000 motorized vehicles for express, ground, freight and expedited delivery service (FedEx). Through these aspects and values, Smith achieves to develop a company with a productive way in controlling time, space, and
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
FedEx Corporation, situated in US, is one of the leading supply chain management solution providers in the world. With annual revenues as high as USD33 billion, the company offers incorporated business