An 18 page paper reviewing the recent history of FedEx and the absolute genius of CEO Fred Smith. One publication has named Smith CEO of the year for 2004, and with good reason. The first part of the paper is based on a student-supplied case study of FedEx’s focus on global supply chain management as facilitated by the Internet in the late 1990s, ending with structural reorganization of the company in January 2000 to reflect the FedEx brand on other services: LTL, freight and ground delivery as well as its express delivery services. The second half of the paper assesses FedEx’s current position in its industry and the effects that changes of 1999-2000 had by 2004, as well as outlining the company’s amazing initial use of its acquisition of Kinko’s. Includes 3 SWOT analyses addressing various periods in the company’s recent history (1999-2004); Porter’s five forces analysis; 1 table and 1 chart. Bibliography lists 7 sources.
Name of Research Paper File: CC6_KSebizFedEx.rtf
Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
by transportation. - David Edmonds, VP, Worldwide Services Group, FedEx Introduction and Context FedEx Corporation perennially appears on various organizations lists of
most admired companies, particularly Fortunes list, on which it resides in the top ten. Born as a school paper whose ideas were rejected as unworkable, FedEx has proved virtually
all of its detractors wrong over the years. The focus here is a case outlining the companys expansion into markets that were new for it, extending analysis to the
present day to determine how right the company was in years past. Industry and Company Background These two headings can be combined, because
the history of the industry to a large extent is the history of FedEx. Begun by Fred Smith in 1971, Federal Express began operations in 1973. Packages picked
up all over the country were transported to Memphis, Tennessee to be sorted, flown to their destinations and delivered the next day. At the same time, FedEx instituted a
hub-and-spoke system that passenger airlines would adopt in the future (Holstein, 2004). Certainly FedEx did not create the package delivery industry, but it
did create that portion of it that offers next-day delivery. Twenty years after the company was founded, the Internet would arrive to revolutionize supply chain management. That would
not occur right away, of course, but until it did, FedEx would be investing in an extensive IT infrastructure and expanding its fleet of airplanes. The Origins of FedExs Customer
Service The World on Time In terms of customer service, few companies can boast a better record than Federal Express. Though many