V. Marketing Strategies The creation of a clear target market strategy is at the heart of an effective business strategy (Simkin, 2008)
Both companies have done this in part to seek growth opportunities after the North American market became mature, but they have also done this to meet the needs of their customers, who were driving globalization. Both companies, for example, have embarked on targeted expansion plans with respect to health care and pharmaceuticals in the Chinese market (Nan, 2014; Business Wire, 2013)
Two examples of common costs not traceable to the four segments are the salary of the Chief Executive Office (CEO) and the salary of Chief Financial Officer because no FedEx segment could be solely traceable to this cost. (Noreen, Brewer and Garrison, 2011)
3% equity as of Q2 FY 2014 (MSN Moneycentral, 2014). FedEx has just completed a bond issue with a yield of 4% on the 10-years (Robinson, 2014)
Considering all the various factors that can ensure a profitable expansion venture is an important part of the decision process. A recent report determined that "companies have more than enough data to tell them when, where and who is buying their product" (Neeley, Warnica, Lorinc, Castaldo, McCullough, Nowak, Toller, Beer, Evans, Melanson, Barmak, McCullough, Shufelt, 2013, p
Additionally, just because those customers might be purchasing your product, does not guarantee that they will do so at a high enough rate to make the entire venture profitable. A recent article in Money magazine by the Small Business Administration (SBA) found that in order to have a business capable of growing and being profitable for years to come means that "you'll have to prune it from time to time" (Pofeldt, 2013, p
Facilitating those shipments are 2,500 distribution centers, more than 330,000 employees, and 500 airplanes. Smart use of Web technology also has enabled UPS to reinvent itself as an information-delivery company and problem solver" (emphasis added) (Brynjolfsson and Urban 132)
For instance, this author emphasizes that, "As a Web pioneer in customer service, FedEx also played a significant role in helping customers move their businesses online. With its strong brand name and technological lead, FedEx was poised to take a larger share of the delivery business than competitors UPS and Airborne Freight" (Steinbock 113)
The implementation of this alternative will be achieved gradually, and the stages are succinctly presented below: The Implementation Plan (1) Present the ideas to the FedEx headquarters and require the assistance of the company's marketing specialists (2) Search through the FedEx archives for a campaign that has had a similar goal (recruiting employees) and has managed to successfully attain it (3) Modify the FedEx campaign to suit the needs of the PacEx offices in Kava (4) Air the campaign through various media channels, such as television and radio advertisements, but also street banners (5) Maintain communications with the public and promote the campaign in itself and the objectives it strives to achieve -- this could be attained if the PacEx managers were to feature in televised interviews, radio talk shows and interviews in the specialized magazines and journals and promote the values of the organizations as well as communicate the fact that the company was looking to hire people and integrate them in a culturally diverse and stimulating working environment (FedEx Website, 2009) (6) Begin analysis and selection of the received resumes (7) Organize interviews with the selected candidates (8) Make employment offers to the candidates which passed the organizational tests and met the necessary conditions (9) Commence training programs (10) Launch operations to augment the presence in Kava through an increased and improved personnel and fleet Challenges The following lines present some of the internal and external challenges that could be met throughout the implementation process, each followed by the solutions proposed in resolving the difficulty. Language barriers -- in order to ensure that the new employees are able to interact with their American colleagues, the HR Department will only select those resumes which clearly state that the candidate speaks English at an intermediate level at least; also, the company will offer language training Corporate image -- just like any other large entity, the FedEx Corporation has attracted some criticism and is often blamed for not carrying enough for its employees, but rather trying to exploit them, the latest evidence in this sense being the cut in wages and retirement contributions (FedEx Watch, 2006) or the efforts the company makes to ensure that its employees do not unionize (Sechler, 2009)
The tracking and sorting of packages has long been automated, but continuing modifications and innovations to the systems that accomplish these tasks lead to ever more refined and sophisticated results, such that real-time global tracking is now available and overall tracking and deployment is much more accurate (FedEx, 2012). The company also uses well-integrated and state-of-the-art communication technologies to enable relevant team members to remain in contact and full communication despite possibly being literally on the other side of the globe (Comer, 2007)
German competitor DHL all but exited the industry in 2008, only to attempt a return in 2011 focusing on shipments between the U.S. And Europe (Doss & Credeur, 2011)
The company has experienced a long-term rising trend in its revenues, mostly tied to the business cycle, but its net income has been more volatile over the past five years (MSN Moneycentral, 2013). FedEx has long been considered to be a bellwether firm for the economy, since it has a diversified corporate customer base and its stock price closely tracks industrial output (Goldstein, 2013)
Its truck fleet is relatively old with minimal upgrades in technology. Today, Airbus and Boeing have recently introduced the first advancements in cargo aircraft in a couple of decades, for example the Dreamlifter (Poechlauer & Vyeson, 2008)
The dollar value reduction from the horizontal analysis reflected a reduction in the size of the company, but not a significant reduction in the percentage of the firm was owned by the shareholders. Appendix 2: Ratio Analysis Ratio analysis uses the company's published financial statements to help determine the financial health of the firm, by measuring a number of key ratios (Loth, 2010)
14 (MSN Moneycentral, 2010), indicating that the company's performance has a reasonable degree of correlation with the performance of the broader market -- the market believes there is only a limited amount of firm-specific risk associated with FedEx. FedEx is considered by the market to be an economic bellwether (Credeur, 2009), a position it holds specifically because its performance is so greatly correlated with the economy
This technology is another accolade in FedEx's already much-applauded list of cutting-edge technology resources. (All, 2009) Very important to FedEx's success is its use of network technology, especially wireless, that enables FedEx to keep its customers informed about package whereabouts, and employees up-to-date on information required to expedite package pickup and delivery
Other divisions include FedEx Supply Chain (catering to commercial markets), FedEx Trade Networks (includes end-to-end services like customs brokerage), FedEx Ground (deals in cost-effective, small-package shipping), FedEx SmartPost (deals in delivery of low-weight, less-time-sensitive, business-to-consumer packages), FedEx Freight (provides less-than-truckload freight services), FedEx Custom Critical (provides door-to-door, same-day and next-day delivery of urgent, valuable and hazardous items), FedEx Office (provides printing and shipping expertise on the go) and FedEx TechConnect (whose purpose is to align customer contact centers with worldwide revenue operations). (Birla, 2005) The FedEx Services is a services company under the FedEx umbrella that caters to the air and ground divisions
And because sleeping PCs and monitors generate less heat, FedEx scored additional energy savings from reduced office air conditioning loads. (Ryan) One way to look at FedEx as a business is basically in the form of a series of networks that are all interconnected, from airplane networks to truck networks to courier van networks
FedEx aspires to remain positively focused on safety, the highest ethical and professional standards and the needs of their customers and communities. (Schneider, 2008) FedEx Corp has many different divisions which altogether work towards making it the industry's global leader, and allow it to tap into all different shipping markets
They did this when they realized that it was highly inconvenient for the drivers to go around finding a pay phone to contact the office. (Stephenson) One major revenue-generating aspect of FedEx's wireless solutions is the applications that are network-intensive