Federal Express Corporation (commonly referred to as “FedEx”) is the prominent transportation company providing its courier services worldwide. The company introduced itself to the global community in 1971 as Federal Express Corporation, formed in Little Rock, Arkansas, USA. In 1973 the company moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where the company still resides nowadays. The Federal Express, originally being the division of the future company and delivering hundreds of parcels a week has grown into tremendous company operating millions of packages a day.
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The company’s mission can be defined as a “global” one. In the first instance it is important to outline that FedEx is trying to make the cooperation mutually rewarding for all process participants – its partners, employees and suppliers (Fedex.com). It does its best to generate the best financial outcome for the stakeholders mostly by providing the best logistics available. The concept of the courier giant strategy is three-component system consisting of the following elements:
- the one brand uniting the different units and subdivisions;
- independent operating to meet the highest needs of customers;
- collaborative management to simplify and speed up the cooperation process
It is also important to characterize the value chain of the company (Fedex.com). These are safety, innovation, loyalty, integrity, responsibility, service and people. The safety means that the protection of the environment, employees, equipment goods and customers is vital to the company. The innovation element stands for the continuous technology and services improvement providing the better quality and opportuneness to the customers. The next component is loyalty. Every company of the world has a reputation, whether positive or negative. The FedEx Corporation not only respects its clients and partners, but it also earns immense respect worldwide. The fourth element is integrity. The point is that the company is perceived as completely integral fracture despite the fact that it is divided into units. The fifth component in the list is responsibility, which connects with the safety mentioned before. The next to last is the service quality (Fedex.com). Among the transporting companies on the market today FedEx is famous for its superb service and energy in getting things done. The last but not least is people. People have always been the starting point of the company, so employers tend to promote freedom in the way of thinking and diversity in the working process.
The FedEx’s Structure
The company itself differs from the majority of the companies today. It provides its services and support through the so-called “units”. They are FedEx Express, FedEx Ground, FedEx Trade Networks, FedEx Custom Critical, FedEx Smart Post, FedEx Office, FedEx Freight, FedEx Services, FedEx Tech Connect and FedEx Supply Chain Solutions (History of FedEx). These units form four segments (FedEx Annual Report 2014). FedEx Express Segment consists of Express, Trade Networks and Supply Chain. FedEx Ground Segment includes Ground and Smart Post. FedEx Freight consolidates Freight and Custom Critical. Finally, FedEx Services includes Services, Tech Connect and Office (FedEx Annual Report 2014). The segments and their parts are operating on the market under the supervision of FedEx Corporation. Each and single company in the list has its own obligations and is responsible for the specific things. It is operated by its proper principal officer, has its own service area, transport and personnel (History of FedEx).
The FedEx Express materially established the whole corporation. In general it is what most people understand under the FedEx today, it is how they perceive it. The primary duties of the FedEx Express is the goods transportation using both air and ground transport to deliver everything on time, usually within one to seven days in both U.S. and Canada. The FedEx Express has more than 650 aircrafts and 47000 motorized vehicles operating worldwide. Furthermore, there are more than 1200 operating stations and 700 world service centers, 6300 authorized ship centers and 1750 office locations (History of FedEx). The company has the subsidiaries globally coordinating the business, bringing the lion’s share to the transportation giant revenue (History of FedEx).
The next unit is FedEx Ground. This part of FedEx offers small-distanced, cost-effective courier services within the United States and Canada. Originally it was created in 1985 as a separate company “Roadway Package Systems” having nothing in common with FedEx, but later on it had been bought out by FedEx and rebranded. FedEx ground has 40000 motor vehicles delivering in average more than 4.5 million packages a day. It has more than 500 delivery stations and around 65000 of employees bringing almost 12 billion dollars of revenue (History of FedEx).
FedEx Trade Networks is the next on the list. This unit is a freight forwarding agent of FedEx that operates globally, initiating all types of transportation and following services. These include distribution solutions as well as warehouse and facilitation optimization. Moreover, the customs brokerage is also included into the range of services. The unit has more than 4500 employees working in 140 countries all over the world (History of FedEx).
FedEx Custom Critical is the urgent delivering of the high-priority packages same day or the next day. High-priority goods include such goods as money, hazardous goods or any other valuable items. It was also bought out and rebranded by FedEx in 2000. Originally it was founded in 1947 as Robert Cartage. Custom Critical initiates averagely 800 deliveries a day servicing North America (History of FedEx). It possesses right of exclusive use of around 1300 vehicles of numerous sizes and has virtual access to every aircraft in use in North America.
The fifth component is FedEx Smart Post. This is the small-parcel courier delivering the packages within the United States territory and Puerto Rico. It was founded in 1998 as “Parcel Direct” and acquired with further rebranding into FedEx Smart Post in 2004. It delivers almost two million parcels daily and has the workforce of more than 7500 employees (History of FedEx).
The next component in the unit list is FedEx Office, formerly known as FedEx Kinko. It is the unit providing access to Internet, documents compilation, direct e-mailing, online printing and many others. This unit, as well as many others mentioned, had also been the independent company named “Kinko’s.” It became bought out by FedEx Corporation in 2004 and rebranded into FedEx Kinko’s with further rebranding into FedEx Office. Today it has almost 16000 employees worldwide working in more than 1800 operating facilities. The unit has its locations in five countries: USA, Canada, United Arab Emirates, Lebanon and Kuwait.
Another element is FedEx Freight. It was established in 2001. The main concept of this unit is the delivery of the small-sized packages within the small distance. This element has more than 35000 employees globally with more than 95000 shipments daily. The unit serves Mexico, Canada, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands within U.S. It has more than 20000 motorized vehicles in use bringing it around six billion dollars. However this sum includes money from FedEx Custom Critical (History of FedEx).
One more structural unit is FedEx Services. This unit basically coordinates all the marketing operations among the other FedEx units as well as customer services, technologies and global supply chain. It was founded in 2000 and today it is placing in a job more than 12000 team members bringing around 1.5 billion dollars worldwide.
The next to last is FedEx Tech Connect. Its mission is to provide customers with adequate and in-time contact centers and technical support. It also improves tracing of the packaging engineering within the whole FedEx Corporation. It was established in 2006. As for today it has around 3500 team members (History of FedEx).
The last but not least is the FedEx Supply Chain. This branch provides solutions for the logistics and transportation systems. The unit serves the customers with complex supply chain requirements. These may include urgent transportation management, crucial delivery planning and different kinds of controlled transportation. As the most units in the roster, the Supply Chain was originally absolutely different company called “Roadway Logistics System.” It was founded in 1989 and rebranded into FedEx Supply Chain in 2009. The service area of the unit is North America with additionally twenty more countries outside the region. The unit has more than 500 warehouse locations allocated with around one thousand personnel members (History of FedEx).
It is crucial to outline that today FedEx Corporation continues acquisition of the new companies making it the affiliates or sub-units of already existing ones. Some of the units mentioned before have their own units, making the whole system built on “tree-like” principle. The latest and the most prominent deals were the acquisitions of the business previously operated by “Supaswift Ltd.”, which enabled operating in seven countries in South Africa. In 2013, FedEx initiated the acquisition of the Brazilian transportation company “Rapidao Cometa Logistica e Transporte S.A” for 398 million dollars (FedEx Annual Report 2014). The same year it acquired French logistics company “TATEX” for 55 million dollars and Polish “Opek SP. z o. o.” for 54 million dollars. One year before, in 2012, the courier giant bought out Mexican express delivery company called “Servicios Nacionales Mupa S.A. de C.V” for 128 million dollars (FedEx Annual Report 2014).
The Financial Results
The financial outcomes of the FedEx Corporation for the 2014 are analyzed in comparison with 2013. The operating results of the corporation demonstrate substantial growth and activities improvement. The revenues raised from 44,3 billion dollars in 2013 to almost 45,6 billion dollars in 2014, which is 3 % change (FedEx Annual Report 2014). Operating income has also demonstrated incredible growth in 2014. It has increased from 2,55 to 3,45 billion dollars in a year time demonstrating 35 % growth rate. Operating margin has also moved up from 5.8% in 2013 to 7.6% in 2014 (FedEx Annual Report 2014). Net income of FedEx demonstrated considerable growth from 1,561 billion dollars in 2013 to 2,097 billion dollars in the present year. Diluted earnings per common share also increased from 4.91 to 6.75 dollars per share accordingly. The amount of capital expenditures showed growth and are as follows: 3,533 in 2014 against 3,375 in 2013. The financial positions have also changed. Cash and their equivalents have fallen down by 41% from 4,917 billion dollars in 2013 to 2,908 billion dollars in 2014 (FedEx Annual Report 2014). Total assets amount changed from 33,576 billion dollars in 2013 to 33,070 billion dollars in the current year demonstrating the decrease by one percent. Long term debt has raised from 2,990 billion to 4,737 billion dollars U.S. Finally, the stockholders’ investments demonstrated downfall and are equal to 15,227 billion dollars in 2014 in comparison with 17,398 billion dollars (FedEx Annual Report 2014).
SWOT analysis
The FedEx Corporation has been growing since the last century providing its customers with different services. However, just like every company nowadays, it has its strong and weak sides, opportunities and threats. First of all, the strengths of the company include its strong brand name and the reputation it has earned through the years. The next big thing is that having analyzed the financial information outlined above it is obvious that the courier giant has strong and consistent revenues growth rate. The range of services the company provides its customers with is getting bigger than before and the quality of them is turning better than ever. Finally, the substantial amount of investment into technologies, logistics and information systems distinguishes the company among competitors (Fedex).
Despite the strengths stated, the company also has the weaknesses. First and most important one is overdependence on the economy state. The economic growth leads to more purchases and more purchases lead to more transportation. The economic slowdown, on the contrary, makes people spare their money, which results in less buying and as consequence less transportation (FedEx Annual Report 2014). Another weakness of the company is that judging from the air jets it has and their performance it has more power in the air transportation (Fedex). When it comes to the ground delivery, FedEx becomes outperformed by its rivals. Finally, despite the fact that FedEx has its subsidiaries all over the world it is still more dependent on the U.S. market and reacts to its changes considerably (Fedex).
The opportunities for the company are immense. For the past thirty years FedEx acquired and still does acquire the significant number of transportation and logistics companies. The rebranded companies truly make a difference to FedEx increasing its market share. Moreover, the rapid growth of the transportation sector kindly opens the door for FedEx welcoming it in (FedEx Annual Report 2014).
Finally, despite all positives there are some threats for the company as well. First of all, the one of main threats is fuel consumption and its price. There is direct impact of the fuel availability and its price on the transporting costs, so the better oil market situation is, the better transportation business performs. Additionally there is noticeable vary in the market share FedEx possesses. It is not completely stable and growing (Fedex). It varies from year to year. Finally, there is a threat of FedEx’s rivals’ market share increase which will lead to the efficiency shortage and revenue decrease.
Strategy for Success and Development
Having taken into consideration the previously stated facts and thought it is possible to give a few recommendations of how the FedEx should act in order to achieve greater success and expand itself. First of all we should remember that globalization processes in the world are still in motion. The Asian Tigers and many other countries demonstrate extensive growth and they potentially are the target markets for FedEx Corp. The transportation demand in these countries will not pass unmarked. Taking into attention the successful experience of acquiring other companies, FedEx can expand this strategy to a new level. One more important thing to count is that FedEx has extremely strong reputation and brand name, so the additional social networks and media campaigns will convince even those customers who hesitate. Finally, FedEx should concentrate more on overcoming its weak points and try to enhance them to the strong ones. With huge perspectives, significant strengths and hard work on the weaknesses FedEx Corporation has all chances to become the global transportation business leader.
