Thus it exemplifies a company's migration from the technology strategy through the service strategy to the market strategy of the B2C e-strategic grid" (132). These authors suggest that these it-based initiatives were primarily responsible for the company's ability to promote its services and grow its market share far more rapidly than its main competitor: "By focusing on building profitable market share, UPS is now able to deliver 12.4 million packages a day around the world and handle 55% of all e-commerce shipments, compared with rival FedEx's 10%. 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). According to UPS President Jim Kelly: "UPS does business where the virtual and physical worlds meet, where 'tires and wires' converge"; however, this was not always the case. For instance, Brynjolfsson and Urban (2001) report that the company was already trailing behind its major competitor in its use of information technology to further the company's goals. "UPS brought in Web technologies in the mid-1990s," they advise, "but at that time FedEx, with its package-tracking system, led in its use of the Web for customer service. By 1998, however, UPS was catching up in building its technology infrastructure" (132). These authors also report that in 2000, UPS invested $1 billion on marketing efforts designed to identify equivalents or close approximations for what its competitors were offering, but managed to pull its corporate feet out of the fire by using Internet-based technologies to help target its market more efficiently (Brynjolfsson and Urban 132). In this regard, Brynjolfsson and Urban suggest that, "The challenge over time is to continually differentiate the offering -- and to make it less price-sensitive -- in ways that remain attractive to the targeted market segment" (132). This is precisely what UPS has attempted to do with its it-based marketing initiatives, and the company has reaped a large return on its investments to date. Because many of the products and services offered by UPS and FedEx are virtually fungible, the savvy marketers at UPS quickly recognized the it provided them with the ability to personalize services and deliver their message more effectively....
According to Brynjolfsson and Urban, "The support dimension of an offering represents those differentiating features that help customers choose, obtain, and then use the offering. All other differentiating features belong to what is called the merchandise dimension. The support features of a car sold over the Web include availability of information, ease of purchase, the test-drive, promptness of delivery, and service arrangements. Companies can augment the support dimension through personalization" (Brynjolfsson & Urban 132).
The scanner's ability to translate typewriter characters into bit-mapped image into ASCII text depends on a number of factors, including the sensitivity of the device itself and the legibility and method of preparation of the original document; however, improvements are being made all of the time and even formerly graphic-based scanning systems such as Adobe's notoriously slow PDF applications have incorporated character recognition systems that allow for textual scanning.
FedEx was founded by Fred Smith after his tour in Vietnam, and he continues to run the company today, as the only CEO that FedEx has ever known. The company began by offering overnight courier services, an industry that to that point had not existed. Today, that unit is known as FedEx Express and it is still the largest in the company. There are competitors, however, mostly notably UPS, DHL
Local networks in Poland and in the United Kingdom have also been built up and an utter focus has been laid on Asia. By reinvesting the funds generated, the company sustains growth through acquisitions, the development of new products and the improvement of the services provided. A result of the reinvesting process is the Package Flow Technology. This is a multi-year re-engineering of their pickup and delivery of packages. It
United Parcel Service (UPS) Foundational facts Current financials Prospective assessment Tough competition and soaring costs Suggestions United Parcel Service (UPS) United Parcel Service (UPS) is an American multinational corporation that operates in three major industry sectors i.e. logistics service, freight forwarding service, and courier express service. UPS is services-based company and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. The company has worldwide operations. Being a public limited company, it is traded on New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) having the
Session Long Project (SLP) FedEx Corporation is one of the largest companies in the courier industry. The company is renowned not just nationally in the United States (U.S.) but internationally. FedEx Corporation belongs to the parcel service industry segment. The size of the industry segment is quite large in the sense that in the past fifteen years or so, consumers in America have spent beyond fifty billion dollars in shipping
The industry responded by moving services to where the roads moved, when it was possible during the interstate movement, as well as by implementing ergonomic changes to meet forever fickle consumer demands. (Goode, 2000, p. 10) Now, they have become innovators in SST on the internet, as they offer purchase and confirmation technologies at the click of a button to consumers that wish to do their own booking. Traditionally,
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