Managerial Econ
FedEx is a logistics company that "provides customers and businesses worldwide with a broad portfolio of transportation, e-commerce and business services." The company offers "integrated business applications through operating companies competing collectively and managed collaboratively" (FedEx.com, 2013). The company has a number of different units, including Express, Ground, Office, Customs Critical and other smaller businesses related to its core delivery businesses. 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).
Pattern of Change
FedEx has a relatively slow pace of change. The core technologies of the logistics business are transportation equipment, which has long-term business cycles. 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 company's use of technology to keep its remote staff in contact with dispatch contributes to the ability of FedEx to provide tracking updates up to every five minutes, a customer service competitive advantage. This technology was introduced just prior to the smartphone revolution so it was revolutionary for the business at the time but now lags conventional consumer technology, necessitating new investments in innovation. But largely, the innovation cycle in the industry is long.
The operating environment is global, and economies of...
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