Case 1: “Federal Express”
Company analysis – Does Courier Pak (CP) make sense for Fed Ex
FedEx’s new product Courier Pak makes sense because of its’ high profit margin and potential to generate new volume. Out of the 3 services that Fed Ex provides, CP yields the highest profit margin at 66% while Priority-One is at 55% and SAS is only at 27%. In addition to this, the company believes that it will be able to boost up sale of CP from 1300 to 6000 packages per day. This shows that CP is the most profitable and huge potential for growth.
Customer analysis – Who needs CP? How large is the market? Is CP an economically viable product? Can FedEx do 6000 CPs a day?
If you look at the current market for Special-Handled Packages there is
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Due to the fact that carrying capacity of the Falcons usually reached its maximum volume before it reached the maximum load allowance, CP is definitely the solution to balance this volume to weight ratio. With the estimation that 10-lb cargo took up about one cubic foot of space, CP’s volume is about 0.1 cubic foot while SAS and P1 is around 1.4cubic foot. The average daily package volume for the week ended 5/7 for both SAS and P1 is 19,422 while CP is 1,304. This yielded a total of 27321.2 cubic feet which accounts for 85% of volume capacity. At 100% volume capacity will be approximately 32,142 cubic feet which allows additional 4820.8 cubic feet to be filled with 48208 CP. This shows that it is definitely viable for Fed Ex to hit the goal of 6,000 CP a day without going over its maximum volume capacity.
Competition – What is the competition for CP?
There is intense competition for the Fed Ex Courier Pack in the package delivery market. Airlines by providing same day package service delivery are strongly represented in this market. The strongest competition for CP would be the in the overnight delivery sector which are mainly the air freight forwarders particularly, Emery who is a huge player in this segment of the market.
How should Fed Ex market CP? Which industries should Fed Ex focus on?
In order to find a right marketing strategy for this product, the firm
One of the key decisions of Airborne Express was to target regularly shipping business customers and purposely passing over residential deliveries and infrequent shippers. Ray Berry, vice president of Field Services Administration, commented this selection of customers: “ Since we can’t be all things to all people, we pick our kind of customer deliberately.” And it
United Parcel Service, a logistics company has established itself through its strong corporate culture, continuous ability to innovate, and its far-reaching global network. The company has maintained a competitive advantage over the years by implementing continuous growth strategies—the first was geographic expansion, next the early adaptation of electronic tracking technologies, and then came a series of acquisitions. Although UPS is financially strong and is able to maintain its role in the courier and delivery industry—it is vital that UPS continue to act strategically as to strive for long-term success. UPS is heavily dependent on the U.S. economy and it is important that it find greater and more profitable ventures
The industry is defined as the Domestic US Express Mail industry. This includes overnight and second day delivery. In order to assess the attractiveness of the industry, a Porters' Five Forces analysis has been conducted as follows.
As the world’s largest package delivery company and a leading global provider of specialized transportation and logistics services, UPS, continues to develop the frontiers of logistics, supply chain management and e-commerce combing the flow of goods, information and funds. This past October UPS Logistics Solutions was voted #1 logistics provider by Logistics Solutions. When conducting an industry analysis, it is important to explain the competitive forces model (CFM) of UPS. The first component of competitive forces model are the customers. Their customers consist of business organizations, and the general public. The second CFM component is competition. UPS have a lot of competition in its field, but the most competitive company is FedEx. Since FedEx provides the same services as UPS; both are neck to neck in competition, but UPS has an established history, and because of that, they have more loyal customers, and they are worldly known. They have established them-selves as the elite, with their commercial on television. Showing how they can deliver from one place to another with same day delivery and
a) Economies of scale—the top three carriers (Federal Express, UPS, and Airborne Express) serve slightly more than 85% of the domestic express mail market. All three carriers deliver a high volume of packages, and thus, are able to spread fixed costs over more units. Also, each carrier has integrated technological systems that improved operational efficiency. In addition, intensive training programs of employees increase service and delivery efficiency.
FedEx has two major customers who consist of businesses and individual customers. These business customers have accounts with FedEx to arrive at their location to pick up packages daily or weekly. Two-thirds of FedEx’s business comes from these customers so FedEx curves their operations to satisfy this clientele. Since FedEx’s competition is trying to acquire some of this clientele they have begun to operate and market to this clientele more effectively. Individual customers are also in FedEx’s internal environment. These customers represent one-third of their business. With increased competition from competitors FedEx has marketed to this market substantially. They have created boxes that are prepaid for shipment as long as the contents fit into the box. This has effectively increased business amongst individual customers for FedEx.
1) Can you identify examples of decisions about each part of the marketing mix (product, place, promotion, and pricing) that are being made in the cookie program? The Product is Girl Scout cookies as well as the Girl Scouts themselves. Since 1912 Cookie sales have played a major role in supporting the Girl Scouts organization at the council and troop levels. Being able to target certain people can be tricky sometimes specially if you don’t know what you’re doing or what your target is. You have to be able to sell yourself as well as the product and who better to sell Girl Scout cookies then young girls. The Girl Scouts mainly target the middle and upper class
In this report we focus on the two main competitors in the package delivery industry: Federal Express Corporation (FedEx) and United Parcel Service of America, Inc.
In the past there was no thing as overnight express delivery for packages or freight. Then the top 3 competitors in the delivery service industry that held 85% of the market were Airborne Express (AE), United Parcel Service (UPS) and Federal Express (FedEx) and, the remaining market share was among six second-tier companies. In the past few years, the express mail businesses had grown extremely fast due to the ability to provide and fulfill overnight shipping accompanied by next-morning delivery services for both individuals and businesses customers. By 1996, this segment of the expedited shipment delivery had grown to a $16-17 billion dollar industry business in the US alone.
By 1976, at a volume of 1,300 packages per day, FedEx’s Courier Pack service was only fulfilling one tenth of a percent of the “emergency rush” market, which totaled 870,000 packages delivered per day. By comparison, at 13,400 deliveries per day, the company’s Priority One “emergency rush” service accounted for one percent of the total market. Clearly both services have potential to gain more share of the rush delivery market, but the Courier Pack’s untapped potential is nearly limitless. Surely, the remaining 98 percent or so of customers using competing services for emergency rush delivery, including Emery Air Freight and USPS Express Service, are not familiar with Fed Ex’s less expensive, and more consistent Courier Pack service, and would switch brands with heightened awareness gained through careful marketing.
The US express mail industry is highly consolidated. 85% of the market is served by 3 service providers. There are six second tier players who serve the remaining 15%. FedEx and UPS lead the industry in services and innovation. The following trends have been observed in this Industry.
DHL 31%, USPS 8%, FedEx 27%, and Amazon 3%. From these numbers Amazon is a very small player in the shipping department. Every competitor, expect DHL, are currently shipping the excess freight that Amazon cannot maintain. With Amazon 's move to acquire more of the market, these competitors need to be on the lookout because portions of their market share can be taken away. These major shipping firms only provide shipping services not offering household products like Amazon. With Amazon starting by semi-supplementing their shipping avenues, Amazon has the potential to grow even larger. The market cap numbers are not a good basis to judge market share on since FedEx and UPS have the majority of the market in the shipping industry. FedEx and UPS are the major competitors against Amazon and its new shipping department. FedEx and UPS had the most recent annual net income of $50.3 billion and $58.3 billion respectively. They represent the majority of packages delivery from individuals, businesses, and online retailers.
United Parcel Service (UPS), is the world’s largest express package delivery firm that handled more than 4.7 billion packages and documents in 2015. This global transportation and logistics service provider operates in more than 220 countries, and offers an array of supply chain management solutions (UPS Fact Sheet, n.d.). The firm has diversified its products and/or services to include freight forwarding and logistics services via air, ground, rail, and sea. U.S. Domestic Package operations, International Package operations, and Supply Chain and Freight operations are the three operating segments UPS. Through technology advancements UPS delivers online package tracking, e-commerce services, and specialized
Airborne Express has long differentiated itself in the market by structuring itself as a big business only carrier. They have specialized in large unit deliveries through metropolitan areas. Everything they do is aimed to optimize the delivery process and slash cost where ever possible. However, Airborne is now faced with a huge decision. They must decide whether to step away from their differentiation strategy to match the new pricing tactics of the market UPS and FedEx or to continue the old norm of delivery pricing. The new distance-based pricing strategy threatens Airborne’s consistent strategy to cut prices. Clients will seek to ship packages at the lowest cost. The short distance deliveries will be ruled by UPS and FedEx since they are the once who are
That being said, Federal Express is faced with an uphill task in growing its market share. The target segment in this case is corporates and it is very difficult to get corporates to change buying patterns. It is faced with stiff competition from incumbent Emery Air which currently has the highest recall and also seen as a reliable freight service provider. Additionally, it is trying to market a product that is fairly standardized and does not have many distinguishing features.