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Ups Case Study

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CASE STUDY – UPS – United Parcel Service Inc. US$42.6 Billion This article is excerpted from E-Volve-or-Die.com: Thriving in the Internet Age Through E-Commerce Management, by Mitchell Levy (New Riders Publishing, 2000, ISBN 0-7357-1028-7). www.ups.com History of Transformation UPS has been in the package delivery business for 95 years, providing services to businesses and consumers worldwide in more than 200 countries. In 1994, UPS began to investigate the potential of e-commerce and started an internal group focused on enabling e-commerce. UPS redefined its core business and found ways to change its structure and processes, forming new businesses to take advantage of new opportunities. Products and Services UPS is in the …show more content…

UPS wanted to find ways to provide more access points to that new breed of customer. UPS also claims that luck and timing helped a great deal. With the surge in e-tailing as well as B2B e-commerce, UPS was in a unique position to meet the increased demand. They were the bridge between the physical and electronic world, with a well-tested and highly reliable infrastructure to serve both of those worlds. UPS was able to foresee the importance of electronic information to the transportation industry. As early as 1985, they began improving their data networking applications to enhance communications with their customers and increase efficiency. For instance, they built up their IT network and database in order to collect and track over 200 data elements for every single package that they ship. With over 13 million packages being shipped every day, that 's a lot of data! However, their system continues to handle that level of information exchange. Consequently, they were well poised to help the multitude of new B2C online companies who came to rely on UPS for shipping. UPS was able to offer these new companies tracking services as well. It was as easy as setting up a link to the UPS Web site. UPS also offers a set of transportation APIs called the UPS OnLine Tools that allow businesses to integrate tracking, rating, address validation, and a number of other valuable

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