FedEx is a symbolic abbreviation of the shipping company Federal Express. It is a multinational courier delivery services company located in the United States with its headquarters in Memphis. On the other hand, UPS is an abbreviation of United Parcel Service. It is an international package delivery and supply chain managing company situated in America. UPS help individuals to manage their shipping, track packages, and print labels online.
FedEx and UPS are different in many ways, for instance, FedEx is the world’s most prominent multinational air shipping firm while UPS is the world’s largest packaging delivery company. Besides, FedEx is different from UPS in that FedEx focuses more transportation services and worldwide markets while UPS puts more attention to the whole value chain at the same time competing domestically. Also, FedEx tends to contribute more express services such as air freight while on the other hand UPS relies more on the delivery of packages. Besides, FedEx offices often occupy bigger spaces that resemble big offices and can provide classy equipment such as photo kiosks while UPS store is usually small retail setting and primarily serve retail customers who need small package delivery. A large number of UPS customers argue that UPS knows how to deliver effectively, quickly and without having any issues. Many individuals claim that UPS has a competitive advantage over FedEx because they only have to focus domestically instead of involving themselves both locally and internationally unlike FedEx who have a significant presence worldwide ( Bruner et al. 2017).
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The primary and unique strategic actions taken by each firm include the fact that when FedEx noticed that the contract they had with United States Postal Service was chosen for the renewal, UPS successfully put a bid on the deal. Also, UPS accepted to purchase a pharmaceutical-logistics company Camelog based in Hungary in an attempt to maintain its strength in logistics (Fabbe-Costes & Colin, 2017). Besides, UPS has taken action to heavily invest in placing itself in for more opportunities in e-commerce. Additionally, the significant and unique work that FedEx has made is the reconstruction of some of its operations to increase its effectiveness. Also, FedEx has taken a step to enhance its importance in coming up with various ways to make sure that all of its departments work together in unison. Besides, FedEx has taken strategic action to change the pricing mechanism to improve revenue margins. For instance, FedEx announced that it would be charging its ground customers by considering the dimensional weight (Insights, 2018).
Based on the information in the case and the research, the firm that is likely to be successful in the future is the UPS because they were able to make a deal with the United States Postal Service. This contract has increased UPS profits and thus making it surpass FedEx ( Rubin & Carmichael, 2017). Also, UPS has high chances of being successful in the future because of its relationship with Amazon, which has helped to attract more customers (Soper, 2017). Besides, UPS enjoy working only locally and hence can attract more customers. This single network structure allows UPS to enjoy a competitive advantage by maximizing network competence and full utilization of resources, thus having more chances of being successful. Also, UPS has high chances of being successful in the future than FedEx because it is cheaper than FedEx and this has earned it many customers in the United States market.
References
Bruner, R. F., Lipson, M. L., Carr, S., & Lipson, M. L. (2017). FedEx Corp. versus United Parcel Service of America, Inc.: Who Will Deliver Returns from China?. Darden Business Publishing Cases , 1-14.
Fabbe-Costes, N., & Colin, J. (2017). Formulating logistics strategy. Global Logistics And Distribution Planning . New York: Routledge.
Insights, C. B. (2018). Disrupting Logistics: The startups that are unbundling FedEx & UPS.
Rubin, J. R., & Carmichael, B. (2017). UPS and corporate sustainability: Proactively managing risk. Darden Business Publishing Cases , 1-30.
Soper, S. (2017). Amazon is testing its own delivery service to rival FedEx and UPS. Bloomberg. com .
