Fedex Corporation; Planning for Innovation and Competitive Advantage in a Dynamic Global Environment

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- Is FedEx’s “move, communicate, and shoot” IT strategy a good one for its competitive battle with UPS? Why or why not? Is it a good model of competitive IT strategy for other types of companies? Defend your position

FedEx’s IT-strategy is based on the “move, communicate, shoot” philosophy, which is structured as a differentiated and innovative strategy. This strategy is resulted to work very well in its line of business when it comes to revenue and customer satisfaction. As mentioned earlier, FedEx puts a lot of more effort focusing on the customer-based technology rather than the operational support technology. In its turn, the revenues from the customer-based-technology covers FedEx’s $1 billion a year budget for informational technology. Excluding the beneficial parts of this strategy, main concerns caused by this ideal philosophy is that the approach tends to be a restless process. This process is like an ongoing cycle where the company is launching a product or service and then move on to the next one in a continual timeframe, as FedEx IT-strategy follows the “communicate, move, shoot” approach.

This model of competitive IT-strategy provides a huge success for FedEx. However, applying this IT strategy for other types of companies is not a reliable solution. A business that has different & innovative products and claims a higher price due to cost issues, may be at risk of not getting their breakthrough.

- FedEx CIO Carter says his company is in the business of engineering time. Is this a good business vision for FedEx? Why or Why not? How vital is IT to this definition of FedEx’s business? Use the examples from the case to illustrate your answer.

FedEx’s business vision is good. Seen from a logistic point of view, time is an essential importance when delivering packages. FedEx is striving for being an efficient and spot on company and to do that, they need to make sure that shipments and flights, carrying the products, arrives at the right time in the right place. Fulfilling this objective would prevent FedEx’s characterization from being represented as a bad and a little efficient company, seen from the customer’s expectations. IT is a vital part of FedEx because products, boats, trucks and planes have to be pointed out and communication is the key factor. FedEx informational technology is also a good aid that syncs, with efficiency and effectiveness, all the deliveries in the exact time, locations being held and covered distances around the world.