Executing Strategies in a Global Environment (Case Study Sample)

Executing Strategies in a Global Environment
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Federal Express
Charles and Gareth (2008) elucidates that, value creation frontier refers to the maximum utility of value which can be derived from the product of a company in the industry based on different business model. According to Fredrik and Birger (2005), competitive advantage is expressed by company's profitability being far greater than that in the industry. Such a company is said to have gained competitiveness over other companies in the industry. The resource-based view of competitive advantage confirms that competitive advantage in business is achieved by embracing the organizations internal resources (Gerardo & Yim-Yu, 2008). The resources are valuable, meaning that they make it possible for an organization to implement strategies efficiently and effectively. The resources are rare, meaning that they are not readily available to the company's competitors. They are imperfectly imitable; that is it is next to impossible for the competitors to copy what the company is doing. Lastly, the resources are not easily replaced or substituted by other resources (Michael, Dennis, Brian, & Dave, 2003).
Pitts and Lei (2006) clarifies that, there are four generic business levels as determined by Michael Porter. Either of the of the four or a combination of any can make FedEx remain a giant in its area of operation. The first business level is cost leadership. It refers to producing products or giving services at the lowest prices possible. That way, the company can charge low prices to the customers and yet remain competitive. They can achieve this if they embrace economies of scale and minimize the unnecessary costs by fixing all the inefficiencies. Rita (2013) explains that, the second strategy which is differentiation. Differentiation refers to the production of products that are different or unique from that of the competitors. The product can be charged premium charges to reflect the extra features added into it, giving the customer a clear preference for it over the others from competitors. FedEx, achieved this by buying their own airplanes, and determining to deliver parcels on airplanes without passengers. This gave them the ability to deliver in time, and charging the customers a premium price for the service was not an issue because, they were aware of the service being peculiar to FedEx only.
Michael, Dennis, Brian, and Dave (2003) deduces that, the third generic business level to be differentiation focus. It is a generic strategy which seeks to differentiate products within a given segment in the market. FedEx can embrace this strategy by focusing on a specific niche of dealing within a specific provision in the market which has not been focused. Courtesy of small packages delivery in the absence of the passengers in the airlines as opposed to their competitors. Fredrik and Birger (2005) identify the last generic level as the cost focus. They explain it as identifying a product or service which is similar to the highly priced products in the market, and providing an alternative acceptable to a formidable group of people or target group at a lower price.

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The company has been there for years, and it has evolved over the different stages of growth to the maturity stage. Even though, it is considering to venture into China as a way of expansion to hold more share of the market that is not there major concern. They are majorly after maintaining and holding their business models inorder to safeguard themselves from the competition by the competitors. The company has reached the maturity stage. In this scenario, UPS, DHL, and Federal Express, currently known as FedEx represent a mature industry. The major competitor in this situation is the UPS, and expanding to China as much as is a way of growing profits, it is a way of waging war against a competitor on the business model so that they may remain on the lead (Fredrik & Birger, 2005).
Rita (2013) asserts that, there are four different building blocks which lead to competitive advantage in a company. They are quality, customer responsiveness, efficiency and innovation. They are fit to be used by Federal Express so that they may remain as the market leaders. To begin with is efficiency that is categorized in different ways. The first way is employee productivity. It refers to the output that each employee offers towards a job(Charles and Gareth, 2008). The second categorization is capital productivity that is the output realizable from invested capital. In short, efficiency checks if the inputs equals outputs. The higher the productivity in an organization, the greater the efficiency it achieves and the lower the costs. Federal Express can train its staff to ensure that each of the staff contributes to the best of their ability, and that, the output of capital investment equals the input to remain competitive.
Fredrik and Birger (2005) argues that, the second-building block of competitive advantage is the quality. Quality as excellence. When the customers feel that the services are excellent, they are usually willing to offer more, in terms of payment towards the service or product. The customers identify superiority of a product based on the design of the service, the style in which it is offered, and the levels of the services which come with a product, or the way the service is packaged (Michael, Dennis, Brian, & Dave, 2003). Quality can be taken as reliability. A product is considered reliable if it qualifies the work it was designed and if minimal breakdowns are realized. The aspect of reliability ensures that, there are few or no fixes if any, thus increasing people trust in the product or service. It can help the company to charge a fortune worthwhile the product.
Gerardo and Yim-Yu (2008), deduces that innovation is the third-building block of competitive advantage. There are two types of innovation, but, innovation is how a company achieves the uniqueness from the competitors. It is applicable and advantageous in the long run. The first type of innovation is the product innovation, which refers to developing products which have not been in existence, or improves the attributes of already existing products. Federal Express was able to innovate the product of transporting the small packages on their own planes, specifically bought for that work. According to Pitts and Lei (2006), the second-innovation type is a process innovation; it refers to developing a new process which is used in producing the products. When the process is new, then, most likely the output is differentiated. The company innovated the new process of delivering small packages separate from passengers who made it possible to deliver more and timely services.
Robert, Curtis, George, Robert, and Ken (2006) illustrates that, customer responsiveness is the final building block of competitive advantage. It is the satisfaction derived by the customer from using a specific type of service or product, because of the value they get from it. FedEx should apply this particular concept to gain competitive advantage because, what matters most in the service industry is how the customers react to the service that they have received. FedEx realized that, the customers would be delighted if they were offered different service package from the one which involved the small packages (Stephen, 2009). The small packages would be delivered in time if the services would be differentiated, and that is what they exactly did. It caused them to soar up in the industry and became competitive. They can maintain a competitive advantage over the competitors by maintaining this same concept.
A Company exists with three different levels of strategic management, and each of the levels requires a different technique of making the business competitive(Charles & Gareth, 2008). The levels include the corporate level, which is the senior most which is made up of the board of directors. The second from it is a business level which entails the divisional managers, with a functional level being the junior under the leadership of the functional managers (Stephen, 2009). The divisional managers are the senior most managers, and the functional managers are the junior most managers who interact with the customers. They are all involved ion making decisions that influence the competitive advantage of the company.
In accordance to Rita (2013), business model refers to the plan in which a business executes its business to ensure that it enjoys profits from its operations. There are different business models based on what an organization deals with, that is; there are those which deal with service production and others which deal with product production. FedEx is not an exemption; it has a business model which they have adopted to ensure that they make profits, in a competitive environment. FedEx with its major rivalry as UPS, and moving on to access the global market, and with the focus of overturning all the barriers for their advantage it embraces the below model (Charles & Gareth, 2008).
FedEx, when it came into the market of small packages, was the first to get an airplane which would ferry them purely without having to carry anything else. They chose a central place; that is Memphis, and they considered it for several other reasons. That included the climatic conditions, and because it was the hometown to the founder, Smith. That was the model which they had used to ensure that they reached the other towns around the place in good time without having to late the parcels (Pitts & Lei, 2006). They would deliver the parcels in good time as compared to the other parcel delivery companies. That has since became their model of business, and it has given them a competitive advantage in the past even though with the int...