MGMT1101 FedEx: SWOT Analysis, Stakeholder Impact, & Strategy

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of FedEx, a global logistics leader, focusing on its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT). It examines the company's structure, key stakeholders (including suppliers, customers, shareholders, and government), and environmental constraints. The report explores how FedEx can leverage its strengths to overcome weaknesses and threats, capitalize on opportunities for expansion, and enhance stakeholder value. Furthermore, it analyzes the company's mechanistic organizational structure and its impact on responsiveness to change. Employee motivation is discussed, with a recommendation for the Two-Factor Theory to improve job satisfaction and reduce hygiene factors. The report concludes with recommendations to address the high cost of services through streamlining operations and leveraging online presence to improve customer satisfaction and maintain a competitive edge.

Running head: FINAL PROJECT- RESEARCH & ANALYSIS PAPER- PART II 1
Final Project - Research & Analysis Paper – Part II
Student’s Name
Institution Affiliation

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Final Project - Research & Analysis Paper – Part II
Summary
FedEx is one of the most accomplished companies in the provision of logistics services
across the globe. It has four companies operating under the FedEx brand umbrella: FedEx
Services, FedEx Ground, FedEx Express and FedEx Freight. The company leverages its global
presence and brand to provide connections support to individuals and companies in over 200
countries in the world. The origins of FedEx can be traced to the frustrations experienced by a
former Marine pilot delivering packages. In 1971, the Marine decided to start a business that can
be able to deliver packages conveniently and effectively, thus coming up with the idea of Federal
Express (CSI Market, 2018).
The report will analyze ways in which the company can leverage its strengths to
overcome the weaknesses and threats to its system and also enable it to take advantage of the
opportunities available for it to expand its operations in service to its customers and grow value
for its stakeholders. Also, the report will analyze the various aspects of the FedEx business
including the company structure, stakeholders, competition, employees, motivation and
environment constraints and their impacts on the company’s activities and profitability.
S.W.O.T. – Formulating Strategies
Strengths
FedEx has many strengths including a strong brand recognition, global presence, strong
financial muscle, and innovative personnel and leadership. I will use these strengths to ensure
that the company provides their customers across the world with the highest quality services
possible.
Weaknesses

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The weakness identified in the company include the high cost of services and labor
disputes, all which drive business towards the competitors. One of the things that I would do is to
strategically streamline the company operations and remove wastes in a bid to bring the cost of
operating the business down. The savings can then be used to lower the cost of services to the
customers.
Opportunities
The online spheres have expanded the companies reach and simplified the
communication process between individuals and businesses. FedEx is mainly a B2B company
that should leverage e-commerce to expand its businesses across the world. The company should
also capitalize on the available business opportunities for making strategic alliances in foreign
countries which would lower the cost of establishing businesses.
Threats
The company faces stiff competition from companies such as UPS and DHL who offer
similar services and are enlarging their operations across the globe. To beat the competition,
FedEx needs to offer high-quality services and find ways of lowering the cost of those services.
Environmental Constraints
FedEx operates in many parts of the world with different legal, political, economic and
socio-cultural features. The company’s global presence means that the company operates in a
complex business environment full of challenges and opportunities. The legal environment is one
of the most challenging factors that FedEx deals with, especially concerning the issue of unions
(Kalyani, 2017). The company is registered under different rules, but there are moves to bring it
under different rules that would mandate it to allow unionization of employees. The company
needs to lobby Congress to ensure the status quo remains as unions have the power to force

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companies into increasing the wages of concerned employees to an unsustainable level (FedEx,
2018).
Stakeholders
Stakeholders are groups and individuals that affect and gets affected by the operations of
a business (Ananthan, Appannaiah, & Reddy, 2010). The basic FedEx stakeholders include
suppliers, consumers, shareholders, the government, the management. The government regulates
the industry that FedEx operates in enabling the company to make profits and sometimes making
the business less profitable. Also, the government benefits from taxes levied on the company’s
operations. On their part, suppliers determine the cost of raw materials and affect the consumer
prices of the company’s services. The management/Board of directors control every aspect of the
business and are important cogs in the functioning of the company.
The stakeholders that the company should manage and give the most priority to is the
customers. Without customers, a company is not in business. A FedEx depends on the customers
to purchase its services so that it can make some profits. Serving the customer and giving them
quality services and at affordable prices should rank as the most important aspects of s business
(Ireland, Hoskisson, & Hitt, 2012)
FedEx Organization Structure and Design
The organization structure in the FedEx Company is mechanistic in nature

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Mechanistic organization structure is characterized by hierarchical relationships between
the management and the rest of the employees with the management making all the decisions
which are later communicated with the rest of the employees (Baligh, 2011). Mechanistic
structure of FedEx provides stability to the company but makes it hard for it to respond easily to
changes in the business operating environment (Pride, Hughes, & Kapoor, 2012). At FedEx,
there is a high degree of job specialization, for instance, the delivery employees only deliver
parcels and don’t get involved in preparations of inventories. At the same time, people working
at closely related jobs are grouped together under common leadership meaning that it is highly
departmentalized. In the same Most decisions at FedEx are made by senior management thus the
company has centralized decision making.
Motivating employees

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There are various theories that a company can use to base its motivation principles on
including Hertzberg’s Two-Factor Theory, Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs, Hawthorne’s effect,
Expectancy theory. In the most appropriate theory in the FedEx’s case is the Two Factor theory
based on psychologist Frederick Herzberg research on accountants and engineers. According to
the theory, the employees’ motivation and satisfaction should be based on two factors: Increasing
motivator factors and reducing hygiene factors (Hyun, 2009). In FedEx, I will endeavor to ensure
that the motivators’ factors are taken care of including ensuring job satisfaction, providing a
clear career progression path and recognizing employees input. At the same time, it will serve
the company well to reduce the hygiene factors through activities such as providing competitive
salaries and benefits and improving the relationships between workers and managers.
Recommendations
The issue currently posing a threat to FedEx is the issue of high cost of its services, and
failure to address the problem will result in the company losing market share to its competitors.
The company needs to leverage its online and on the ground presence to streamline its operations
to cut down on expenses. The savings would enable the company to provide quality service to its
comers at subsidized prices. Competitive prices for the company’s services will ensure loyal
customers continue patronizing the business and at the same time attract new customers (Hansen,
& Mowen, 2015).
Controls and Recommendations
Control and monitoring constitute some of the most important processes in a project.
Monitoring ensures that the processes run seamlessly and that any shortcomings are addressed
through control function for better results (Madura, 2010). The most appropriate control and
monitoring measures to use in the project are the concurrent and feedback controls as they deal

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with streamlining of operation processes and giving value for money to the client. Concurrent
controls processes will include management by walking around, tracking employee performance
controls and bureaucratic controls. Every manager would be charged with physically supervising
the people under him or her and noting the areas where more efficiency is required. At the same
time, the company will use various metrics to track the employees’ performance.
Any project’s success or failure can only be ascertained after a thorough evaluation and
analysis of the processes and end results. The current project’s measure will be how well the
processes results in a reduction in the costs of operation and the effect it has on overall consumer
satisfaction. The hypothesis is that the streamlining of company operations will result in higher
consumer satisfaction levels. The recommendations will, therefore, have two effects: saving the
company money and increased levels of customer satisfaction.

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References
Ananthan, B. R., Appannaiah, H. R., & Reddy, P. N. (2010). Business Management. New Delhi:
Himalaya Pub. House.
Baligh, H. H. (2011). Organization structures: Theory and design, analysis and prescription.
New York, N.Y: Springer.
CSI Market. (2018). FedEx Corporation. Retrieved from https://csimarket.com/stocks/
compet_glance.php?code=FDX
FedEx. (2018). Compensation and rewards. Retrieved from http://www.fedex.com/cn_english/
careers/compensation.html
Hansen, D. R., & Mowen, M. M. (2015). Cornerstones of cost management. Mason, OH:
SouthWestern Cengage Learning.
Hyun, S. (2009). Re-examination of Herzberg's Two-Factor Theory of Motivation in the Korean
Army foodservice operations. Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University.
Ireland, R. D., Hoskisson, R. E., & Hitt, A. M. (2012). Understanding business strategy (3rd ed.).
Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning.
Kalyani, D. (2017, August). IBISWorld industry report 49222: Couriers & local delivery services
in the US. Retrieved from IBISWorld database.
Madura, J. (2010). Introduction to business. St. Paul, MN: Paradigm Pub.
Pride, W. M., Hughes, R. J., & Kapoor, J. R. (2012). Introduction to business. Australia: South-
Western Cengage Learning.