Airborne Express Executive Summary

In the freight forwarding industry there are three major corporations which make up 85% of the total market; United Parcel Service (UPS), Federal Express, and Airborne Express. Combined, these “Big Three” ship more than 5 million packages a day with over 98% of which arriving on time. The impact that the express mail industry has made on the U.S. economy in terms of technology, logistics support for small business, and the overall movement of goods has far exceeded the expectations of many since its origination in the 1970’s. The case at hand dives truly dives into, not necessarily the phenomenon of express mail, but who were these competitors and how they competed with each other.
Each one of these major players in the express mail industry maintained a specific strategy geared towards gaining a competitive edge over the other two competitors. Federal Express (Fed Ex), which held around 45% of the marketplace and was the first mover of the industry, used a differentiation strategy to gain its advantages over UPS and Airborne Express. This strategy, which is generically focused on producing a differentiated product and
This strategy, known as low-cost leadership, focuses on decreasing costs in what Chapter 5 of our book outlines into 5 distinct economic drivers of strategic positioning; economies of scale, learning curve, economies of scope, production technology, product design, and location. In each of these categories, the author displays how an organization with a low-cost differentiation strategy can use the related advantage to achieve a competitive edge. And, although both UPS and Airborne Express had a low-cost leadership strategy, Airborne Express implemented many more successful strategic position policies. Outlined Below is some comparisons of strategies between Airborne Express and Fed