Fedex

Fed Ex Case Brief

Ever since its establishment, FedEx has committed itself to total quality service and had consistently been ranked on Fortune magazine’s industry lists, including “Worlds Most Admired Companies”, “100 Best Companies to Work For” among other accolades. FedEx has expanded far beyond what its Founder Frederick W. Smith has started back in 1971 and continued to strengthen its position as the market leader in its industry over the past 40 years. Their astounding achievements can be credited to the beginning high standards set by Fred Smith and these well-defined goals are communicated clearly and timely to the employees through its integrated business units. The standards were then periodically reinforced to ensure that they stay relevant, effective and efficient. Today, the rapid and continuous growth in the increasingly volatile and competitive business environment has inevitably contributed to FedEx’s key issues such as coordination, efficiency, customer expectations and employees’ management. As such, Fred Smith has to set new standards and constantly reinforces them in order to maintain all those achievements that gained the company much success over the years.

Firstly, Fred Smith changed the way on how it manages employees in the business units. Instead of a rigid hierarchical organizational structure, he focused on employee empowerment and involvement, and emphasized the team approach to getting work done. Through this implementation, the leadership roles were shared between the managers and team members. The decision-making authority was placed on every single team member instead of solely on the manager which also led to an increased team accountability and responsibility. These changes also encouraged the employees to be innovative, to make important decisions and be proactive in discovering new solutions for existing problems. Nonetheless, he provided employees with the information and technology needed to continuously improve...