Management: A Practical Introduction
Management: A Practical Introduction
Introduction
Today’s organizations strive to all their employees work together as an effective team so that the entire organization can work towards a shared goal. Studies have shown that this endeavor can be helped by having a mission, vision, value statements, and strategic plan. Therefore, this report will examine the mission, vision, value statements, and strategic plans of United Parcel Service (UPS) and evaluate if they are robust enough. The report will also identify the core competencies of UPS and the rationale for selecting those as core competencies. It will compare the mission and vision statements of UPS with a competitor’s mission and vision statements. The competitor chosen was FedEx. UPS is a global brand of the express carrier, and parcel delivery service, transportation, logistics, capital, and e-commerce services. It has operations in more than 200 countries with more than 58 billion USD revenue. FedEx is the world’s largest express delivery service with operations in more than 220 countries and handles more than 3.6 million shipments per day, with more than 47 billion USD revenue.
Mission Statement Evaluation and Comparison
UPS mission is to
“Grow our global business by serving the logistics needs of customers, offering excellence and value in all that we do.
Maintain a financially strong company with broad employee ownership that provides a long-term competitive return to our shareowners.
Inspire our people and business partners to do their best, offering opportunities for personal development and success.
Lead by example as a responsible, caring, and sustainable company making a difference in the communities we serve”
FedEx mission is
“FedEx Corporation will produce superior financial returns for its shareowners by providing high value-added logistics, transportation and related business services through focused operating companies. Customer requirements will be met in the highest quality manner appropriate to each market segment served. FedEx will strive to develop mutually rewarding relationships with its team members, partners, and suppliers. Safety will be the first consideration in all operations. Corporate activities will be conducted to the highest ethical and professional standards” .
Every mission statement is analyzed on nine parameters. The UPS mission statement covers 8 out of the nine components that a robust mission statement has to cover. Hence, the UPS mission statement is strong and comprehensive and lacks only in the technology component. It mentions excellence as a component in its mission and also mentions integrity, teamwork, service, quality and efficiency, safety, sustainability, and innovation as its values. The mission statement would have been more complete had it mentioned the integrity and teamwork as part of its mission statement. The mission statement is customer oriented by focusing on solving problems and providing what the customer needs. Like any robust mission statement, it focuses on addressing multiple stakeholders such as its employees, shareholders, customers, partners, and the community in general.
The FedEx mission statement, when evaluated against the same nine parameters, is only an above average statement. It lacks in components such as the geographies, technology, and concern for the public, which should be reflected in its social and environmental responsibility. It talks only about integrity and misses talking about citizenship, teamwork, and excellence. The mission statement is customer-oriented, as it focuses on the customer needs. The mission statements need to have more information about the geographies it serves, whether it uses the newest technology, and about how it resolves the issues related to sustainability and the environment.
When comparing the mission statements of UPS and FedEx, the UPS’ mission statement is more comprehensive and covers more components than the FedEx’s mission statement. Both of them have missed talking about the technology, while FedEx’s mission statement is also missing components of geographical area and its responsibility towards the public. Table 1 in Appendix contains the comparison details.
Vision Statement Evaluation and Comparison
The UPS’ vision statement is to create value for customers by using their superior portfolio of logistics capabilities, while continually transforming to strengthen their leadership position and investing to accelerate growth in key markets and new opportunities.
FedEx’s vision is that it is committed to providing outstanding customer experience, to being a great place to work, a thoughtful steward of the environment and a caring citizen in the communities where we live and work. At FedEx, we are passionate about sustainably connecting people and places and improving the quality of life around the world.
When comparing the vision statement to the requirements of a robust vision statement, the vision should have a purpose, tell what the organization aims to achieve, state what it wants to become, talks about the future, and is targeted for its employees. It states the organization’s ultimate objectives. It becomes the source for developing the core values, core purpose, and visionary goals of the organization. It is developed before the mission statement and does not change often as it takes a long time for a company to achieve the stated objectives in a vision.
The UPS’s vision statement is unique in that it does not resemble any other logistics company’s vision. It is appropriate. It does not directly talk about excellence but talks about the superiority of its portfolio. It is easily understood and has a clear purpose and direction, which is to create growth using its logistics capabilities and investments. It is ambitious as it states the commitment of the organization to strengthen its leadership position. It does not have mention of inspiration.
The FedEx’s vision statement is also unique as it also does not resemble any other logistics company’s vision. It does not mention anywhere about its logistics capabilities so it is not appropriate. It does not directly talk about excellence but talks about providing outstanding customer service. It is easily understood and but lacks a clear purpose and direction, as it states what it wants to achieve but not the means. It is ambitious as it states the commitment of the organization to provide outstanding customer service, supporting sustainability, quality of life for its employees, and the community. It does not seem to mention about the inspiration component.
When comparing the vision statements of UPS and its competitor, UPS’s vision statement is more appropriate, more complete and better expresses the objectives of the company. FedEx vision statement is too generic and does not talk about the industry and while it talks about some objectives, there is no mention of how it will go about in achieving them. Table 2 in Appendix contains the comparison details.
Core Competencies
UPS’s core competencies are logistics and finances. As part of logistics, it deals with global small packages, U.S. domestic packages, international packages, supply chain and freight including freight forwarding, truckload freight brokerage, logistics and distribution, UPS freight, post sales stocking of goods, and customs brokerage. As part of finances, it has UPS capital, which provides financial, insurance, and payment services to its customers for covering risk and also provides cash for supply chain maintenance. While finance is one of the core competencies, it still helps UPS in bettering its core competency of logistics. All these core competencies are related to the core competency of logistics. They all help the organization in vertically integrating all the possible services, to the extent possible, so that, as a whole, both UPS and its customers can benefit. It becomes a single organization that takes care of many parts of a supply chain by providing a portfolio of services related to logistics and its enablers so that the customers can leverage these services for better service.
Core competencies must enable to company to develop new products or deliver new services, must make a significant contribution to the benefits that the end product or service delivers, and it should be difficult for a competitor to emulate so that they provide the organization a competitive advantage. The organization must decide what kind of unique skills, abilities, knowledge, technologies, and experience it must possess to be able to gain the core competencies. Then it must decide how to use those core competencies so that it can develop the competitive advantage. High-performing companies continually develop their core competencies and gain new ones so that they retain their competitive advantage. It generally does this by listening to its customers and being aware of their requirements. In the case of UPS, it started as a small package delivery company but has grown by developing the core competencies so that it now is the world’s largest logistics company.
Strategy
UPS Enterprise Strategy is to create value, transform, and invest in growing. UPS would use its superior portfolio of logistics capabilities to create value and competitive advantage for its customers. UPS offers products and services that increase its customers’ access to global markets. It would configure its portfolio to provide solutions to specific industries and provide them industry-leading technology to enhance their business processes. UPS would continually transform themselves so that they stay the leaders, deliver unparalleled customer experience, use excellent marketing and sales capabilities to ensure profitable growth, and enhance performance through quality, efficiency, and technology. UPS will leverage its global network and scale as well as invest to build its infrastructure in key emerging markets and expand its integrated logistics solutions and offerings to enable acceleration of growth in key markets.
UPS has been living up to its mission, vision, and values. It has been providing value to its customers by providing services through its portfolio of logistics services. Services such as smart pickup, which is an innovative method of picking up packages, helps in reducing emissions and cuts costs for its customers. By using IT, in which it invested billions of dollars, it has been able to provide cheaper services to its customers. It can, therefore, be said that UPS strives to live by its mission, vision, and values.
References
Atlanta Business Chronicle. (2011, February 11). Finalist: United Parcel Service: UPS smart pickup. Retrieved from marketing.robinson.gsu.edu: http://marketing.robinson.gsu.edu/2011/02/25/finalist-united-parcel-service-ups-smart-pickup/
Clinton, S. R. (2008). Importance of technology investments in the logistics service providers: A case study of UPS and its use of online tools. The Journal of Applied Business Research, 24(2), 67-80.
FedEx. (2017, February 3). About FedEx. Retrieved from about.van.fedex.com: http://about.van.fedex.com/our-story/overview/
FedEx. (2017, February 4). Company Overview. Retrieved from investors.fedex.com: http://investors.fedex.com/company-overview/mission-and-goals/default.aspx
Jurevicius, O. (2013, September 14). Mission statement of FedEx. Retrieved from strategicmanagementinsight.com: https://www.strategicmanagementinsight.com/mission-statements/fedex-mission-statement.html
Jurevicius, O. (2013, September 14). Mission statement of UPS. Retrieved from strategicmanagementinsight.com: https://www.strategicmanagementinsight.com/mission-statements/ups-mission-statement.html
Jurevicius, O. (2013, October 6). Vision statement. Retrieved from strategicmanagementinsight.com: https://www.strategicmanagementinsight.com/tools/vision-statement.html
SHRM. (2012, November 30). Competencies: How can our company determine its core competencies? Retrieved from shrm.org: https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/tools-and-samples/hr-qa/pages/corecompetencies.aspx
UPS. (2015). Navigate tomorrow: 2015 annual report. Atlanta, GA: UPS.
UPS Investors. (2017, February 4). Investor Relations. Retrieved from investors.ups.com: http://www.investors.ups.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=62900&p=irol-homeprofile
UPS Pressroom. (2017, February 3). UPS's values, mission, and strategy. Retrieved from pressroom.ups.com: https://pressroom.ups.com/pressroom/ContentDetailsViewer.page?ConceptType=FactSheets&id=1426321650156-161
Appendix
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