Website analytics and business success metrics for major companies

¶ … FedEx notes a few different indicators of success. Earnings per share ($1.65) is announced in one such release, but there is more than that. The company notes when it builds or expands plants, as this means better service to/from that destination. It also notes sustainability measures like the number of hybrid vehicles (365) and Co2 emissions reduced (3000 metric tons). The company notes its 290,000 employees as well.

This compares with UPS, who note on their website the number of countries it serves, its revenue, the number of employees (398,300), delivery volume (4 billion packages) and daily U.S. (2.2 million) and international (2.4 million) air volumes. The United States Postal Service uses metrics like operating revenue ($65 billion), new delivery points served (636,530), debt ($13 billion), deficiency ($18.9 billion) and number of employees (557,251) in its report to Congress.

An editorial in the Wall Street Journal highlights some differences between FedEx and UPS, in terms of their labor arrangements and what those mean for their respective bottom lines. The article highlights that even if the two companies are the same in many respects, there remain fundamental differences. It is worth noting that the two companies did report different metrics, but ultimately FedEx does utilize many of the same metrics as its competitors. USPS is slightly different, because it is not a publicly traded company. Instead, it makes a report to Congress, and Congress has different expectations of what it wants. UPS uses metrics of interest to shareholders, FedEx uses metrics of interest to both shareholders and the community at large, while USPS uses metrics of interest to Congress and to taxpayers.