This helped Laura Ashley to address: various shortfalls and redundancies in their supply chain. Once this took place, it meant that the inefficiencies were reduced dramatically. As the new alliance, allowed executives to: have greater control over costs and what products are going to the various stores. This improved management's ability to adjust to shifts in: the economy or consumer tastes. What this is showing, is that Laura Ashley wanted to form this alliance with Fed Ex out of necessity. This is because they could immediately address a problem that has been affecting the company for several years. At which point, the overall profit margins can: increase and the underlying costs can begin to decrease. (Dornier, 1998, pp. 196 -- 205) ("The Laura Ashley Story," n.d.) The advantages of merger for Fed Ex are: it allowed the company to market the BLS division to the retail sector. This helped executives to show a variety of organizations, how they could assist them in adapting to: the changes that are taking place in the economy. As they can serve as a one stop shop for: outsourcing all of the different logistical needs that a company may have. This is important, because it allowed Fed Ex to be able to make a shift from: being a global package delivery service. To an organization, that is vital part of a business' operations by: helping them to intelligently address their global supply chain issues. The partnership with Laura Ashley is one step that the company was taking to achieve this objective. as, the success of the strategy served as blue print in: determining how the different entities will adapt to the shifts that are taking place in the economy. (Dornier, 1998, pp. 196 -- 205) ("About...

In the case of Laura Ashley, this helped the company to address supply chain issues that were affecting management's ability to: grow their profit margins. The partnership with Fed Ex addressed these underlying challenges, by outsourcing this segment of their operations. This helped to improve management's ability to respond to: shifts that are occurring inside the supply chain and the different retail locations. While, Fed Ex was using the alliance to be able to showcase, how the BLS division can help a variety of companies to adapt to: the changes in the economy. This helped them to be able to show, how they are more than just a package delivery service. Instead, they are a global logistical organization that can help a host of corporations to: deal with the various challenges they are facing. When you put these two elements together, they are showing how this alliance is: a symbol of the changes that are taking place because of globalization. As both companies, were involved in this transaction to: address the underlying challenges that they were facing when it comes to this issue.
Bibliography

About Fed Ex. (1996). Gary Clark. Retrieved from: http://www.garyclarke.com/documents/CLARKE873-3.html

The Laura Ashley Story. (n.d.). Laura Ashley. Retrieved from: http://www.laura-ashley.com.au/history/laura-ashley-history.pdf

Dornier, P. (1998). Global Operations and Logistics Text and Cases. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Scholte, J. (2000). Globalization.…