United Parcel Service
Essays

Web-based Supply Chain Management and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Software

A breakdown of the organizarional and operational structure of the USPS. Includes a review of major challenges faced by the USPS and the changes implemented to address them. Also addresses the attitudes of postal employees through a primary-source interview with an anonymous USPS Letter Carier.

Response to Crone v. United Parcel Service

The companies selected for this study are FedEx Corporation (NYSE: FDX) and United Parcel Service (NYSE: UPS). These two companies are the main competitors in the courier industry both domestically and internationally.

FedEx Corporation (NYSE:FDX) has grown from a package and freight forwarding delivery service to become one of the most vertically integrated logistics providers operating on a global scale today. FedEx was able to set an achieve a series of very aggressive growth objectives through acquisition, creating a global logistics and freight forwarding system unrivaled today. What the case analysis also implies is how well FedEx manages its global acquisitions through a highly integrated strategy of process and IT integration. FedEx is known for being one of the most advanced logistics companies operating today in their use of Information Technologies (IT) for the automation of supply chain operations (Alghalith, 2007). FedEx has struggled to unify their entire company into a single value proposition, allowing each business unit to have its own identity. While this has been very good for the two top-performing units, FedEx Express and FedEx Ground, the remainder of the company is not as clearly defined. This is one of the most strategic marketing challenges the company has today. FedEx is also formidable due to their strengths in large-scale operations, use of analytics to track performance and gain greater efficiencies, and exceptional brand value, FedEx still is struggling with the marketing challenge of transitioning into a global logistics provider. The intent of this analysis is to complete a SWOT analysis, provide a problem statement related to the case, define three strategic alternatives, provide a strategic recommendation and marketing implementation. FedEx's direction for the future will be defined.

Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ) is one of the world's leading providers of wireless and wireline-based communication services including broadband, data, network access and global internet protocol (IP) Services. In their latest full fiscal year the company reported revenues of $110, 875 million with an operating profit of $12,880 million during FY2011 (Verizon Investor Relations, 2012). At present the company has 192,000 employees and operates in 150 nations both in a franchised and direct selling model (Verizon Investor Relations, 2012). The strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) of Verizon are the basis of this analysis. Strengths Verizon continues to have a commanding market presence globally with one of the most profitable brands in the telecommunications industry (Brown, 2010). The strength of their brand has given the company the ability to manage customer churn more effectively than competitors, reducing the relative churn rate of customers by 56% over the last three years while competitors have seen churn rates increase by over 67% (Verizon Investor Relations, 2012). The combination of the Verizon brand stability and customer loyalty has given the company a unique level of stability in a very turbulent global telecommunications market (Zoakos, 2002). Another significant strength of Verizon is their ability to orchestrate and complete alliances, mergers and questions quickly. They have also been one of the few telecommunications companies to pioneer the development of effective shared-risk mergers that drastically reduce the downside risk of being an industry consolidator, a role they continue to take on globally (Peaks, Arbogast, O'Keefe, 2009). The well orchestrated acquisition of Alltel by AT&T that Verizon played a central role in is a case in point (Seidenberg, 2002). Verizon also is moving aggressively into new markets including cloud computing using their core strengths in mergers and acquisitions. An example of this strength is the company's recent $1.4B acquisition of Terremark (Ya, 2011). Verizon continues to aggressively and successfully pursue an inorganic growth strategy by concentrating on mergers and acquisitions to bring greater cloud-based innovations to their customers (Gorski, 2005). Verizon continues to also seek out opportunities to define advanced e-commerce encryption standards globally, looking to become the global e-commerce platform at the infrastructure level for enterprises (Everett, 2012).

This paper involves a case study of United States Steel Corporation v. Tax Commissioner. The case study looks at arms length transactions and the rules governing wholly-owned foreign subsidiaries. The tax implications for these foreign subsidiaries are discussed as well as changes since that decision, which occurred in the late 1970s.

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