The Loadstar leader: Farewell FedEx's Fred Smith, who blazed a trail for so many
FedEx’s Fred Smith was testament to how logistics is a rich and fertile land for ...
By Mike Weir
When Panama qualified for the 2018 Fifa World Cup, the central Americans won hearts as they shared a stage with some of the world’s greatest sporting heroes and nations.
It was obvious from the outset, though, that despite playing in the same competition, they were not in the same league as countries like France, Spain or Brazil.
Predictably, Panama was knocked out in the first round.
The analogy comes to mind when thinking about UPS and Amazon.
Much of the commentary about the two ...
Comment on this article
NIck Bailey
May 13, 2020 at 3:10 pmUPS has the ability and the resources to compete, but they must do so by moving more towards a very large scale 4PL operation. Disclosure – I was part of the team that built and operated a division for UPS that did just that in the 1990’s called UPS World Wide Logistics (now known as UPS SCS). We focused on subcontracting assets and agile information systems (not the internal package biz IT) focused around the client and redesigning and operating their supply chains. This was all very new for Big Brown back then and we operated as an independent company to avoid internal politics. We innovated and got into light manufacturing, kitting, in-transit order reconfiguration and a host of other processes the client needed for some of the biggest companies in the world back then. It was incredibly successful with great margins – I know, I was part of the management team. Amazon can also do a lot of this and technology and standards have made this much easier to do now… But it’s a world away from high volume ‘trucks and sheds’ operating models. The opportunity for reshaping the e-commerce and fulfilment landscape for a company like UPS are huge. Hopefully Ms Tome understands this and can move quick enough to take advantage.