FedEx – Delivering on promises

Getting a good grip on FedEx is a challenge. First, there is the size: How do you gauge a mammoth venture whose presence propelled Memphis, Tennessee — the second city in the 17th most populous state of the United States — into the unlikely home of the world’s busiest cargo airport for eight of the past 10 years? Memphis, named after, of all places, ancient Egypt’s capital, anchors FedEx’s worldwide business of express shipping and freight operations, a logistics activity that is as mundane as it is important and gets spiced up by occasional but highly public relations-effective extracurricular activities, such as airlifting panda bears. With global turnover approaching $40 billion in its fiscal year that ended in May 2011, FedEx as an economic power even exceeds the nominal gross domestic product of the smallest Gulf Cooperation Council economy, Bahrain.  But neither size nor economic muscle explain why FedEx Express