FedEx Corporation SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

SWOT analysis is a vital strategic planning tool that can be used by FedEx Corporation managers to do a situational analysis of the firm . It is a useful technique to understand the present Strengths (S), Weakness (W), Opportunities (O) & Threats (T) FedEx Corporation is facing in its current business environment.

The FedEx Corporation is one of the leading organizatations in its industry. FedEx Corporation maintains its prominent position in market by critically analyzing and reviewing the SWOT analysis.  SWOT analysis an immensenly interactive process and requires effective coordination among various departments within the company such as – marketing, finance, operations, management information systems and strategic planning.


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The SWOT Analysis framework facilitates an organization to identify the internal strategic factors such as -strengths and weaknesses, & external strategic factors such as - opportunities and threats. It leads to a 2X2 matrix – also known as SWOT Matrix.

The Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) Analysis / Matrix enables the managers of the FedEx Corporation to develop four types of strategies:

• SO (strengths-opportunities) Strategies
• WO (weaknesses-opportunities) Strategies
• ST (strengths-threats) Strategies
•  WT (weaknesses-threats) Strategies

SWOT Matrix Strategies Objective

The main purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that a firm can utilize to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect FedEx Corporation strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to FedEx Corporation SWOT Analysis

Strengths of FedEx Corporation – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading organizations in its industry, FedEx Corporation has numerous strengths that enable it to thrive in the market place. These strengths not only help it to protect the market share in existing markets but also help in penetrating new markets. Based on Fern Fort University extensive research – some of the strengths of FedEx Corporation are –

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• Superb Performance in New Markets – FedEx Corporation has built expertise at entering new markets and making success of them. The expansion has helped the organization to build new revenue stream and diversify the economic cycle risk in the markets it operates in.
• Strong Free Cash Flow – FedEx Corporation has strong free cash flows that provide resources in the hand of the company to expand into new projects.
• Successful track record of integrating complimentary firms through mergers & acquisition. It has successfully integrated number of technology companies in the past few years to streamline its operations and to build a reliable supply chain.
• Reliable suppliers – It has a strong base of reliable supplier of raw material thus enabling the company to overcome any supply chain bottlenecks.
• Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.
• Automation of activities brought consistency of quality to FedEx Corporation products and has enabled the company to scale up and scale down based on the demand conditions in the market.
• Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. FedEx Corporation is investing huge resources in training and development of its employees resulting in a workforce that is not only highly skilled but also motivated to achieve more.
• Strong Brand Portfolio – Over the years FedEx Corporation has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of FedEx Corporation just underlines this fact. This brand portfolio can be extremely useful if the organization wants to expand into new product categories.

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Weakness of FedEx Corporation – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where FedEx Corporation can improve upon. Strategy is about making choices and weakness are the areas where a firm can improve using SWOT analysis and build on its competitive advantage and strategic positioning.

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• Not highly successful at integrating firms with different work culture. As mentioned earlier even though FedEx Corporation is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work culture.
• The marketing of the products left a lot to be desired. Even though the product is a success in terms of sale but its positioning and unique selling proposition is not clearly defined which can lead to the attacks in this segment from the competitors.
• Days inventory is high compare to the competitors – making the company raise more capital to invest in the channel. This can impact the long term growth of FedEx Corporation
• The company has not being able to tackle the challenges present by the new entrants in the segment and has lost small market share in the niche categories. FedEx Corporation has to build internal feedback mechanism directly from sales team on ground to counter these challenges.
• Organization structure is only compatible with present business model thus limiting expansion in adjacent product segments.
• Need more investment in new technologies. Given the scale of expansion and different geographies the company is planning to expand into, FedEx Corporation needs to put more money in technology to integrate the processes across the board. Right now the investment in technologies is not at par with the vision of the company.
• Limited success outside core business – Even though FedEx Corporation is one of the leading organizations in its industry it has faced challenges in moving to other product segments with its present culture.

Opportunities for FedEx Corporation – External Strategic Factors

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• Decreasing cost of transportation because of lower shipping prices can also bring down the cost of FedEx Corporation’s products thus providing an opportunity to the company - either to boost its profitability or pass on the benefits to the customers to gain market share.
• Stable free cash flow provides opportunities to invest in adjacent product segments. With more cash in bank the company can invest in new technologies as well as in new products segments. This should open a window of opportunity for FedEx Corporation in other product categories.
• Opening up of new markets because of government agreement – the adoption of new technology standard and government free trade agreement has provided FedEx Corporation an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.
• New customers from online channel – Over the past few years the company has invested vast sum of money into the online platform. This investment has opened new sales channel for FedEx Corporation. In the next few years the company can leverage this opportunity by knowing its customer better and serving their needs using big data analytics.
• Lower inflation rate – The low inflation rate bring more stability in the market, enable credit at lower interest rate to the customers of FedEx Corporation.
• New trends in the consumer behavior can open up new market for the FedEx Corporation . It provides a great opportunity for the organization to build new revenue streams and diversify into new product categories too.
• The new technology provides an opportunity to FedEx Corporation to practices differentiated pricing strategy in the new market. It will enable the firm to maintain its loyal customers with great service and lure new customers through other value oriented propositions.
• Organization’s core competencies can be a success in similar other products field. A comparative example could be - GE healthcare research helped it in developing better Oil drilling machines.

Threats FedEx Corporation Facing - External Strategic Factors

• Shortage of skilled workforce in certain global market represents a threat to steady growth of profits for FedEx Corporation   in those markets.
• The demand of the highly profitable products is seasonal in nature and any unlikely event during the peak season may impact the profitability of the company in short to medium term.
• The company can face lawsuits in various markets given - different laws and continuous fluctuations regarding product standards in those markets.
• Changing consumer buying behavior from online channel could be a threat to the existing physical infrastructure driven supply chain model.
• New environment regulations under Paris agreement (2016) could be a threat to certain existing product categories .
• Growing strengths of local distributors also presents a threat in some markets as the competition is paying higher margins to the local distributors.
• Intense competition – Stable profitability has increased the number of players in the industry over last two years which has put downward pressure on not only profitability but also on overall sales.
• Rising raw material can pose a threat to the FedEx Corporation profitability.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for FedEx Corporation

Although the SWOT analysis is widely used as a strategic planning tool, the analysis does have its share of limitations.

• Certain capabilities or factors of an organization can be both a strength and weakness at the same time. This is one of the major limitations of SWOT analysis . For example changing environmental regulations can be both a threat to company it can also be an opportunity in a sense that it will enable the company to be on a level playing field or at advantage to competitors if it able to develop the products faster than the competitors.
• SWOT does not show how to achieve a competitive advantage, so it must not be an end in itself.
• The matrix is only a starting point for a discussion on how proposed strategies could be implemented. It provided an evaluation window but not an implementation plan based on strategic competitiveness of FedEx Corporation
• SWOT is a static assessment - analysis of status quo with few prospective changes. As circumstances, capabilities, threats, and strategies change, the dynamics of a competitive environment may not be revealed in a single matrix.
• SWOT analysis may lead the firm to overemphasize a single internal or external factor in formulating strategies. There are interrelationships among the key internal and external factors that SWOT does not reveal that may be important in devising strategies.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of FedEx Corporation

In light of the above mentioned limitations of the SWOT analysis / matrix, corporate managers decided to provide weightage to each internal strength and weakness of the firm. Organizations also assess the likelihood of events taking place in the coming future and how strong their impact could be on company's performance.

This method is called Weighted SWOT analysis. It is better than doing simplistic SWOT analysis because with Weighted SWOT Analysis FedEx Corporation managers can focus on the most critical factors and discount the non-important one. It also solves the long list problem where organizations ends up making a long list but none of the factors deemed too critical.

Limitation of Weighted SWOT analysis of FedEx Corporation

This approach also suffers from one major drawback - it focus on individual importance of factor rather than how they are collectively important and impact the business holistically.

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Example of Weighted SWOT Analysis

You can email us to get an example document of Weighted SWOT analysis.

SWOT Worksheet & Template

If you like to do your own SWOT analysis or want to make your own Weighted SWOT SWOT matrix then feel free to download Fern Fort University SWOT Analysis Template.

References / Citations & Bibliography

• M. E. Porter, Competitive Strategy(New York: Free Press, 1980)
• A. D. Chandler, Strategy and Structure (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1962)
• O. E. Williamson, Markets and Hierarchies(New York: Free Press, 1975);
• L. Wrigley, Divisional Autonomy and Diversification (PhD, Harvard Business School, 1970)
• R. E. White, Generic Business Strategies, Organizational Context and Performance: An Empirical Investigation, Strategic Management Journal7 (1986)