Strategic planning at United Parcel Service

Thèmes abordés

Strategic planning, United Parcel Service, package-delivery company, transportation, logistic services, Jim Casey

Résumé du document

This case is about strategic planning at United Parcel Service (UPS). UPS was created by Jim Casey in 1907. The company is the world's largest package-delivery company and a leading global provider of specialized transportation and logistic services. The aim of the company, focused on efficiency and execution, is to emphasize its ability to provide services to almost any one in the world, at any address. Indeed, UPS operates in more than 200 countries worldwide, do business in 15 different languages and dialects, and deliver an average of 13.2 million packages per day.

Extraits

[...] The workshop happened off-site to break organizational routines which can help generate creativity and willingness to change and challenge. Participants were asked to come well prepared. They had to come with 40 to 50 predictions about UPS's future. They managed to define a Centennial Plan and came with a qualitative set of “Goals and Characteristics for the year 2007”. The workshop was very productive. Organize a workshop does not mean the work is done. Managers need to work the results and key issues out of the workshop. [...]

[...] Provide customers with value-added services 3. Build customer loyalty and expand the company's services worldwide 4. Create an environment of high-quality service and value This plan seems ambitious as it presents high objectives for the company but is well presented and does not seem unrealizable. The fourth and last step is the Strategy Road Map whose aim was to take the Centennial Plan to an executable level of detail. It was thus more precise as it focuses on the four Strategic Imperatives and defined at a smaller scale the entire set of critical initiatives. [...]

[...] The key elements of UPS approach to strategic planning are the following: 1. A scenario-planning session 2. The UPS charter 3. The Centennial Plan 4. The Strategy Road map In 1999, the UPS charter was drafted to redefine UPS's mission and aim and state clearly the company's values and strategies. It constitutes the second crucial step in the implementation of the new strategic process after the scenario-planning session held in 1997. The Centennial plan is the outcome of a meeting hold in 2002 whose purpose was to focus the group on the kind of company we were going to be in 2007 on our 100th anniversary It constitutes the third step in the strategic process, providing themes and broad, overarching direction. [...]

[...] And that is what UPS senior managers did. They made an agreed list of actions and established project groups by identifying a set of four Strategic Imperatives. Next, individual management committee members were assigned responsibility for each of these strategic imperatives. They had to ensure they were being implemented and worked on. They also took advantage of this segmentation to add detailed measures and goals. This commitment from top management was visible and kept motivated the teams. The Management Committee also established a Strategic Implementation process to define project priorities. [...]

[...] Three principals difference can be noted: the focus was regional instead of global, participants in this session were more globally diverse and were from lower levels in the organization. We think it was essential to work with academics, consultants, politicians, and key customers to establish 2017 planning. Indeed, these people will be directly implicated in future changes. We also think that de 2017 planning is more efficient than the 1997 one, because participants identified early warning signals to indicate movement toward one scenario or another, what was missing in the 1997 scenario planning. This planning allowed managers to see opportunities. [...]