Smart Business Magazine, June 2013

8 Smart Business Philadelphia June 2013 The Purple Promise FEATURE ERNST YOUNG STRATEGIC GROWTH FORUM After the category winners for Ernst Youngs Entrepreneur Of The Year Awards are unveiled this month in ceremonies nationwide all eyes will shift to the 2013 Strategic Growth Forum where a slate of CEOs and entrepreneurs will share their thoughts on numerous issues LEARN MORE Ernst Youngs Strategic Growth Forum as well as theEntrepreneur Of The Year program at www ey com us eoy FRED SMITH FOUNDER CHAIRMAN AND CEO FEDEX CORP Few entrepreneurs have experienced the same of level of success as Fred Smith who spoke at the 2012 SGF Smith is the founder chairman and CEO of FedEx Corp He has overseen the companys growth from a start up 40 years ago into a 42 billion global transportation business services and logistics company Just how big is FedEx The company serves more than 220 countries and territories with operations that include 660 aircraft and more than 90000 vehicles A team of more than 300000 people worldwide handle more than 10 million shipments each business day Late last year Smith discussed myriad issues with the 2012 class of Ernst Young Entrepreneurs Of The Year including the economy and what it takes to create scalable business models Here is a peek inside Smiths mind on how he views effective leadership at FedEx The way we are organized has a lot to do with how I spend my time We have four segments as part of our worldwide company FedEx Express FedEx Ground FedEx Freight and FedEx Services which provides IT sales and our retail presence Each organization has a president and CEO that runs them on a day to day basis They join with our CFO an operations support group and our HR person to create our strategic management This way our company is run by the strategic management committee Its a group of very strong people and Im not shouting orders from the bridge of FedEx We deal with things on a collegial way I have what we call jump ball We try to do things horizontally and if there is a disagreement then obviously it would fall upon me to decide it There have been about two jump balls in a decade Our strategy is built around a very unusual mandate which is to compete collectively operate independently and manage collaboratively Each groups missions and market segments are slightly different so it has worked so splendidly Our FedEx Ground company is focused on the very price sensitive retail sector It is moving things such as defibrillators and surgical kits that need to go into operations We are trying to navigate between the two extremes that very big company has to deal with Whats the advantage of focus market segment and how do I take advantage of scale as a large company That strategy so far has worked pretty well We reinforce constantly the leadership issues that lead to recognition It gets to the point of how to make sure everything is moving in the right direction It includes constant reaffirmation and communication And it requires the application of a very advanced management system which we call quality driven management and we try to do everything for our customers exactly as they would expect us to do How FedExs Fred Smith manages a global brand