Airborne Express and Husky Injection Molding Systems Airborne Express 1. Perform a five-forces analysis of Airborne Express’ industry. Forces | Items | Power | Rivalry | * Big competitors are FedEx and UPS; * Smaller competitors like BAX Global, DHL, Worldwide Express, Emery Worldwide, RPS, TNT Express, Worldwide, and US Post Service | Keen competition with big competitors as they account for the lion’s share of the market | Entry barriers | * Economy of scale * CAPEX on IT, facilities, aircrafts and airports, trucks, * Brand loyalty, licensing, customer networks | High entry barrier to the industry because of large economy of scale, high CAPEX, and dominating market shares of big players | Substitutes | * Emails Are Airborne’s competitive advantages sustainable? Why or why not? Airborne’s competitive advantages are not sustainable. As it focused on cost savings and competed by cost advantage only. However, Airborne could not cut cost beyond a limit. No more value can be added when cost is cut to a limit. Moreover, severe cost cutting will undermine productivity, service quality, and team morale. Airborne should enhance its competitive advantages through increasing revenue, investing in useful assets, building brand, improving quality, developing people and culture etc. 4. What should Robert Brazier, Airborne’s president, do to strengthen the company’s position? Airborne should strengthen its sales force by hiring more sales professionals, providing training, adopting performance-based incentive scheme, and targeting high value customers. Part of the sales force should also focus on developing new business and markets to channel in additional revenue streams. With strong sales and marketing force, Airborne should carry out large marketing and advertising campaign to build the company image and lock in more customers. It should invest in IT systems to increase efficiency, speed of work, and improve quality of services. Quality of customer services should further be enhanced. People development and training should not be neglected. It can also launch customer loyalty programs and sign long-term contracts with customers to
