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 "Airborne Express: Delivering Satisfaction Worldwide"

Topics: Strategic Leadership; Mission Statement; Competitive Advantage; Distinctive Competencies, Resources, and Capabilities; Competitive Advantage through Functional-Level Strategy

Company: Airborne Express

Length: 5:45

Chapters: 1, 2, 4, and 5 (See "Key Concept Integration" section for details)

Case: 18 "Airborne Express in 1996" 

Teaching Objectives:

  1. To illustrate how Airborne Express has exhibited the vision necessary for good strategic leadership.
  2. To show how an appropriate mission statement can help a firm grow rapidly.
  3. To see if students can discern a firm's competitive advantage and its importance.
  4. To discuss the similarities and differences among Airborne Express' competitive advantage and its distinctive competencies, resources, and capabilities.

Key Concept Integration: 

Key Concept: Chapter

Strategic Leadership 1

Mission Statement 2

Competitive Advantage 4

Distinctive Competencies, Resources, and Capabilities 4

Competitive Advantage through Functional-Level Strategy 5

Content:

The video begins by stating that Airborne Express is the world's fastest growing air express company. It states that the firm is one of the 20 companies that make up the Dow Jones transportation average. The fact that volume has increased 20 times in the last decade is mentioned along with the claim that their customer list reads like the "Fortune 500." 

The video is, in many ways, similar to the UPS video. Words and phrases like, "best service at lowest price," "reliable," "committed," "delivering satisfaction worldwide," and "personal and responsive" are used to describe Airborne Express. The video demonstrates the use of technology to deliver packages on time -- time after time -- at home and around the world. The spokesman makes the claim that Airborne Express

" . . . is recognized as the carrier for corporate America and for our personal approach for satisfying customer needs."

Up until the time that the firm briefly shows that the company will warehouse parts for its customers at Airborne's centrally located facility to assist its customers with "just in time delivery," one could argue that there is little differentiation between Airborne and UPS. However, their mission (as stated on the video) is different: "Our mission is to make it easier and less costly . . . tailoring our system to our customers' needs . . . striving for the fastest, most efficient, least expensive solution." The use of technology at all points, from the customers' location to the point of delivery, helping Airborne to achieve this mission is stressed throughout the video.

Introductory Exercise:

Prior to showing the video, you might begin by asking the students to tell you their perceptions of Airborne Express, what it provides to its customers, and what equipment is used to carry out its operations and where they operate.  

Special Discussion:

The fact that the previous video on UPS and this Airborne video make such similar claims and paint such similar pictures creates an opportunity for discussion. If you plan to show both videos, it might prove very interesting to subsequently ask the students, based on their knowledge of the two videos only, how the two companies differ. Then you might ask, based on any other knowledge, how the two companies differ. It may be useful to focus the discussion on the two firms' relative competitive advantage and their relative distinctive competencies, resources, and capabilities. 

Discussion Questions:

  1. How has Airborne Express exhibited the vision necessary for good strategic leadership?
  2. Has Airborne's mission statement changed throughout the years?
  3. Based on the video, what is Airborne's actual competitive advantage?
  4. What are Airborne's distinctive competencies, resources, and capabilities? Do these differ from its competitive advantage? If so, how? 

WWW Connection:

Students may find it interesting to link the use of the WWW with this video exercise. An interesting exercise would be to ask students to research the firm on the Web. Using the Web, ask them to find out more about the company and issues related to the video. One good place for general company information is Airborne's Web page (http://www.airborne-express.com/index.htm).

The site has additional information about issues related to the video including branches titled: "About Airborne," "Track Your Shipment," "Services," Using Airborne," "What's New?" and "Contents." For students nearing graduation, you might suggest that they check out the branch dealing with career opportunities. In the event that you plan a discussion along the lines discussed in the "Special Discussion" section above, (comparing UPS and Airborne Express), you might urge students to search for related information on the Web sites of the two firms.

Whether you provide students with this address is a matter of choice. A good compromise might be to suggest that they use a search engine (i.e., Yahoo, Excite, or Infoseek) within their Web browser to search for information about the company.

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