QA Fred Smith CEO of the FDX holding company that includes FedEx :: GCSE Business Marketing Coursework

QA Fred Smith CEO of the FDX holding company that includes FedExFederal comport Corp. started tracking packages electronically well before the commercial Internet emerged. Now, that infrastructure has been firmly plugged into the Internet, letting customers track shipments in real time and evening pull reams of shipping data into their internal systems.Meantime, the shipping giant is taking those lessons into new territory. It has launched a consulting practice that helps manufacturers tighten their own supply chains and tame inventory requirements by more closely tracking the movement of supplies and finished products.Related Story FedEx Delivers On CEOs IT VisionAdditional Transforming Business Strategy Stories fault Of The Enterprise Home Page Colleagues and outsiders say it was all part of founder Fred Smiths vision, well before the commercial Internet, that the information about the package would become as important as the package itself.Smith, now CEO of the FDX holding com pany that includes FedEx, spoke with editor in chief Robert Preston and managing editor David Joachim at FDX headquarters in Memphis. Excerpts followInternetWeek How hands on are you when it comes to FDXs Internet strategy?Smith Im very intimately involved with our strategies as they apply to information and telecommunications. Im not an technical in them, but I think I have a very good understanding of what they can do and the respective trends under direction in those fields.InternetWeek How vital is CEO involvement in the Internet strategy of a company?Smith I think its vital in or so every industry I know of. I mean, I dont know many industries as well as I do my own, but I am constantly amazed at the profundity of IT and the Internet in almost every field and human endeavor, whether its medicine, farming, the military, or any other affair that I brush up against. Its just all pervasive, its changing the face of everything. And those that are not involved in it do so at their peril, in my opinion.InternetWeek What advice do you have to IT executives who recognize their own company as an Internet laggard but have trouble convincing upper management that thither will be serious consequences to that?Smith I guess my advice to them would be to either convince them or get out. Theyre going to be toast if they dont. openhanded businesses, particularly big businesses that are involved in lots of different activities, have a very difficult time dealing with qualitative issues and, I guess as Wayne Gretzky would say, skating to where the puck is going to be rather than where it is now.