Chief Executive spoke with FedEx founder and CEO Fred Smith about emerging technologies and their place in global commerce. FedEx recently introduced the concept of the same-day robots and is building a $1.7 billion expansion out at the FedEx campus, where there will be a lot more automation there.
FedEx is heavily involved in Blockchain, which is going to revolutionize supply chains. You will have a trusted ledger of the entire life product, whatever it is. FedEx is also involved in artificial intelligence. Fred Smith: “AI is analytics on steroids and will allow you do have much more discrete information and be able to operate things with much more precision. What makes the FedEx same-day bots possible are sensors and digital storage that cost virtually nothing. All of these things are very important, which goes back to that strategic management process of trying to see what technology is on the horizon and how you can adapt and use them to your competitive advantage”.
Fred Smith to Chief Executive: “Over the last 10 years, we’ve done a remarkable job in reducing our carbon footprint. Our miles per gallon of our vehicular fleet has gone up 40 percent. We’re introducing 1,000 electric vehicles in California, largely because of the regulatory requirement to do so. These vehicles, by the way, are built in China, which will be an electrification leader”.