Federal Express Asia-Pacific Pres-ident David Cunningham started working at FedEx as an 18 year old baggage handler, lugging packages between airplanes during late night shipping runs at the company's Memphis, Tennessee hub.
Since that time, he has seen the company grow from making its first express delivery into a worldwide company boasting US$17 billion in yearly revenues. He has grown as well, from that young package handler into the person leading FedEx's charge into the Asia-Pacific at the dawn of the Internet age.
During a recent visit to Taiwan, Cunningham took time out to speak with the Taipei Times about the challenges of managing a multinational company in Asia, a task he said keeps him stumbling through the minefields of technological change.
To get the business side up to speed, Cunningham said his most important role is "to set a vision and get people on board with that vision."
Cunningham works for a company bent on taking over delivery and logistics services for electronic business-to-business (B2B) transactions, a market that the Forrester Research Group estimates will be worth US$1.3 trillion by 2003, ten times the amount expected for the business-to-consumer (B2C) market.
Federal Express is betting that in the electronic age, more and more firms will outsource their shipping and warehousing needs to logistics experts -- like FedEx -- who can get a product to its final destination in a matter of days rather than the traditional amount of time -- two months.
To get people on board with FedEx's electronic age vision, Cunningham relies on a group of "very capable local managers."
"We need to communicate our vision to employees at all levels and gain a consensus on how best to put that vision into practice," said Cunningham, "and I can't do that alone."
To get that vision safely into the hands of local managers and then out to the rest of the company, Cunningham points to clear, effective communication as the most important consideration.
Asia, he says, is a very diverse place and communicating an idea in English across the myriad of cultures here can be a challenge.
"It's not always easy to get ideas across," he says, "especially across cultures. When I convey an idea, I try to encourage people to repeat back to me what they heard me say."
Watching body language is another way Cunningham tries to keep track of which parts of his ideas might need more explaining. He said eye contact and nervous shifting can be indicators a person might not understand what is being said.
Once the company vision has been established, Cunningham says he works with each manager on goals for each aspect of the business, "then I get out of the way and let them [local managers] find the appropriate way to reach that goal."
The process of managing by vision and goals is rounded out by scorecards that measure results of goal planning sessions, and "meetings, lots of meetings," to find out how the vision is being implemented by each manager.
The amount of time and travel necessary to carry FedEx's vision to Asia's remotest corners keeps Cunningham away from home for "a lot more time than I'd like," he said.
To balance his time at work and the pressures of living overseas, Cunningham says that when away, he tries to keep up with his family by daily phone calls. He also tries to find ways to take them on business trips with him.
At a recent FedEx conference in Phuket, Thailand, Cunningham brought his wife and kids. He says taking them along is a great way to spend time together and his kids get to learn about different cultures. He is also able to occasionally take his wife on trips and leave the kids with their grandparents.
When asked how it's possible for the regional president of a multinational company known for getting things to precise places at exact times to have trouble finding ways to see his own family, Cunningham smiled at the ambush and said, "It's not easy ... I'm always looking for new ways."
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by