Business Planning Pays

Over the coming years, UPS expanded to delivering packages to businesses all over the nation. At that point, many people thought UPS had reached the limit of its growth. But Casey boldly decided to enter the market for delivering packages not just to businesses, but also to individuals. This placed the company in direct competition with the US Postal Service, an arena theretofore considered completely off-limits. This represented a significant strategic change for the company, and all the details had to be considered in advance and recorded in their business plan before taking such a risk.

The company was extremely successful at competing with the postal system, but they weren’t through yet. Looking to reduce their nationwide delivery expenses and become even more profitable, in 1988 UPS received rights from the Federal Aviation Administration to become an airline and fly its own airplanes. UPS is now the ninth largest airline in the country, serving more than four billion people in more than 200 countries.

From the simple handwritten business plan of Jim Casey in 1907, the company has evolved into a global behemoth with a business plan that probably takes reams of paper, lawyers, investment bankers, and company executives many months to prepare. But this due diligence has paid off. In 1999, UPS went public with the second largest initial public offering in history by an American company.

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