Category: Just The Facts

Just the facts that I gather from articles. Just the Facts.

Food for Thought, Just The Facts

Just the facts: “A Budding Network” by Frederick W. Smith

Dispensing with all commentary:

“A Budding Network” by Frederick W. Smith in Forbes 2007-05-07 (registration required)

  • FedEx spends ~1.5 billion /year on IT
  • Employs 7000 people in IT
  • FedEx Handles 3000 transactions every second
  • FedEx Receives 1000 package status inquiries every second
  • Orders are distributed to 70,000 handheld devices
  • FedEx handles 6 million shipments globally
  • FedEx has 275,000 team members
  • FedEx has 677 aircraft
  • FedEx has more than 70,000 trucks
  • The FedEx world hub in Memphis handles 400 flights / day
  • The FedEx World Hub handles 1.5 million packages / day
  • 15,000 FedEx employees can sort up to 500,000 packages / hour
  • A package sent from Miami to Phoenix will be scanned up to 2414 times
Food for Thought, Just The Facts

6 million missing Shopping carts

In the Los Angeles area last year a minimum of 6.2 million shopping carts went missing according to California Shopping Cart Retrieval corp and Hernandez Cart Service Inc. (via Harper’s). I find this number amazing. I wonder if the number of shopping carts that go missing are reflective of the number of homeless. I know scrap steel has gone up but where do these carts go. I also find it funny that there are companies specializing in shopping cart recovery. These companies in my mind are like Dog The Bounty Hunter for shopping carts. It just goes to show that there are niche businesses everywhere. This problem does beg for a technology solution like RFID or something. 6.2 million WOW, I wonder what the recovery cost is to the stores.

Links:
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Harper’s Magazine

Just The Facts

Just the Facts: The Next Wave

Dispensing with all the commentary:

The next wave (From the Economist Dec 17, 2005)

Investments in India by Large Corporations

  • Microsoft $1.7 Billion over 4 years.
  • Intel $1 Billion over 5 years.
  • Cisco $1.1 Billion.

The number of people recruited per month by Infosys, Tata, and Wipro: 1000

J.P. Morgan Chase planned number of employees in India: 9000

Exports From India’s IT industry and Business Process offshoring:

2005: $17 billion

2010: $60 billion (estimated)

India’s Market Share:

Offshore IT Services: 65%

Business Process Offshoring: 46%

Amount of Money spent on Legal Services World-wide: $250 billion

Cost per hour for an American Lawyer: $300

Indian firms can reduce legal bills by: 75%

India Produces:

2.5 million graduates per year,

200,000 are engineers.

India has:

28% of the global available workforce,

compared to,

China’s 11%.

Indians working in Business Process outsourcing:

2005: 700,000

2010: 2.5 million (estimated)

Qualified Indian graduates between 2005 and 2010: 1.05 million

The additional amount of office space needed in India by 2010: 14 million sq meters

If you find these tidbits interesting you should read, The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century By Thomas L. Friedman.

Just The Facts

Just the Facts: A retail revolution turns 10

I am trying out a new idea, just list the facts from the story and ignore all else. So with out further delay:

A Retail Revolution Turns 10 (not free as in beer)

Original Seed Money: $300 thousand
Amazon active users: 49 Million
Number of categories on Amazon: 31
Cost of free shipping in 1st qtr 2005: $55 million
Amazon Revenue:

  • 1996 $15.7 million.
  • 1997 $147.8 million.
  • 1999 $1.6 billion (pinky pointing to mouth like Dr. Evil)
  • 2004: $6.9 billion

Percent of Revenue generated by provideing services to third parties: 27%

Amazon Profit:

  • 1999: – $719 million.
  • 2004: $588 million

Amazon total losses as of 2001: $2.9 billion

Share Price:

  • All time High: $113.
  • 7/8/2005: $34.74

Share Price change:
2004: -16%
2005 YTD: -22%

Year Amazon was founded: 1994
First year Amazon turned a profit: 2003
Years it took Amazon to make a profit: 9
Amount Borrowed from Banks: $2 billion.

Jeff Bezos Networth: $3.5 Billion
Jeff Bezos Age: 41
Percent of Amazon shares owned by Jeff Bezos: ~ 25%
Jeff Bezos current salery: $81,000

My favorite quote from the article is by Mark R. Anderson. Mr Anderson said,

“You have to give Jeff credit.”

No shit???? I think everyone has given Jeff credit, to the tune of…… 2 Billion dollars.
Here is my question, how many small business loans does it take to fund Amazon?