When D. Scott Davis took the wheel as CEO of United Parcel Service in January 2008, no one knew that global commerce was about to go over a precipice. The company was moving about 15.5 million packages and documents a day, and Davis was busy figuring out how to accommodate brisk growth. By year-end the world was in deep recession, and Davis had to shift gears. He closed some facilities, cut about 10,000 jobs, froze management salaries and suspended the Atlanta-based company’s 401(k) match. Yet he also went on the offensive, bumping up UPS’s hybrid fleet to 2,200 vehicles, the most in the industry. He has continued to expand its hub and distribution centers, added 16 countries to UPS’s network of express pickup and delivery services and bought several small companies.
“There are some nice valuations to be had, our competitors are hamstrung by their balance sheets, and private equity isn’t as much of a factor,” Davis says. “This is no time to go into a cocoon.”
Unlike most companies, UPS typically taps a leader from among its senior execs, most of whom have been with UPS all their lives and at one time or another have handled packages. The 57-year-old Davis had been with the company for more than two decades when he was picked as CEO. But he was an outsider of sorts: Rather than working his way up internally, he joined UPS ....