Reinvention with respect - An interview with Jim Kelly of UPS

When you think of UPS, what comes to mind? Most likely, you conjure up imag es of brown delivery vans, but this $30 billion company is much more than a package delivery carrier. Since its founding in 1907, UPS has continually broadened its territory, its offerings, and its mission to better serve a c hanging marketplace. Today, it employs over 360,000 people and operates in some 200, countries and territories. In this interview, CEO Jim Kelly - who began his UPS career 37 years ago as a driver - talks candidly about the challenges of trying to grow such a hu ge, mature business. He explains the company's focus on international expan sion: "Going forward, the rest of the world offers more growth opportunity than the United States because we have a long way to go to achieve the same density abroad that we have domestically And he discusses how UPS chooses which new business streams to pursue. To move forward, Kelly says, UPS has had to recast its mission: UPS enables global commerce not just by deliveri ng packages but by facilitating the worldwide flow of information and funds as well. His biggest problem, he admits, has been giving UPS's employees the confide nce to take on all that new territory. He talks about how he helped foster a new self-image as a company of innovators, undaunted by an uncertain worl d. Once UPSers reflected on the many changes the company had undergone - fr om a local messenger service to a common-carrier wholesale business to an a irline offering next-day deliveries to a logistics management and finance b usiness they developed, as Kelly puts it, a sense of, "Yeah, it's new and i t's different... but that's okay. We've done that successfully for many yea rs."