The consumer products division of Ericsson, the Swedish telecommunications giant, found additional dollars to invest in its capital-intensive business by outsourcing inbound logistics and shifting responsibility for inventory management to vendors.

The market leader in networking hardware creates a single enterprise of channel partners, connected by the internet, with stunning results.

Fujitsu PC needed help with its notebook operation, which was suffering from both excess inventory and slow deliveries. It turned to FedEx for a total logistics solution and now is getting the results it wanted - but the start-up was far from smooth.