FedEx Office

FedEx Office, previously Kinko’s, is a subsidiary business entity that offers various office services including office print and shipping services. Founded in 1970 as Kinko’s, FedEx Office has its headquarters in Dallas, Texas. Presently, the company offers printing, photocopying, binding and shipping services to clients all over the world through the different chain of stores the operate. The entity rebranded its name more than three times, starting as Kinko’s, before renaming to FedEx Kinko’s, and now officially going by the name FedEx Office.

Because of his curly hair, FedEx Office founder Paul Orfalea acquired the name Kinko. Paul established the first copy shop in the college community of Isla Vista with a sidewalk copy machine. He was however forced to leave the company due to disputes that emerged regarding his decision to sell off a greater portion of the company in 1997. The issue was further enhanced by Paul’s actions whereby he did not adopt the conventional franchising model; he developed the business entity as loosely connected partnership agreements between the various store owners and himself. He had managed to establish more than 120 kinko outlets by 1997 using this technique.

This prompted the need to carefully dismantle the various stores to come up with one S corporation that would turn the company into a centralized corporate business model. This made it simpler for the investment firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice to gradually eliminate him from his business. Paul claimed that he had to make great efforts to disentangle himself from the attorneys at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. It is not until 2002 that the company relocated its headquarters from Ventura, California to Dallas, Texas. FedEx later acquired the company in early 2004 for $2.4 billion, changing the name to FedEx Kinko’s Office & Print Centers.

The company currently relies on home office clients and small business owners, with close to 2,000 operational facilities. As at 2006, FedEx Office had an active employee count of 19,000 servicing these outlets. During rebranding on June 2, 2008, there was considerable confusion among many clients. This is because some stores still had the name FedEx Kinko’s. The management, therefore, opted to put up enormous signs on various store windows stating that there’s “Kinko’s printing inside.” The next Chief Executive Officer, Amanda Gulotta came in after Ken May left the company on March 7, 2008.

Being the seventh largest company in the North America region, the company nets slightly more than $2 billion in revenues even with the high competition rate from other similar service providers. FedEx Office also strategized their service delivery techniques to expand into the international market during the late 1990s and early 2000s. They acquired great reception in various countries including South Korea, Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates, and Canada. Additionally, the company conducted its operations in the Netherlands, Mexico, and Australia, but was forced to withdraw from these countries because of low demand.

To date, every FedEx Office outlet offers additional services including fax machines, photo printer kiosks, monochrome and color photocopiers as well as numerous desktop computer rentals. Clients can also find a selection of business book and office supplies in some stores.