Introduction
The Art of War is attributed to Sun Zi, and was originally called the “Sun Tzu Bing Fa”, or simply the Sun Zi. It written by Sun Wu about 500B.C. Sun Zi Art of War is the oldest military treatise in the world. Highly compressed, it is devote the principles and still retain such of its original authoritative merit. To the military student able to adapt its principles to modern warfare, it even now, twenty-five centuries after its preparation, is a valuable guide for the conduct of war. Although the chariot has gone and weapons have changed, this ancient master holds his own, since he deals with fundamentals, with the influence of politics and human nature on military operations. He shows in a striking way how unchanging these principles are.
Therefore, Sun Zi Art of War contain with 13 chapters. There are: 1) Detailed Assessment and Planning 2) Waging War 3) Strategic Attack 4) Disposition of the Army 5) Forces 6) Weaknesses and Strengths 7) Military Maneuvers 8) Variations and Adaptability 9) Movement and Development of Troops 10) Terrain 11) The nine Battlegrounds 12) Attacking with Fire 13) Intelligence and Espionage
Sun Zi’s Art of War is not only an art of war, but also a teaching material for MBA and applied into the business by modern businessperson today. Therefore, it is important to understand the exact meaning and implication of the work, in order to be familiar with the circumstances prevailing at the time.
The topic we had chosen is Chapter 1-Detailed Assessment and Planning. In general, this chapter is thorough analysis before war and war is about deception. Sun Zi said: “The conduct of war is a matter of vital important to the nation.” This will determine the survival or death of the country. In other words, there is matter of life and death for the people and their ruler. Therefore it must be studied and examined the five factors and seven dimensions carefully thorough analyses before war. These five factors are moral influence, weather, terrain, corporate generalship, doctrine and law. On the other hand, the seven dimensions are: * Thus, which ruler has greater moral influence? * Which general is more able and has greater abilities and skills? * Which side (army) is able to better exploit the weather and terrain? * Which side (army) is able to execute and implement law and order more effectively? * Which side (army) has more and stronger troops? * Which side (army) has better trained officers and men? * Which side (army) is more enlightened in the administration of rewards and punishments?
Thus in planning, the five factors and seven dimensions must analyze and compare with those of the enemy so that general can understand the changing conditions and circumstances of war and to assess the chances of victory.
We select Federal Express which applies the detailed assessment and planning in their company. FedEx is an express transportation company, founded in 1973 by Frederick W. Smith. FedEx provides customers and businesses worldwide with a broad portfolio of transportation, e-commerce and business services. FedEx offer integrated business applications through operating companies competing collectively and managed collaboratively, under the respected FedEx brand. Consistently ranked among the world's most admired and trusted employers, FedEx inspires its more than 275,000 employees and contractors to remain absolutely, positively focused on safety, the highest ethical and professional standards and the needs of their customers and communities.
The mission of FedEx is produce superior financial returns for shareowners by providing high value-added supply chain, transportation, business and related information services through focused operating companies. Customer requirements will be met in the highest quality manner appropriate to each market segment served. FedEx will strive to develop mutually rewarding relationships with its employees, partners and suppliers. Safety will be the first consideration in all operations. Corporate activities will be conducted to the highest ethical and professional standards.
Content
This chapter’s seven dimensions contain with the five factors. Thus, the five factors and seven dimensions maybe reclassified into eight factors for consideration in the planning for war. First, moral influence can be defined as measures and policies that align the people with sovereign so as to be in complete agreement and harmony with each other. In the application of management, a capable government should apply with political leadership which will provide political stability and hence attract foreign investment and stimulate economic growth, while a corrupt government will only sow the seeds of economic decay.
Second, the weather refers to the contrasting changes of night and day, the coldness of winter and the heat of summer and seasonal changes. The weather means that how external factors affect a company. Those external factors are international, technological, sociocultural, economics and legal-political.
Third, corporate generalship of a commander refers to his qualities of wisdom, trustworthiness, benevolence, courage and discipline. Top manager must have corporate leadership to ensure the success and prosperity of the firm. Fourth, terrain refers to whether the route to be taken is long or short, whether the ground is safe or treacherous, wide and narrow regard to ease of movement, and whether the ground will determine the death or survival. It defines as physical factors. The firm location and position in marketplace will affect how it can compete, as it may offer certain advantages or disadvantages.
Fifth, doctrine and law means organization and control, management systems and procedures, and the command and control structure for the deployment of the resources. A company’s corporate structure ad organization includes effective policies, programs, operating procedures, channels of communication, lines of authority and responsibility. These elements also reflect the philosophy of company.
Sixth, strengths are positive internal characteristics that the organization can exploit to achieve strategic performance goal. For example, a competitive advantage is an advantage over competitors gained by offering consumers greater value, either by means of lower prices or by providing greater benefits and service that justifies higher prices.
Seventh, training represent a planned afford by an organization to facilitate employees’ learning of job related skills and behaviours. Human resource development organizes training activities undertaken to attract, develop and maintain an effective workforce within an organization.
At last, discipline is a process of controlling one's behaviour and actions, either through self-motivation or through teaching and punishment. Motivation will produce a discipline employee through reward, company goal and job enrichment.
Discussion
The weather’s management application of external factor in FedEx is technologies. FedEx own their innovation labs to continuing the FedEx commitment to the pursuit and development of new technologies to provide innovative solutions and services for customers, FedEx developed the FedEx Innovation Labs, an information technology project designed to create an atmosphere of collaborative thinking around critical technologies such as advanced optics for scanning, robotics, pervasive computing, social networking and more.
The corporate generalship refers to FedEx top manager’s qualities of wisdom. FedEx top manager is able to make wise decision quick and correctly most of the time, capable to strategize and take advantage of rising opportunity and avoid unnecessary losses, creating great teams and guiding them to great results. For example, FedEx know that small businesses are the backbone of the world's economy. Therefore FedEx designed their services that keep things quick and easy to help busy small business customers saves time and money and grow with the convenience and reliability backed by the FedEx name.
FedEx is always nearby, providing convenient drop-off locations that will save your time and money. This is one of the examples of terrain that FedEx applied. In Malaysia, FedEx has 14 branches of FedEx world service centre and FedEx station which located at Selangor, Kuala Lumpur, Penang, Johor and Perak. Besides that, they are even more than 1900 centre throughout the world.
The philosophy of FedEx, in particular hold a People-Service-Profit philosophy. The ‘People’ goal is the continuous improvement of management’s leadership. The ‘Service’ standard is 100 percent customer satisfaction. The ‘Profit’ goal is much like any other company’s goal, and is essential to long-term viability. This philosophy governs how FedEx runs its business, and defines strategies.
The giant technological is the strength of FedEx and help them to gain the competitive advantages. As an example, the arrival of a new fleet of Boeing 777 Freighter (777F) planes to make their deliveries faster, cleaner and more efficient than ever. With this new fleet, FedEx able to bring two-hour improvement in cut-off times of delivery in selected areas. Besides, the 777F is the world's largest twin-engine cargo aircraft, with a cargo capacity of 178,000 pounds (81 metric tonnes) and 215,000 pounds on short-haul flights.
FedEx human resource department has been rolling out instructor-led training classes to heighten customer service at its 1,600 retail franchises worldwide. The classes underscore the importance of personal interaction when serving customers. By focusing on behavioural competencies, FedEx ale to build a culture of service and quality that is uniform across the organization.
In order to build up the employees’ discipline, FedEx motivate their employee by provide a dynamic work environment that supports employee in building their career, and a comprehensive compensation and progressive benefits program that rewards employees’ contributions to the business. Through health, financial and lifestyle offerings, FedEx provide employee with the building blocks their need to build a stronger, healthier future for them.

Recommendation Being an international leading delivery company, FedEx should learn their competitor, UPS, bring in more different infrastructure and facilities which can help them in accomplish different tasks. So, FedEx should expand and make investment like pump in more capital to improving their infrastructure and facilities such as aircraft, transportation facilities and IT. All the investment will provide a strong support and allow them to running their operation more flexibility and lower cost since they are more independent now and no need spent more cost on subcontracting to outsiders to help them. Movement towards customer experience strategy and the loyalty ladder which means that short term revenue growth will not be criteria. They intend to “market perform” the industry. Thus sustaining shareholder value, yet on the long run, they are setting the scene of the marathon race for the future. And that is, the customer loyalty ladder. It is a customer retention strategy. Promotion decisions encompass the range of communication and motivation instruments needed to raise awareness and precipitate quality of the services. FedEx shall use various mass media tools, including do promotions in small business area and held some events to increase the overall FedEx reputation and quality of services. The importance of POS promotions such as price reductions, special offers and special editions and the importance of word of mouth communication are also always need to take consent. FedEx also should ensure that the employees, especially pilots are well compensated. Since FedEx is a service company, employees are critical to its success. Place pilots’ salaries at or above the industry average. So the employees will highly motivate and will produce a high productivity. They need to maintain a strong presence on the Internet, in case of a shakedown, and find ways to make their commerce user-friendly and profitable like make their official webpage more attractive and more convenience for customer booking.

Conclusion For Sun Zi, the general who adopt his strategies and plan will win when he is deployed (for battle); he should be retained. The general who does not adopt his strategies and plan will be defeated when he is deployed (for battle); he should be removed. Besides adopting the effective proposed plans and strategies, the general must create and take advantage of situations that are beyond the normal rules of military engagement. In modern business world, most of the company have effective proposed plans and strategies; especially for those well brand companies they have the most effective proposed plans and strategies to dominate the market. However, why some of the company although they have effective plans and strategies but they fail to implement success like those well brand companies? This is because they fail to create and take advantage in different business situation with limited resources that are beyond the normal rules of business world engagement. Sun Zi also mentions that creating situations that are (the general) must act advantageously so as to control the balance of power. Those who carry out planning in the temple prior to the outbreak of war will not win if the plans are neither thorough nor detailed. With thorough and detailed planning, one can win and vice versa. Most important is, how much certain are defeat when one does not plan at all! By observing how planning is done, I can predict victory and defeat. Nowadays, FedEx is a good example among companies in applying Sun Zi the Art of War. They can create situations that they must act advantageously very well like hold a People-Service-Profit philosophy. The ‘People’ goal is the continuous improvement of management’s leadership. The ‘Service’ standard is 100 percent customer satisfaction. The ‘Profit’ goal is much like any other company’s goal, and is essential to long-term viability. This philosophy governs how FedEx runs its business, and defines strategies. Finally, FedEx management is very good in carry out planning thorough and detailed. FedEx top manager is able to make wise decision quick and correctly most of the time, capable to strategize and take advantage of rising opportunity and avoid unnecessary losses, creating great teams and guiding them to great results.