In downtown Memphis, near the banks of the Mississippi, EmergeMemphis, a business and IT incubator that hosts small start-up companies, has a new arrival - FedEx, a vast multinational corporation that employs more than 30,000 people in Memphis alone.

The company has located FedEx Labs, launched in October last year, at EmergeMemphis in the hope that the giant will benefit from the innovative spirit of its small, entrepreneurial organisations. FedEx already spends heavily on research and development in the technologies that collectively form the backbone of its global delivery business.