Porter stated; “for an airline to succeed in the marketplace, it must have a sustainable competitive advantage” (Porter M. E., 2008). The airline industry is the highest competitive industry, and I believe a sustainable completive advantage is essential to succeed in the future of the aviation industry. The competitive advantages that an airline embrace, needs to be based on the airlines strategy and differentiation to competitors. Emirates displays how it has a strategy and how the airline gets ahead of its competitors through how unique it is. A sustainable competitive advantage is making your company have a unique value position, in a competitive environment, while defending the supported proposition. These advantages need to be constantly updated in order that the competitors remain on the back foot. Unable to keep abreast of the shifting advantages and the difficulty to imitate or implement changes that take place. Such properties of sustainable competitive advantages that can be changed, include; • Customer interaction • Knowledge • Fleet efficiency • Turnaround times • Contracted flight paths with government • Time and price elasticity • Airport grandfather rights and airport-airline relationship • Service contracts • Brand awareness • Social media • Advertising • Loyalty programmes/Alliances • Short term influence on customer behaviour • Airline hub model • Fuel costs • Technology enhancements • Safety record • Cooperate culture in relation to wages, loyalty and productivity • Load factors • Expansion with class of population When an airline does not have a sustainable competitive advantage, it does not have any properties of differences from there competitor and turns to a dangerous price war. The sustainable ... ... middle of paper ... ...M. E. (2008). Competitive advantage: Creating and sustaining superior performance. New York: Simon and Schuster. Porter, M. E. (2008). The five competitive forces that shape strategy. Harvard business review, 25-40. Porter, M. E. (2008, January). The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy. Retrieved from harvard Business Review: http://hbr.org/2008/01/the-five-competitive-forces-that-shape-strategy/ SkyTrax. (2013). Emirates is the World's Best Airline for 2013. Retrieved from SkyTrax: http://www.worldairlineawards.com/Awards_2013/Airline2013.htm Wharton Unicersity of Pennsylvania. (2007, December 12). Maurice Flanagan’s Emirates Airline: Flying High and Treating Customers like Sheikhs. Retrieved from Wharton Unicersity of Pennsylvania: http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/maurice-flanagans-emirates-airline-flying-high-and-treating-customers-like-sheikhs/
It has stayed relevant to the market through its propelled philosophy of relationships to generate profits in the business. Since its establishment in Monroe, Louisiana the once tiny airline has stretched to greater heights serving in 6 continents. It has also established a distinguishable name among its competitors with a reputation of leading customer services. However, even as an established venture, the company needs to maximize its profits in order to stay in business and expand in to new territories beyond its conquered boundaries. A strategic analysis was carried out by our team to establish the company’s current situation. A SWOT analysis was performed to come up with three referenced, strategic alternatives. This alternatives are meant to act as a strategic guidance to the company in order to enhance growth. The strategic recommendation provided will improve and enable the business to cope with the competitors while the implementation of the strategy section will outline the way to go about achieving these alternatives in the business setting. Lastly, we put up a discussion on the evaluation procedures and necessary controls for the
This is the historic background of an American Airline company called the Southwest Airlines Co. based in Dallas which still exists and operates with great success between 57 cities in 26 states of the US, by over 300 airplanes , providing primarily short-haul, high frequency, point to point, low fare service . Through this essay we will see an analysis of the company’s advantages and disadvantages through a SWOT Analysis. We will try to localize the problems of the company at the time and in the case of a future expansion, and we will try to give a number of alternative solutions and chose one of them. The Southwest Airlines is a company that has done its first movements in the airline world in 1971 after many efforts for its opening through legal battles with competitors that did not believe that there was any particular reason why the another airline company should exist among all the others already existing. The different things that the new airline company provided were many and very interesting. The idea started from two friends Rolling King, and investment advisor, and Herb Kelleher, his lawyer, who met in order to discuss the idea of Rolling King for a low-fare, no- frills airline to fly between three major cities in Texas. The outcome of this discussion was in reality the decision of the two men to go for something that they believed would work, even though they were not positive about that. After all the legal battles between the two men and the airline companies of Texas at the time who believed it was not necessary for another airline company to enter the market, battles that prevented the operation of the company for three whole years, Southwest Airlines Co. had become a reality. Other legal battles followed in the future that justified the Southwest Airlines but left the company broke, while during the first year of its operations made losses and the earnings for the next half a year were balancing with costs. Gladly the recovery came soon and by 1978 Southwest Airlines was one of the most profitable in the country. Later on, Southwest Airlines Co. managed to provide airline transportation in eight more cities in Texas and dominated the Texas market, with low prices and frequent departures. Today the Southwest Airlines Co. is a very big domestic airline company, the fourth in the US. We will now have a small analysis of the company’s environme...
Magretta, J. (2012). Understanding Michael Porter: The Essential Guide to Competition and Strategy. Harvard Business Press. Retrieved from http://common.books24x7.com.ezp-01.lirn.net/toc.aspx?bookid=45565
3. Fortunately, there are several opportunities in the airline industry of which companies will be able to take advantage. First, the airline industry is reviving and passenger levels are now returning to pre-9/11 status. Companies can offer high degrees of service and reduce costs through the use of the Internet, such as online ticket sales, flight seating charts, and plane infor...
Many elements of Delta Airlines are described in detail, within this paper. There is a breakdown of the external and internal factors, using external and internal analysis. Porter’s Five forces are used to create the external analysis, and the key factors for Delta are power of buyers, and rivalry. Delta’s competitive advantages are identified as customer service, sustainability, brand image, strong strategic alliances, and corporate travel. Delta’s main issues are the low expansion in international markets, continuous changing of incentive program, and glitches within technology. Delta should expand more into the Chinese and African markets in order to gain market share within the airline industry.
In a dysfunctional time for the airline industry, most airlines, especially major carriers, are adapting the concept of "doing less with more." One low-cost carrier, JetBlue, is changing the domestic aviation landscape in this regard and is defying the odds. Here is a company that has examined each marketing mix elements carefully, has adapted them to its customer’s needs, and is succeeding because of this approach.
Porter, M. E. (2008). The five competitive forces that shape strategy. Harvard business review, 86(1), 25-40.
Lufthansa, one of the world’s biggest airliners, has divisions handing maintenance, catering and air cargo. Since the World War II the airline industry has never earned its cost of capital over the business cycle (Hitt, 2010). Most of the airline companies have either filed for bankruptcy or are being bailed out by their government. Lufthansa had also gone through these tough times, but had resurfaced to become one of the worlds most profitable airline company. The company adapted a transnational strategy, seeking to achieve both global efficiency and local responsiveness. Lufthansa’s monopoly in Germany came to a halt with the creating of the European Union. All the EU member countries become one regional and therefore the European competition became, an increasingly a local competition. Lufthansa created its regional Hubs, to cater for its domestic market. But the availability of substitutes such as bullet trains and the Euro tunnel, made is necessary for Lufthansa to create short traveling time, customizations and quality standards in the region to achieve a competitive advantage. But outside the EU there are no substitute to air travels as such all the flag carriers are competing in the market, the international airline industry is a highly competitive environment. A new force has also emerged in the world of air travel, in the form of three Gulf airlines with jumbo ambitions. Within a decade Dubai’s Emirates, Qatar Airways and Eithad from Abu Dhabi have between them carried the capacity of two hundred million passengers (Micheal, 2010). The company had to go global and therefore adopted the international corporate-level strategy, where Lufthansa will ope...
Tom, Y. (2009). The perennial crisis of the airline industry: Deregulation and innovation. (Order No. 3351230, The Claremont Graduate University). ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, , 662-n/a. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/304861508?accountid=8364. (304861508).
John G. S., 2008: Strategically thinking about the subject of Strategy [e-journal] 9(4) p.2 Available through:
On December 17, 1903, two men changed the way of travel forever. No, I am not talking about cars or trains. I am talking about one of the greatest inventions of the twentieth century. Wilbur and Orville Wright invented flight. (Grolier, 1999) This invention sparked a concept of traveling in the air. This kind of travel would allow people to get from one place to another quickly. It would save time and money. If a person could travel for Los Angles to New York in one day, it would be a something that was never heard of. A person could even travel across the ocean to other countries. During that age, flight was very exciting and important. It was a new concept for the world. It was an important concept that they did not realize at that time. They did not understand that the dream that they had would someday revolutionize the way that we travel.
Hendersern and Stern 2000, ‘Untangling the origins of competitive advantage’,Strategic Management Journal, Vol. 21, pp. 1123-1145.
Porter M.E (1985) Competitive advantage: creating and sustaining superior performance, 1st Ed. New York, The Free Press.
Porter, M. E., 1999. The Five Forces that Shape Competitive Strategy. Harvard business review, p. 80.
In a world of free trade, growing competition and accessibility to foreign markets, the need for methodical market analysis and assumptions is steadily rising in today’s business environment. It is just a normal way of thinking to primarily intent to eliminate the financial before entering a new and foreign market. This suggests that enterprises have to develop an overall strategy for their business in order to gain competitive advantage and consequently market share. With the words of Michael E. Porter, professor at Harvard University and leading authority on competitive strategy, this desirable market success is indirectly linked to the individual structure of a market. The unique structure of a single market influences the strategic behaviour and the development of a competitive strategy within a firm. The competitive strategy finally decides whether a company performs successfully on the market or not. Referring to this interpretation of business success, M. E. Porter established his five forces framework that enables directives to gather useful information about the business environment and the competitive forces in industries.