Introduction
This report will investigate Virgin Galactic and how they achieve high customer satisfaction and competitive advantage whilst looking at their service operations management and investigate how these all function and how they affect customer satisfaction and their competitive advantage.
Virgin Galactic is an organisation, which is part of the Virgin companies; it is one of the latest projects that Richard Branson has undertaken. ‘It was founded by Richard Branson in 2004... that releases a rocket full of paying customers that roars up to the edge of space before gliding back down again.’ (The Guardian, 2014)
Service Operations Concept
“Service concept plays a key role in service design and development. It defines the how and what of service design and it helps mediate between customer needs and the organisation’s strategic intent.” (Goldstein, 2002) Hesket (1986) defines the service concept as the way the “organization’s would like to have its services perceived by its customers, employees, shareholders and lenders”. This means how the organisation wants itself and the goods and services that it sells to be seen by the people involved in the organisation.
Burt Rutan founded SpaceShipOne, along with his company Scaled Composites and who ‘scale developed’ a model of the ship (Virgin Galactic, 2013). His scale won the Ansari X Prize, along with $10 million for being the ‘world’s first privately developed manned spacecraft.’ (Virtuoso, 2014) It allows customers to experience space travel and tourism in a whole new way, for a much lower costs, than competitors before them. The Virgin Galactic Website says ‘the spaceship is designed to take six customers on suborbital space flights. ‘(Virgin Gal...
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This report covered Virgin Galactic’s service operations management, including things such as quality, Corporate Social Responsibility and Supply Chain Management. Virgin Galactic is continuously developing their ideas and keeping looking for ways to improve how they are doing things (Virgin Galactic, 2014).
Overall, Virgin Galactic is a highly popular organisation because it is such a new concept. They do not have very many competitors, yet. This allows them to capture the market and manage things that no other organisation has been able to accomplish or offer to their customers. Due to this, it makes the organisation unique, helping to achieve high customer satisfaction because of the uniqueness of the service being delivered. The whole process that they have undertaken is all very new, so like anything new, there is always room to improve and tweak things.
The following value chain, which focuses on Spirit Airlines, is representative of most of the firms in the Ultra Low-Cost Airline industry. Spirit is the industry leader in many areas such as operational efficiencies/cost structure, aircraft fleet management, brand/network and growth. The firm, however, trails industry foes in areas such as customer service and operational reliability and recoverability. While most in this segment pursue the cost-leader competitive strategy, Spirit has demonstrated the most effective model to date – whether the model is the most sustainable remains to be seen.
§ All employees: The Southwest culture depicts all their employees as the foremost most important aspect of their company.
In 1971 Southwest Airlines started their operations with a vision of being a low cost/low fare carrier for passengers traveling between San Antonio, Dallas and Houston. After early legal battles and struggles gaining market share, their fighting spirit, integrity and will to succeed paid off. Over the course of the next 40+ years, Southwest has become the world’s largest low-cost carrier, while carrying more domestic passengers that any other U.S. airline (“Southwest Corporate,” 2015). Their culture, values and operating practices are what have driven this company to its current success and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
Having a low cost of operations is one of the contributing factors to Southwest Airlines’ financial success. Such low cost model of the corporation is brought about by an effective strategy. Southwest uses only one type of aircraft – the fuel-efficient Boeing 737. This tactic keeps training and maintenance costs down. Moreover, the no-frills approach to customer service contributed to the low cost of operations for Southwest.
Since 1987, when the Department of Transportation began tracking Customer Satisfaction statistics, Southwest has consistently led the entire airline industry with the lowest ratio of complaints per passengers boarded. Many airlines have tried to copy Southwest’s business model, and the Culture of Southwest is admired and emulated by corporations and organizations in all walks of life. Always the innovator, Southwest pioneered Senior Fares, a same-day air freight delivery service, and Ticketless Travel. Southwest led the way with the first airline web page—southwest.com, DING, the first-ever direct link to Customer’s computer desktops that delivers live updates on the hottest deals, and the first airline corporate blog, Nuts About Southwest. Our Share the Spirit community programs make Southwest the hometown airline of every city we serve.
...ry long and successful history in the airlines industry, which makes it one of the leading airlines in the world. Also, it provides the most comfortable flights and services to its costumers and employees, which makes it unique.
Innovation is an essential ingredient in today’s competitive landscape (Denning, 2011). Unless innovation moves beyond initiative and becomes part of an organization’s DNA, innovation is doomed to fail. Southwest Airlines (NYSE: LUV) has embrace innovation as an essential part of its culture. The innovation and importance of the Southwest culture is demonstrated throughout customer service, business strategy and green initiatives.
In the airline industry, Southwest Airlines is considered a true innovator. By shaking up the rules of flying and improving upon inefficient industry norms, Southwest has quickly grown by leaps and bounds. From the very start, Southwest Airlines' goals were to make a profit, achieve job security for every employee, and make flying affordable for more people (Southwest,2007). Southwest has not strayed from these goals. It does not buy huge aircrafts, fly international routes or try to go head to head with the major carriers; and thanks to a great planning, Southwest airlines has become the most successful airline company in the U.S., if not the world.
Southwest Airlines is a fairly impressive organization. Throughout their history they have proven to be resilient. In their early days they had to ward off pressures that were placed on them from the more dominant airlines in their area. These airlines tried to force them out of business using regulatory pressures. The second impressive show of resiliency came when in the 1970’s the government tried to force southwest out of Love Field to the new Fort Worth airport that the government had invested in heavily. Another impressive feat of the airline is its can-do attitude. Throughout it’s history even when things were dire they still persevered. In my experience this is a monumental task as it is so easy to breed negativity instead of being positive about outcomes. Lastly, it is very impressive that Southwest was able, even in these trying times, to lower fairs and provide excellent customer service. Ideas such as their $10 fair Houston-> Dallas flight proved to be more successful than anticipated.
Executive summary Delta Airlines has been a vibrant company in the airline industry, with great success over the years. Delta Airlines started as a crop dusting company serving more than 572 destinations, in 65 countries on six continents (Allan, H., David. H.,2012). The. Delta Airlines moved its headquarters from Monroe, Louisiana, to the city of Atlanta, Georgia. Great management strategies have been portrayed from time to time to be fruitful, even on the verge of a recession.
The airline industry has become more and more competitive over the years. It takes determination, preparation, knowledge, and recourses to start an airline company, and that is just what happened forty-five years ago in Dallas Texas. Southwest Airline is a very successful airline company serving around 100 million customers annually (Southwest Corporate Fact Sheet). Many things stick out about Southwest such as their satellite-based WIFI and free luggage. These accommodations appeal to the customers. The company describes its mission as “dedication to the highest quality of Customer Service delivered with a sense of warmth, friendliness, individual pride, and Company Spirit” (About Southwest). From a customer standpoint, there is nothing else
Southwest Airlines has come from an underdog to being one of the best airlines in the industry. This reputation translates from its strategic management of resources. The Co-founder and former CEO, Herb Kelleher, established a unique corporate culture that leads to high customer satisfaction, employees’ morale, and one of the most profitable airlines in the industry (Jackson et al., 2012). The corporate culture concentrates on empowerment the workforce. It shows through Southwest Airlines core values that “happy employees lead to happy customers, which create happy shareholders” (Jackson et al., 2012). Since its first grand opening in 1971, Southwest Airlines has shown steady growth, and now carries more passengers than any other low-cost carrier in the world (Wharton, 2010). To expand the business operations, Southwest Airlines took over AirTran in 2010 as a strategy to gain more market share for the Southeast region and international flights. However, the acquisition of AirTran brought upcoming challenges both internally and externally for Southwest Airlines. In this case analysis, the objectives are focusing on the change process post the merger with AirTran, and evaluating alternatives to address the impacts of the merger.
Its business model is to hire smart, motivated individuals and teach them to run a business by delivering exceptional customer service. Delivering exceptional customer service results in completely satisfied customers and satisfied customers will continue to do business with Enterprise and even tell others about the company, which results in business growth at each of i...
The Singapore Airlines needs to thoroughly understand the plans being pursued by the British Airways, Cathay Pacific, and Virign Atlantic in improving the comfort and quality of service it provides to its customers. The Singapore Airlines needs to continue differentiate itself by examining the strengths/weaknesses, and key points of these and other competitive airlines.
Space tourism involves travelling in to the space by people for leisure, adventure or investment by established space tourism businesses. It is an expensive undertaking that satisfies the curiosity of people regarding how the space looks like. Virgin Galactic is one of the emerging companies that have taken advantage of the new investment opportunity. Space environment on the other hand is likely to be affected by space tourism due to the black carbon emitted by the rockets involved in space tourism. This paper analyses space tourism and space environment in modern day. It highlights the relationship between modern technology and space tourism. It also talks about how the space is related to astronomy and the efforts by scientists to promote space tourism.