Strategic Direction: Competitive Analysis, External Analysis, and Change Management Model of Easy Jet Plc

This report provides an overview of the competitive advantage, external environment, and strategic change management process of Easy Jet Plc. The report includes a competitive analysis using Porter's five forces method, an external analysis using PESTEL analysis, and the implementation of Lewin's Change Management Model. The report concludes with recommendations for the identified issues.

STRATEGIC
DIRECTION

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Competitive analysis of Easyjet...................................................................................................3
External analysis of Easyjet.........................................................................................................5
Lewin’s Change Management Model in context of Easy Jet plc. ...............................................7
Recommendations........................................................................................................................9
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Strategic direction can be described as certain strategies or tactics that needs to be applied
within the company in order to enhance the growth and development of the company. A strategic
direction allows an organization to achieve its organizational goals and convert their vison into a
reality (Harrison, and et.al 2021). The strategic management of an organization helps
accompany in gaining the competitive advantage of an organization within the market as
compared to its competitors. The present report is based on the study of Easy Jet plc which is
headquartered in Luton, United Kingdom and was founded in the year 1995. The present report
will present an overview if the competitive advantage, external environment and strategic change
management process. The current report also states certain recommendations that are in relation
to the issues that have been identified and analysed in context of the company within the market.
MAIN BODY
Competitive analysis of Easyjet
A competitive analysis is basically a set of strategies or techniques that involve the
procedures like researching of the major competitors for the purpose of gaining the insight into
the products, marketing and sales tactics of the company in particular (Li. and et.al., 2020). This
analysis of Easyjet in particular is presented in the further discussion by implementing Porter's
five forces method.
Porter's five forces is basically a framework for the purpose of analysis of the competitive
environment of the company (Shokeen., 2016). There are five major elements of the Porter's five
forces, these are threat of the new entrants, threat of the substitutes, competitive rivalry,
bargaining power of the suppliers and bargaining power of the buyers.
Competitive rivalry
Competitive rivalry basically refers to the competition of the company that is present in
the market or within the industry. The competitors of the company are analysed by tactics like
product introduction, advertising campaigns and price competition. The major aspects through
which the competitors can be analysed within the market are if the competitors are sellers of
homogenous products, the growth of the industry is slow, the switching costs are low, the fixed
costs are high or if there are high barriers of exit.
The major competitive of Easyjet are Flybe, Pegasus airlines, Ryanair and Wizz air.
Threat of new entrants

The threat of the new entrants refers to the threat that the company has from the new
comers or the newly established and establishing companies within the market. This specifically
focuses on the levels of easiness of entering and exiting the industry or the market which the
company operates in (Bruijl. and Gerard., 2018).
Many new companies are coming in the industry of travel and tourism as the industry is
growing enormously. Easyjet in particular is dealing with the new entrants or the new companies
by lowering the pricing strategy of the company and enhancing the marketing strategies,
providing new and innovative value propositions to the customers and also reduce the costs so
that the customers find the products and the services affordable.
Threat of substitutes
Threat of substitutes basically refers to the threat that a particular company has from the
substitutes of that company that are operating within the market. Substitutes basically refer to the
companies that sell similar products in the similar market and also provides similar services to
the particular group of target audience. This threat can not be undervalued or underestimated.
There are companies that are very powerful by selling similar products and providing similar
services than the others.
Easyjet is present in the travel and tourism industry, which is one of the most growing
industry overall. And Easyjet tackles this problem by being more service oriented and not only
product oriented. And also the switching costs are high, also, the company is more understanding
towards the needs of the customers too.
Bargaining power of suppliers
The bargaining power of the suppliers refers to a backward vertical force within the
supply chain of the company. Suppliers are able to exert their pressure or power through raising
the prices, restricting the supply and reducing the quality of the product or the services.
The companies within the travel and the tourism industry generally buy raw materials
from diverse and numerous suppliers. The impact of the higher overall bargaining power of the
suppliers of Easyjet is done by lowering the overall profitability of of the tourism and the travel
industry.
Bargaining power of the buyers
Bargaining power of buyers or the purchasers is also known as the vertical force. This
force basically comes from or focuses on a different stage or level of the supply chain of the

company. Bargaining power of the buyers will become significant and enhance if the fewer
sellers of the product and the buyers are also limited, and vice versa if the case is opposite.
The smaller is the customer base of Easyjet it becomes more powerful, this makes the
bargaining power of the customers or the buyers higher and also increases the ability of the
customers to seek better offers and discounts.
External analysis of Easyjet
External environment refer to the factors that affect or impact the working of the
company but can not be changed or modified by the company in any way. It is basically a set or
a collection of the group of factors that are not within the organization or the company but still
affect the working of the company at different levels or extent. These factors can be political
factors, social factors, economic factors, etc.
The external factors are analysed by the PESTEL analysis method. This method has six
major segments or factors, these are political factors, economic factors, social factors,
technological factors, environmental factors and legal factors (Madsen. and Grønseth., 2022).
Political factors
Political factors are mainly the factors that consider the tax policies, trade restrictions,
tariffs, environmental regulations, etc. The political factors precisely determine the extent to
which the company or the organization has the influence of the government over it. Political
factors differ from country to country as the regulations, code of conduct and guidelines of
different countries are also different, due to which the companies that are operating in different
countries need to work accordingly (Shtal. And et.al., 2018).
The factors that affect Easyjet are the transfer of the ownership from the UK AOC to EU
AOC due to the Brexit implementation. And also the impact of the French industrial actions over
the pension changes have affected the company majorly.
Economic factors
Economic factors specifically refer to the factors within the economy of a particular
country which affect the working of the company overall. These factors are such as, economic
decline, economic growth, interest rates, inflation rates, wage rates, exchange rates, cost of
living, etc. These factors in particular affect the performance of the economic conditions of the
country (Alanzi., 2018).

The economic factors like the impact of the pandemic over the airline industry and the
economy and the fluctuations in the macroeconomic factors such as the foreign exchange, fuel
costs, etc. These are the major factors that have been impacting the working of the company
Easyjet, as it is in the airline industry in the UK.
Social factors
The social factors are the factors that focus on the society overall, which means the
factors that focus on the aspects such as the cultural expectations and norms, growth rates of the
population, career attitudes of the people in the specific community, health age distribution and
safety. These companies are precisely necessary or essential for the company as they help or
support in the better planning for marketing strategies and techniques.
The social factors that influence the working of Easyjet are the change in priorities of the
consumers to drive the ancillary revenues. Also, the factor of maintenance of the gender equality
within the community of pilots is impacting the company.
Technological factors
Technological factors are the factors that focus on the technological changes and mostly
advancements within the industry and the overall market. There are many technological
advancements that are happening in the overall environment in the current times, as there are
enormous amounts of changes happening in the technologies which are continuous and
consistent (Perera., 2017).
The continuous and consistent improvement within the digital interface such as
introduction of the new bag- sizer over the application of Easyjet. The introduction of the new
bag- scanning technological feature in the iPhone and the adoption of advanced analytics and
data science. All of these evolutions in the technological sector that keeps on changing on a
consistent basis have been impacting the working and the market recognition and the employee
behaviour of the company on major basis.
Environmental factors
Environmental factors refer to the factors that mainly focus on the ecological or
environmental aspects of the society. The laws regarding waste disposal, environmental
protection and other environment related factors are mainly referred to as the environmental
factors.

Easyjet has been on the go regarding the development and maintenance of the
environment related and protecting factors within the company. The company is operating with
the net- zero carbon flights all across its networks of the flights and also the research team of the
company has been researching on the electric and hybrid 'green' aircraft with propulsion
technologies implemented within it.
Legal factors
The legal factors refer to the factors such as the quotas, imports and the exports, taxation,
changes in the legislation affecting the employment and access to the materials. These factors
that are in accordance to the code of conduct followed by each country respectively.
The legal factors impacting the company Easyjet are, firstly the, heavy regulations within
the environment which has three diverse regulators of the European airlines. Then the change in
the European airspace supply which is controlled by the air traffic control abbreviated as ATC
and lastly the bribery charges that are implemented on the founder of Easyjet and Airbus has
affected the recognition and goodwill of the company on huge basis.
Lewin’s Change Management Model in context of Easy Jet plc.
Change can be considered as a common aspect that is essential and is required within
different types of business irrespective of the size, industry and age of the enterprise within the
market. The Lewin’s change management model was given by Kurt Lewin in the year 1940. This
model presents the change in three steps that includes unfreeze – change – refreeze. The change
management process of easy Jet Plc has been explained below:
Stage-1 Unfreeze
It has been identified that the company Easy Jet Plc identified that there is a need for
them to change certain things or segments within their organization. After determining the need
for the change within the company, it has been identified that the company prepared each and
every employee within the enterprise ready for the change that the organization has been
planning to bring within themselves (Galli, 2018). On this first step, the management of the way
Easy Jet Plc. determined that there is a need for them to bring certain changes within their
enterprise if they want to bring growth and development to the corporation. They also determine
the need for the change to take place within the company. In this step, the company also makes
use of different tactic which includes stakeholder analysis which will help the company to
determine and win the support of the major people within the organization. Similarly, the Easy

Jet plc. identified its own vision with respect to the change that the company wanted to bring
within the enterprise and thus communicated with the other people within the organization in
order to implement the same.
Stage-2 Change
It has been determined that within this stage, the management and the employees working
within the company look for ways to resolve their issues in association with change that the
organization is about bring within the enterprise. Similarly, within the Easy Jet Plc, it has been
determined that in this stage the management and the workforce of the company presented their
issues to the company in order to get them resolved by the organization (Rosdiana, and Aslami,
2022). The employees stated the concerns in relation to the change process within the company
and provided the company with a basis of implementing the required change within the business
corporation. On order to implement certain changes within a company, it is essential for the
organization to present the employees with the advantages of bring the changes within the
organization. Similarly, the company also made use of this tactic and presented the employees
with the advantages of the changes within the company and thus influenced them to be
comfortable with the changes in the enterprise for the purpose of their personal growth and
development.
Stage-3 Refreeze
The third and the final stage of this model is the refreeze. The concept of refreeze can be
explained as when the planned changes are about to take place within the company and the
employees are getting comfortable with them by developing an understanding towards the same
is the time when the company needs to lock the changes for the purpose of enhancing the growth
and development of accompany. Similarly, the Easy Jet Plc did the same. They communicated
about the planned changes that the company is planning to implement within the company,
communicated the advantages of implementing the same, asked them about their concerns and
issues in association with the planned changes within the company and worked on them in order
to resolve them and also clarified with employees in regards with the same. This helped the Easy
Jet Plc in easily bringing the required changes within the organization and not being able to
affect the company overall (Rosenbaum, More, and Steane, 2018). The company made sure that
each and every individual working within the company gets the knowledge about the planned
changes within the organization and then lock and refreeze them within the enterprise. This is

because it will help the company in enhancing the growth and development and enhance the
profitability of the organization too.
Recommendations
In order to address the issues that have identified within the company, the Easy Jet Plc
should make use of the following strategies:
 It has been determined that the constant technological advancements within the
organization affects the consistency of the functioning of the company. Therefore, it has
been observed that there is a need for the company to bring the changes within their
technical staff as well as the technology they use within the company. This is because,
even though the constant technological advancement hinders the consistency of a
company, but still the company needs to constantly work on the technology they use
within the organization in order to enhance their efficiency and effectiveness. For the
same, the organization needs to hire more knowledgeable and skilled technical staff
within the company which can help the enterprise in enhancing its organizational;
efficiency (Stouten, Rousseau, and De Cremer, 2018). Also, the trained technical staff
needs to constantly provide trainings to other employees within the company so that other
employees can also develop an understanding towards its use.
 Moreover, it has been identified that similar to the vehicles that moves on roads, the air
planes or the aeroplanes also cause pollution which in turn affects their profitability
within the market. This is so because, now a days, most of the customers and the general
public knows about the harmful impact of the pollution and therefore they prefer
choosing options that does not have any kind of negative environmental impact or might
have minimal negative consequences within the global environment. Therefore, in order
to address and resolve the issue that the airline corporation such as the Easy Jet Plc has
been facing within the market, the company should try to implement certain methods or
technologies that might help them in reducing the air pollution that has been caused by
the aeroplanes across the world (Buallay, Al-Ajmi, and Barone, 2021). The easy Jet Plc
should make use of clean fuel that may help the company in reducing the pollutants that
are released as a result of operating and moving an aeroplane. Another method of
reducing the air pollution is to plan the exact and specific route before proceeding the
journey. Rerouteing the planes after it has been boarded increases the amount of air

pollution. Therefore, the easy Jet Plc should adopt the strategy of using clean fuel and
reduce the rerouteing in order to reduce the air pollution and also increase the customer
base of the organization within the market. This, in turn, will help the company in
enhancing its profitability within the market.
 Another major issue that affected the Easy Jet Airlines was the outbreak of Covid 19
across the globe. Due to the outbreak of the corona virus, it got difficult for the airline
industry including the easy Jet Plc to operate under such circumstances and the fear of
getting affected from the disease also impacted the profitability of the airline industry
within the market. In order to eliminate its impact, it is essential for the company to set
standard precautionary guidelines for the customers that travellers from one nation to
another. This will help the company in making the travellers believe that it is safe to
travel across the national boundaries and will help the company in enhancing their
customer base within the market and gain the profitability.
CONCLUSION
From the above report, it can be concluded that in order to bring an organization towards the
growth and development, it is important that the company bring all the relevant changes within
the company. The present report studies the external environment that affects the functioning and
operations of the Easy Jet Plc. It also presents the competitors of the company within the market
and describes the competitive disadvantage of the organization within the market. The present
report also discusses about the list of suggestion and the recommendations that can help the
company in eliminating the identified issues from the company.

REFERENCES
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