Air New Zealand: Leading in an age of disruption

Running Head: LEARNING ORGANIZATION 0
Leading in an age of
disruption
Student’s details

LEARNING ORGANIZATION 1
Introduction
The following report highlights the efforts made by Air New Zealand as an organization
in an age of disruption and the reasons, which lead to such transformations. The company made
strong efforts to maintain its consistency of providing quality services to the customers. In the
developing and digitalizing world, the company has focused on developing the technological and
digital techniques. The report will initially provide brief information about the organization, and
its evolution and development with time. Moving further, the report will focus on explaining the
process in which the organization has transformed into a learning organization. Lastly, the report
will describe the importance of proper leadership framework while transforming phase of an
organization.
About Air New Zealand
The Air New Zealand (ANZ) limited is considered as the flag carrier organization of New
Zealand. Presently, the organization provides flights for 31 international destinations in around
19 nations; it also holds active services for 20 domestic destinations. The organization has
originated in 1940 as TEAL i.e. Tasman Empire Airways Limited and operated only within
Tasman and Australia. Later Government of New Zealand owned the organization, upon which it
was name as Air New Zealand. The organization merged itself with a private NZ National
Airways Corporation (NAC) in 1978 (Airnewzealand, 2019). It turned into a private
organization in 1989 the idea of privatization failed badly and returned back to the government
ownership in 2001.
In today’s era, it is essential for every business organization whether small or large has
to function in accordance to the transforming world. Thus, it is observed that ANZ has also
developed itself by introducing digital processors and improvising the technological conditions
of the technology used in the organization (Salcedo-Sanz & Deo, 2016). When ANZ was
started, it had basic technology and simple techniques to deal with the customers and technical
issues. With changing time, the organization has introduced several new features, which have
helped in dealing with the problems arising in the age of disruption.

LEARNING ORGANIZATION 2
Importance of bringing transformation
The Air New Zealand has turned over in last one decade. It is an organization, which has
faced severe failures and still has managed to come back into the race of competition. The
problems diagnosed were issues in the management process of the staff, errors in construction of
the contracts with associations working with the organization and most importantly the
technological backwardness of the organization (Oster & Strong, 2017). Thus, the
organization focused on learning new concepts, which resulted fruitful for engaging the old
clients, and attracting new clients as well.
The Air New Zealand has majorly worked upon two things, the company firstly, focused
on cultural shift to become a company which is sincerely client centric condensed by their
slogan: “we y people”. Secondly, the airlines have enhanced the use of digital technology and
analytics, which is one of the strongest reasons behind the success of the company. In order to
deal effectively with every problem and develop strategies to gain success the organization
changed its orientation (Oster & Strong, 2017). In the year 2016, airlines appointed Digital
Officer (CDO) and distributed the duties with CIO. The ANZ appointed the former Google
executive ‘Avi Golan’ as CDO, his years of experience and crucial strategies helped in gaining
the revenue of the Airline service (Lyon & Francis, 2016).
Airlines are always considered as the learning organization as they always make changes
in accordance with the feedbacks drawn by the clients. Thus, by keeping the customer experience
in mind some of the changes, which were made in the organization, are as follows.
The organization firstly digitalized the booking system; the customers were now not
required to wait for long period to get confirmation for tickets. The tickets for both the domestic
and international flights can be booked online. This reduced the burden from the shoulders of
customer and management as well. The airlines introduced strong security system to reduce the
risk of terrorism, smuggling and various other criminal acts (Kan, Chung, & Chung, 2019).
Along with this, a strong baggage checking system is installed on the airports. The advent of
digital technology enhances the customer innovation. The airlines has also introduced air band
for the unaccompanied minors. These steps were taken to transform the ANZ into a learning
organization.