Business Strategy: Analysis and Application

This assignment delves into the realm of business strategy, examining its core principles, influence on organizational performance, and various theoretical underpinnings. Students are tasked with analyzing different business strategies, their application in diverse contexts, and the factors that contribute to their success or failure. The assignment encourages critical thinking, research, and the ability to synthesize information from academic sources.

Business Strategy

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................1
1. Background of Qantas.............................................................................................................1
2. What is strategy.......................................................................................................................2
3. Qantas's strategy......................................................................................................................2
4. Qantas strategic plan...............................................................................................................2
5. Porters five forces...................................................................................................................3
6. Porters industry positioning....................................................................................................4
7. Qnatas's SWOT analysis.........................................................................................................5
8. Qantas's Core competencies....................................................................................................5
9. Qantas's strategic competitive advantage................................................................................6
10. Creation of core values in Qantas.........................................................................................6
CONCLUSION...............................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9
Books and Journals.....................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Business strategy can be define as art, science or any craft which help organisations in
making their future decisions. Mission, vision and objectives of a company is specified by its
strategic management, it also evolve organisational policies & plans, then allot different
resources to apply those programs so that aim of company can be achieved (Scholes, 2015). This
report is based on ''Qantas Airways'' which is one of the world's oldest airline. It is situated in
Australia and its nickname is ''The Flying Kangaroo''. In this report its strategy, vision, mission,
core values, objectives, forces, strengths and weakness has been explained. Along with this, it is
determined that how actually it creates values in work place.
1. Background of Qantas
It is a multinational airline brand which is located in Sydney, Australia and it have three
hubs, these are Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney Airport. It have strength of near about 28,622
employees who are continuously contributing their efforts to make it world's best Airline. It also
have many subsidiaries like Qantas link, Jet star Airways, Jetconnect, Network aviation, Qantas
Freight, Australian air Express and so on. Its key persons are Leigh Clifford who is the chairman
of this company and Alan Joyce is chief executive officer. This organisation was started as
Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services Limited but in 1934 it established a new firm
and name that Qantas Empire Airways. The operations of new formed company was started in
December 1934 it flying betwixt Darwin and Brisbane, QEA start its international flights from
may 1935. At second world war Australian government taken its most of fleets due to enhance
war services. It was get nationalised in 1934 by government authorised person Labour Prime
Minister Ben Chifley. After getting nationalised it started its services outside the boundaries of
British Empire to Tokyo, which was its historical moment (Verbeke, 2013). At the same time it
also started its services in Hong Kong too. Qantas was get integrated with Australian Airlines, on
14 September 1992. When civil law permit the privatisation then it was get privatised by
Australian shareholders. In 1998, it joined other airways with American Airlines which were
British Airways, Canadian Airlines and Cathay pacific. This company was privatised under The
Qanats Sale act, in this its foreign possession was get limited to 49 percent. It has announced its
future structural change in August 2011, because of its financial losses and decrement in market
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share. The reason behind organisational alteration was financial loss in international operations
because Emirates and Singapore Airlines was taking higher position in airline world.
2. What is strategy
It is set of actions which is taken by mangers to accomplish organisational goals. In other
words, it is a activity which integrates various business practices and utilise available resources
to achieve company's objectives. While making strategies, leaders have to consider various
stakeholders and other environmental factors which can effect organisational activities. It also
help managers in forecasting future, understanding business environment, enhancing growth,
creating vision, customer satisfaction, employee retention, utilisation of appropriate resources
and company expansion (Montgomery, 2011). Along with this, it also creates progressive
programs, identifies strengths & weaknesses of enterprise and also increase skills & knowledge
of business managers.
3. Qantas's strategy
Company can increase enhance its growth and development, if it is operating its activities
in efficient and systematic way. Every organisation needs high qualifies business and marketing
strategies to develop its business. In simple words success of any enterprise is lies upon its
strategic management. Like other firms Qantas is also having many strategies to improve its
functioning in market place. Some of its schemes are following as under :
 It provides luxury services in very affordable prices.
 It have flexible organisational structure which can be modify according to the
environmental changes (Bharadwaj and et. al., 2013).
 It give its central attention to customer safety so that it can attract more customers.
 It is takes technological support to provide better services in Airline sector.
Hence, these are some strategies of Qantas which make this organisation more attractive
and competitive in market place.
4. Qantas strategic plan
Vision : It is well growing company in airways industry and its vision is to become most
successful and admired bran of airline business through providing customer safety and good
flight catering.
Mission : These are following as under :
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 The corporate mission of this company is to become most favourite airway of its
customers.
 To contributes its efforts toward social and economical improvement.
 To provide professional, advanced and profitable services to its shareholders (Woodcock,
Green and Starkey, 2011).
Core values : Central beliefs of Qantas airline are given below :
 To give first priority to customer protection.
 Increase employee involvement and empowerment.
 Provide innovative, creative and luxurious services.
 Give equivalent opportunities to all workers.
 Adopt flexible organisational structure.
Objectives : Every business enterprise is established to accomplish desired results so that
company can improve its performance. Objectives of qantas are :
 Provide best aviation services with customer safety and dependability.
 High profitability.
 Appropriate utilisation of organ transplant and flying ambulance services.
 To promote corporate social responsibility.
 Operate in cost effective way.
5. Porters five forces
Functioning of a company can be affected by various aspects, there are porters five forces
which can influence the airway industry and Qantas as well, those are discussed below :
Entry barriers : Establish a new airline company requires huge investment for its
luxurious services. Most of new companies get financial losses due to its competitor's position in
market place. So it is necessary for new entities to maintain financial crises in up coming years.
Threat of substitutes : In present scenario, most of people prefer cars, trains and cruise
boats to travel which is becoming a huge disadvantage of airline companies. These substitutes of
travelling influence negative impact on Qantas growth.
Competitive Rivalry : Competitors firms like Singapore Airways and Air New Zealand
are creating rivalry environment which can decrease performance of other airline companies
(Oestreicher-Singer and Zalmanson, 2012).
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Bargaining power of suppliers : There are many aircraft suppliers such as Boeing and
Airbus which are continuously affecting performance of Qantas.
Bargaining power of buyers : There are various alternative are available in travelling
services which is increasing negotiation power of customers.
Therefore, above mentioned forces of porter are the momentous components which can
influence positive or negative impact on Qantas Airline.
6. Porters industry positioning
With the help of appropriate strategic management every organisation can easily achieve
its goals and objective, it also creates Company's higher posting in market place. Through porters
generic strategies Qantas can improve its strategic positioning in competitive market place.
Following are the points of porters strategic model :
 Cost Leadership : Basically it means minimising the organisational cost through various
activities. Through this company can use cost effective procedures to operate business
practices. With the help of cost leadership Qantas can increase its productivity,
profitability, negotiation power to bargain low prices and impelling utilization of
technological support, This strategy is usually used by large corporations.
 Cost focus : This type of strategy is apply on those companies who concentrates on small
market section. In this organisations highly focus on specific needs and demand of
customers, also provide low prices for products and services. In this marketers serve their
business with uniqueness so that they can develop their brand loyalty in the mind of their
customers (Chang and Chuang, 2011).
 Differentiation focus : Under this strategy business persons distinguish between their
different small market segments. In this company provide unique products according to
the need of customers, which are different from competitor's product. Before adopting
this strategy marketers must aware about that their customer do have unique needs and
demands. In simple words there should be a reason for differentiating products which
other competitors do not have.
 Differentiation leadership : With the help of this strategy company can make strategic
positioning by distinguishing whole of industry. It is used when organisation wants to
charge extra amount rather then production cost. This strategy enhance product quality
and branding.
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Moreover, through above mentioned points Qantas can create its strategic positioning in
market place.
7. Qnatas's SWOT analysis
There are many strong and weak points of Qantas which influence its growth and
development. Following are the strengths and weakness of this company :
Strengths : It is a highly reputed airline company in Australia and it have near about 65
percent of market share in airways industry. Its most important strong point is that it provides
travelling services on time. It is also known as world's oldest airline organisation and it also has
approx 20 international destinations and domestic as well. It is highly reputed company because
of its extra promotional activities like advertising and sponsorship (Boies, Lvina and Martens,
2011).
Weaknesses : Due to lack of its employee involvement and empowerment it is facing
many problems and obstacles in its journey, its more importance towards Australasia is
becoming its huge advantage because other airway companies are expanding their business in all
over the world. Along with this, emerging labour unions is also influencing negative impact on
its performance and future growth.
8. Qantas's Core competencies
Competencies are those factors which make one organisation different from another one.
Companies can develop their core competencies through making their customer satisfied and it
can be possible when firm would provide better product and services to them. Through providing
great customer gratification business enterprises can get completive advantages. There are
various competencies of Qantas which make it antithetic from others, those are following as
under :
 Strong brand : It is a well known company and also one of the oldest airline
organisation. With the help of continuous efforts of its workers this enterprise is
achieving high success and also making strong goodwill within market place.
 Comprehensive experience and expertness : It also have previous experiences which
help it in its future decision making. It have expertness in all segments of travellers like
premium, economy and budget class (Parnell and et. al., 2012).
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 World class services : Due to its past experience and expertise it have great intelligence
in flight entertaining system. It is well known for its luxurious services in worldwide. It is
famous for its unique flight features and interior designing in its travelling classes.
Furthermore, its innovative strategic planning and management indicates its future
growth and development in all over the world.
9. Qantas's strategic competitive advantage
In present times, only competitive advantages does not lead to organisational success.
Looking towards the environmental changes and other strong competitors company have to make
sustainable competitive advantage so that it can perform well and upgrade its current position in
market place, it can be done if company have unique resources. Through the help of VRIN
analysis Qantas can evaluate characteristics of its resources to create sustainable competing
vantage, elements of VRIN model is following as under :
Valuable: Company should utilize those materials which creates value to organisation,
because all resources may not have worth enough to provide high competitive advantage.
Rare : Only valuable materials are not sufficient they have to be very rare so that
everyone can not get them, they should be unique in quality (Reich and Benbasat, 2013).
Inimitable : Along with valuable and rare they should be different form competitor's
resources so that company can get sustainable competitive advantage.
Not substitutable : Through substitute materials contenders can provide same product
and services so it is necessary that managers would use those resources which are not
substitutable.
10. Creation of core values in Qantas
The most important and tough function of every organisation is how it creates value.
Worth of a company decides that either people wants to trade with it or not, individuals pay for
that thing which they think can create value for them, so that company have to make it worth full
so that customer buy its product and services. Values are not tangible but they gives huge benefit
to organisation so that it can enhance its growth and development. It is significant to generate
worth of organisational structure and its functions. Value system creates a frame work in the
mind of individual which influence his behaviour. It is very much like attitudes but it is built
permanently in one's nature. It also known as belief which help in different situations to take
actions and judgements (Iacob, Quartel and Jonkers, 2012). It gives standardized competencies
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and quality, they are also permanent and can not be change easily. It is a system which effects
the perception of business managers in different conditions and also influence his decisions
while solving various situations. It have great impact on attitude and behaviour of a individual.
People get values from various factors such as family, society, culture, religion, past
experiences, role demands, halo effects and personal factors. In organisations, managers can
create values through various ways as in new value, more value and better value these three
ways are explain in details :
 New value : Most of companies make creates new worth in very effective way, it is
most challenging task for business mangers because it requires breakage into whole
body. With the help of example it can be understand easily, if a enterprise focus on
increment of its relationship instead of increasing profit in work place through this firm
can make new value. Recruitment of new associates can also help in this matter by
connecting new members. Brand new worth can be created by requirement of extra
members to discover suppliers & also demand of sellers to enter into target market place
(Wang and Verma, 2012).
 More value : There are three successful strategies to create more values, first is that
organisation do not change buying prices but provide extra services with each purchase,
second is that company provide same quantity of purchase but on less prices and third is
companies provide extra quantity in lower prices. Qantas used third strategy when it
initially they started their business. It is a example of making more value in work place.
 Better value : This is the last way to worth of enterprise, it is similar to more value but
in this organisation provides extra quality rather than providing quantity. firm gives
advancement in quality to make better value system in business place.
Hence, these are the three methods of creating values in work place which can improve
company's image in the mind of customers and also provide sustainable competitive advantage.
CONCLUSION
Through concluding this report, it is evaluated that strategies are the main factor which
determine the success and failure of a company. Business enterprises make effective and
innovative strategies so that it can develop organisational programs and allocate scarce resources
to accomplish goals and objectives of organisation. This report is based on Qantas airline which
is the leading airway company of Australia. It is popular for its unique flight services and
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advanced entertainment system in air planes. In this report its various strengths, weaknesses and
core competencies are evaluated so that it can improve its performance in a innovative and
systematic way.
REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Bharadwaj, A. and et. al., (2013). Digital business strategy: toward a next generation of insights.
Boies, K., Lvina, E., and Martens, M. L. (2011). Shared leadership and team performance in a
business strategy simulation. Journal of Personnel Psychology.
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Chang, T. C., and Chuang, S. H. (2011). Performance implications of knowledge management
processes: Examining the roles of infrastructure capability and business strategy. Expert
systems with applications. 38(5). 6170-6178.
Iacob, M. E., Quartel, D., and Jonkers, H. (2012, September). Capturing business strategy and
value in enterprise architecture to support portfolio valuation. In Enterprise Distributed
Object Computing Conference (EDOC), 2012 IEEE 16th International (pp. 11-20).
IEEE.
Montgomery, C. A. (Ed.). (2011). Resource-based and evolutionary theories of the firm: towards
a synthesis. Springer Science & Business Media.
Oestreicher-Singer, G., and Zalmanson, L. (2012). Content or community? A digital business
strategy for content providers in the social age.
Parnell, J. A. and et. al., (2012). How environmental uncertainty affects the link between
business strategy and performance in SMEs: Evidence from China, Turkey, and the
USA. Management Decision. 50(4). 546-568.
Reich, B. H., and Benbasat, I. (2013). 10 Measuring the Information Systems–Business Strategy
Relationship. Strategic Information Management, 265.
Scholes, M. S. (2015). Taxes and business strategy. Prentice Hall.
Verbeke, A. (2013). International business strategy. Cambridge University Press.
Wang, J., and Verma, A. (2012). Explaining organizational responsiveness to work‐life balance
issues: The role of business strategy and high‐performance work systems. Human
Resource Management. 51(3). 407-432.
Woodcock, N., Green, A., and Starkey, M. (2011). Social CRM as a business strategy. The
Journal of Database Marketing & Customer Strategy Management. 18(1). 50-64.
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