The Qatari government is one of the main strength

Running head: SM OF QATAR AIRWAYS
SM of Qatar Airways

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Executive Summary
Founded in the year 1993, Qatar Airways began its business operations from 1994, however,
the organization was taken over by Akbar Al Baker in the year 1997. By the end of 2011, this
airlines organization marked their presence in the global airlines industry as they started
covering more than 100 destinations in the world.
The revenue of Qatar Airways was about QR 42229M, whereas the net income of this
organization was QR-252M.
Qatar Airways have won airline of the year for the fourth time in 2017 in the Skytrax World
Airline Awards after 2011, 2012 and 2015.
Financial support from the Qatari government is one of the main strength of this organization.
PAX demand forecasting is the opportunity for this organization to grow in the competitive
Middle Eastern market. Whereas the geopolitical conflict in the Middle Easter Countries is a
source of concern for Qatar Airways and at present COVID 19 is the biggest threat of Qatar
Airways

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Table of Contents
1. Vision and Mission statement of Qatar Airways...................................................................3
2. Developed vision and mission statement of Qatar Airways..................................................3
3a. External opportunities and threats........................................................................................3
3b. PESTEL................................................................................................................................4
4. Competitive Profile Matrix (CPM)........................................................................................6
5. External Factor Evaluation (EFE)..........................................................................................7
6. Internal strengths and weaknesses.........................................................................................8
7. Internal Factor Evaluation (IFE)............................................................................................8
8. Recommendations..................................................................................................................9
9. Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) Matrix..........................................10
10. Implementation of recommendations.................................................................................11
11. Recommend procedures for strategy review and evaluation.............................................12
12. Conclusion..........................................................................................................................12
13. References..........................................................................................................................13

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1. Vision and Mission statement of Qatar Airways
Vision: to be become the world class carrier and cargo service provider
with global reach
Mission: excellence in everything we do (Qatarairways.com 2020)
2. Developed vision and mission statement of Qatar Airways
Since it’s established in 1993 and its re-launch in 1997, Qatar Airways has
become the world’s fastest-growing airline and earned many awards and honours. And in
particular the travelling public confidence. Qatar Airways serves all 6 continents with its 250
aircrafts, employing over 40000 people over the world.
3a. External opportunities and threats
Financial support coming from the Qatari government is one of the significant
external opportunity for Qatar Airways. At the same time, the digital technologies which are
being used in this organization is providing Qatar a huge opportunity to improve their
customer experience (Zakharova 2017) GCC dispute and Airspace blockade is a huge source
of concern for Qatar Airways, at the same time, this organization is now facing threats from
the volatile aviation fuel prices and COVID 19 pandemic.
The external opportunities and threats shall be analysed using SWOT analysis
technique (Gürel and Tat 2017). This technique is very much useful to reverse the
weaknesses of commercial organizations, identify the core competencies and overcome the
threats of the organization.

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3b. PESTEL
External factors affecting the business operations of Qatar Airways can be understood
using PESTLE analysis tool (Carmona-Benítez and Nieto 2017). The opportunities of the
organization can be exploited in the first place with the help of the pestle analysis as well.
Political Economical Social
- The flying rights
barrier that the
state of Qatar has
would protect Qatar
airways.
- Very favourable
political stability
within the country,
however serious
conflict with
neighbouring GCC
countries.
- The almost non-
existing taxation
system in the oil
rich country
benefits the airline
and other business.
- The unlikelihood of
politicians getting
involved in
corruption.
- Qatar airways
enjoys a monopoly
of the aviation field
in the country, the
only other airline
Qatar Executive is
part of Qatar
Airways Group.
- Low level of
unemployment in
the country and
small population (2
millions) means the
great majority of
the workforce
needs to be
outsourced
internationally.
- The stability of the
currency as the
Qatari Riyal
exchange rate to
the USD is fixed
and controlled by
the central bank.
- The rate of GDP
(highest in the
world) reflects on
the rapid expansion
and growth of the
airline as it is in
majority state
owned.
- Majority of Qatar
airways customers
are international
customers (90%
transit), local
market represents
only 10% of the
targeted
population.
- The class
distribution
between the local
society unable
Qatar Airways to
market premium
products to the
general public (25%
of Qatar population
is locals Qataris)
Technological Environmental Legal
- QR innovates and
brings to the
- QR environmental
management
- The state of Qatar
has in place anti-

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aviation markets
new niche products
that turned popular
(Qsuite, new EY
seats, Quisine …)
- QR products are
protected well
advertised making
it difficult for other
firms to copy it.
- The big investment
in innovation and
research generated
a big return of
investment as new
products turned to
be very popular
and attracted
customers from
other airlines
(Qsuite : first class
experience with the
price of business
class)
system is certified
to the highest level
of IATA’s
Environmental
Assessment
Program (IEnvA).
- QR operates a
young fleet, very
fuel efficient that
generates a low
carbon footprint.
- The airline is
engaged in
preventing
transportation of
illegal wildlife
transportation. It is
the inaugural
signatory to the
United for Wildlife
Transport Industry
Declaration.
discrimination laws
to protect the
employees
(majority
expatriates) and
the passengers on
board QR.
- Occupational
Health and Safety
laws are being
increasingly
enforced since the
media coverage of
the world cup 2022
workers‘ living
conditions.
- Applying OHS rules
and creating a
safety culture
within an employee
population of over
40 000 would
require extensive
training and
recurrent meetings
which require a
considerable
investment from
the airline.
The external forces which play a major role for the success of Qatar Airways can be
understood from the PESTEL analysis table. The political factors include the flying rights
coming from Qatar Aviation Group, the nonexistence of taxation system, and lower level of
corruption. The economic factors include the outsourcing employment opportunities, stability
of Qatari Riyal exchange rate and the highest GDP, whereas the social factors are that the
majority of the consumers are international customers and the class distribution in the Qatari
society. New niche products are created by Qatar Airways using disruptive technologies
which is the technological factor associated with Qatar Airways (Robenek et al. 2018). The
environmental factors of Qatar Airways include its certification in IATA Environmental

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Assessment (IEnvA) program (Tobisová et al. 2017). The presence of the anti-discrimination
laws, safety standards for the workers and maintenance of safe business culture are the legal
factors associated with this airlines organization. Hence, it can be stated that each of these
external factors helps this organization to maintain its regular business operations.

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4. Competitive Profile Matrix (CPM)
Critical success factors of the business can be identified with the help of Competitive
Profile Matrix (Su and Zhao 2019). The matrix is also very much useful to understand the
ranking of the business based on the progress of the industrial competitors.
The above matrix helps in understanding that advertising, management and financial
positioning are one of the main strengths of Qatar Airways and Quality of Services is
considered as the minor strength of this organization, and the minor strengths of this
organization are customer loyalty and price competitiveness. Toll Brothers sated that market
share is the major weakness of this organization. Based on the analysis of Dr. Horton the
minor weaknesses of this organization are market share, prove competitiveness and global
expansion, management is a minor strength and advertising, quality of services, global
expansion and financial positioning are the major strengths. Based on the analysis of Pulte

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Homes the minor strengths of this organization are adverting, quality of services,
management, financial positioning and global expansion, whereas the minor weakness
includes price competitiveness, customer loyalty and market share. Hence from the above
analysis, it can be understood that Qatar Airways does not have a major weakness.
5. External Factor Evaluation (EFE)
The methodology of External Factor Evaluation includes the creation of the list of
external factors, the collected factors are then divided on the basis of the opportunities and
threats. In the ensuing step, weights are assigned for each factor (Primawati, et al. 2019).
External factors weig
ht
rati
ng
weight
ed
score
OPPORTUNITIES
Strong Gov’t backing and financial support.
20% 3 0.6
FIFA world cup 2022 with millions of PAX to be
transported to its hub. 20% 2 0.4
Qatar Airways Can consider other hospitality
business to diversify income 5% 4 0.2
The state of Qatar is pro technology and digital
experience enhancement 5% 3 0.1
External factors weig
ht
rati
ng
weight
ed
score
THREATS
GCC dispute and airspace blockade (longer routes
and less regional destinations) 10% 4 0.4
Pandemic impact on global air travel demand.
20% 2 0.6
Emirates has already won the confidence of most
customers being an older airline and better
established. 10% 2 0.1
Volatile aviation fuel prices.
10% 4 0.3

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TOTAL
100
% 2.7
The above analysis helps in understanding that the financial support coming from the
government and PAX demand forecasting are the two essential factors having the maximum
weightage on this organization as compared to the income coming from the hospitality
business or the use of technologies to improve their customer experience (Ambrose 2019).
COVID 19 is the biggest threats for Qatar Airways at this point of time as compared to the
other threats like airspace blockades and volatile fuel prices.
6. Internal strengths and weaknesses
Clear target segment and strong backup coming from the management are one of the
prime internal strengths of this organization. The In-flight services and the off-board services
minimised the waiting time for the consumers. Serving regional cuisines is also considered as
a major internal strength of Qatar Airways.
Wage issues from unionisation, and changes in the political conditions of the Middle
Eastern countries are the internal weakness of Qatar Airways (O’Connell and Bueno 2018).
At the same time, a huge amount of cost is required to maintain the quality of service in the
business class and it is one of the other internal weaknesses of Qatar Airways.
7. Internal Factor Evaluation (IFE)
The methodology of Internal Factor Evaluation revolves around the internal and
external factors affecting the business, assigning weights to both the external and internal
factors (Capps and Cassidy 2016). Hence the weaknesses and the strengths of the functional
areas of the business can be identified using this tool.

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The internal strengths of this organization are clear target segment, stronger
management team, inflight and off-board services, and serving of regional cuisines. However,
the internal weaknesses include the wage issues of the workers, political conditions of the
Middle Eastern countries and the higher cost of maintaining their quality of service.
Internal strengths Weight Rating Weighted scores
Clear target segment 0.10 4 0.40
Stronger
management team
0.15 3 0.45
In-flight and off
board services
0.10 2 0.20
Serving regional
cuisines
0.15 3 0.45
Internal weaknesses
Wage issues from
unionisation
0.15 2 0.30
Political changes 0.15 4 0.60
Higher cost to
maintain quality of
services
0.20 3 0.60
8. Recommendations
The list of recommendations which can be very much useful to address the long term
objectives of Qatar Airways are as followings:
 Growth Strategy: The four diverse categories of growth strategies which can help
Qatar Airways to accomplish their strategic objectives are diversification, market
penetration, market expansion and development of new services.
 Building a sales funnel: All the scaling procedure of Qatar Airways can be improved
with the creation of a sales funnel. It will help to automate some of the regular
business operations of this organization and meet its strategic objectives.

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 Merger and Acquisitions: The selection of this strategy shall not only help to create
a market dominance but also led to strategies such as the exchange of shares. Synergy
is the other major contribution of this commercial strategy.
Forces Relevance to Qatar Airways
Bargain power of suppliers As a result of local monopolies, Qatar Airways faces a
threat from their suppliers.
Intensity of rivalry Qatar Airways faces a huge challenge coming from
competitors such as Etihad Airways.
Bargain power of buyers Fragmented buyers is also a huge source of concern for
Qatar Airways.
The threat of new entrants The cost of the entrance in the airlines industry is a burden
for the new organization, as a result, Qatar Airways have no
threat from a new entrant.
Threat of substitutes Qatar Airways does not face any sort of threats from
substitutes due to their dynamic pricing policies.
9. Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) Matrix
Strength Weakness
- Strong workforce of over 40 000
employees worldwide.
- Young fleet of an average 4,5
years (minimum maintenance
and low fuel consumption)
- String backing of Gov’t of Qatar.
- High profitability and rapid
growth.
- Global brand = Premium
experience (leading to high
price leasing and charted
services)
- Relying heavily on international
traffic mainly transit (90%
transit pax)
- Non existing domestic flights.
- Limited disclosure of financial
operations.
- Representing the state of Qatar
therefore suffered from the geo-
political conflict in the region.
Opportunities Threats
- Strong Gov’t backing and
financial support.
- FIFA world cup 2022 with
millions of PAX to be
transported to its hub.
- Qatar Airways Can consider
- GCC dispute and airspace
blockade (longer routes and less
regional destinations).
- Pandemic impact on global air
travel demand.
- Strong competition in the

12SM OF QATAR AIRWAYS
other hospitality business to
diversify income.
- The state of Qatar is pro
technology and digital
experience enhancement
market (Emirates, Etihad)
- Volatile aviation fuel prices.
10. Implementation of recommendations
Recommendations such as growth strategy and merger acquisitions can be enacted on
Qatar Airways using the grand strategy matrix. This matrix is very much useful to identify
the impact of the recommended strategies on the market growth and the competitive position
of Qatar Airways. However, the marketing team of this organization can be hugely affected
due to the incorporation of grand strategy matrix as it might divert the focus on the
consumers of Qatar Airways (Supriadi 2018). Go-to-market strategy can also be much
significant to address the challenges faced by the consumers if grand strategy matrix is
incorporated (Wilson 2017). Hence it can be understood that the profitability ratio of Qatar
Airways can be improved using Go-to-market strategy as well (Hokkanen 2019).
Implementation plan for the three recommendations along with their Key Performance
Indicators are as follows:
Recommendations Implementation plan Key Performance Indicators
Growth Strategy Value proposition must be
established in the first place,
all the revenue streams has
to be verified. New talents
must be hired to incorporate
any of the growth strategies.
Profit margin and the client
retention rate are the two
performance indicators associated
with enacting any of the four
growth strategies.
Sales Funnel The behaviour of the
consumers must be
understood before the
creation of the landing page
and an Email drip campaign
is also required for the
creation of a sales funnel.
Response time of the sales team,
and time taken by the leads to
pay their consumers.
Merger and Acquisitions The strategic financial Budget issues and productivity of

13SM OF QATAR AIRWAYS
position of the identified
candidates has to be
examined. Valuation of the
target has to be identified, at
the same time, the ongoing
performance of the target
has to be checked.
the resources are the prime KPI
associated with the enactment of
Merger and Acquisitions strategy.
11. Recommend procedures for strategy review and evaluation
12. Conclusion
The strategic management report of Qatar Airways was very much significant to
understand the changes required in this business so that they can address their long term
objectives. Based on all the three recommendations, growth strategy and merger and
acquisition are the two most significant recommendations for Qatar Airways.
Structural reforms must be promoted in the first place in Qatar Airways for the
enacted of growth strategy, industrial metabolism of Qatar Airways has to be checked prior to
the start of the enactment procedure. Tracking the progress of this strategy using regular
meetings is also very much required to identify the effectiveness of the growth strategy.
All the current operations have to be examined before the selection of the target,
based on the findings business strategies have to be adopted by Qatar Airways. Due diligence
results have to be documented prior to the enactment of the merger and acquisition. At the
same time, transparency of the purchase agreement must be maintained by all the parties
involved in this merger procedure.

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13. References
2020. [online] Available at: <https://www.qatarairways.com/en/homepage.html> [Accessed
21 April 2020].
Ambrose, S., 2019. Embry Riddle Aeronautical University, College of Business-Daytona
Beach, FL. Journal of Air Transport Studies, 10(1), p.110.
Capps III, C.J. and Cassidy, C.M., 2016. Expanding the competitive profile matrix (cpm):
introducing the financial competitive profile matrix (fcpm). Academy of Strategic
Management Journal, 15(2), p.9.
Carmona-Benítez, R.B. and Nieto, M.R., 2017. Comparison of bootstrap estimation intervals
to forecast arithmetic mean and median air passenger demand. Journal of Applied Statistics,
44(7), pp.1211-1224.
Gürel, E. and Tat, M., 2017. SWOT analysis: a theoretical review. Journal of International
Social Research, 10(51).
Hokkanen, S., 2019. Integrating project management into go-to market strategy development.
O’Connell, J.F. and Bueno, O.E., 2018. A study into the hub performance Emirates, Etihad
Airways and Qatar Airways and their competitive position against the major European
hubbing airlines. Journal of Air Transport Management, 69, pp.257-268.
Primawati, A., Paramita, A., Lukman, L. and Rangka, I.B., 2019, November. Analysis of
online market system design strategy based on external and internal factor evaluation matrix.
In Journal of Physics: Conference Series (Vol. 1280, No. 2, p. 022014). IOP Publishing.

15SM OF QATAR AIRWAYS
Robenek, T., Azadeh, S.S., Maknoon, Y., de Lapparent, M. and Bierlaire, M., 2018. Train
timetable design under elastic passenger demand. Transportation research Part b:
methodological, 111, pp.19-38.
Su, M. and Zhao, J., 2019, May. SWOT Analysis of the Development of Guangzhou Airport
Economic Zone. In 1st International Conference on Business, Economics, Management
Science (BEMS 2019). Atlantis Press.
Supriadi, B., 2018. Pengembangan Ekowisata Poncokusumo melalui Grand Strategy Matrix
Analysis. Jurnal Pariwisata Pesona, 3(2), pp.119-133.
Tobisová, A., Rozenberg, R., Vagner, J. and Jenčová, E., 2017, September. Social network
applicability in air transport. In Transport Means-Proceedings of the International
Conference (pp. 1040-1044).
Wilson, R.E., 2017. Stihl incorporated: Go-to-market strategy for next-generation consumers.
Kellogg School of Management Cases.
Zakharova, I.V., 2017. Regional aviation claster evolution factors analysis. Economics, 24(1),
pp.192-200.