Systematic Strategic Analysis on Virgin Atlantic

The report examines strategic capabilities of one of the eminent British airlines, Virgin Atlantic with the help of various strategic tools as the company is on the verge of expanding its new Asian routes, connecting Singapore with London and various European destinations.

Running head: SYSTEMATIC STRATEGIC ANALYSIS ON VIRGIN ATLANTIC
Systematic Strategic Analysis on Virgin Atlantic
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Executive summery
The report examines strategic capabilities of one of the eminent British airlines, Virgin
Atlantic with the help of various strategic tools as the company is on the verge of expanding
its new Asian routes, connecting Singapore with London and various European destinations.
In order to do that given report has been evaluated the company’s potential to execute the
plan. At first, macro environmental factors have been analysed following the PEST model.
Then, after a brief description of micro environmental factors, porter’s five forces analysis
has helped to understand the power of suppliers, buyers and competitors.
Bowman’s strategy clock model has suggested appropriate market positioning for the
company considering the nature of expansion. Then SWOT analysis model has helped to
elaborate its strategic capabilities by analysing its strengths and opportunities and sheds lights
on the threats and weakness, which must be recovered in order to implement the plan
successfully. Finally, with the help of strategic tools, the strategic directions of the company
have been identified and promotional strategies have been suggested to accomplish the
organizational goal of new market and service development. This report can be a guideline
for the airline companies, which are interested to expand their business based on the
perceived value and customer loyalty.

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Table of Contents
Introduction....................................................................................................................4
Background of the company..........................................................................................5
Reason behind revising the strategic approach..............................................................5
PEST analysis of Virgin Atlantic...................................................................................5
Political factors...........................................................................................................6
Economic factors........................................................................................................6
Socio-cultural factors.................................................................................................7
Technological factors.................................................................................................7
Micro-environmental analysis........................................................................................9
Porter’s five forces analysis.........................................................................................10
Market positioning: Bowman’s strategy clock............................................................13
Position 1st: low price-low value.............................................................................13
Position 2nd: low price.............................................................................................14
Position3rd: Moderate price and moderate differentiation......................................14
Position 4th: differentiation......................................................................................14
Position 5th: focused differentiation........................................................................15
Position 6th: standard product/ increased price.......................................................15
Position 7th: low value/ high price...........................................................................15
Position 8th: low value/ standard price....................................................................16
SWOT analysis: evaluation of capabilities..................................................................16
Strengths...................................................................................................................16

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Weakness..................................................................................................................17
Opportunity..............................................................................................................18
Threats......................................................................................................................18
Strategic management tools.........................................................................................18
ANSOFF’s growth matrix model.............................................................................18
BCG matrix model...................................................................................................19
Blue ocean strategies................................................................................................21
Marketing strategies.....................................................................................................21
Conclusion....................................................................................................................23
References....................................................................................................................24

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Introduction
The purpose of framing this strategic report is to understand the potential of a British
airline company, Virgin Atlantic, was founded in the year of 1984, as the authority is
planning to expand routes connecting Singapore to several European destinations. In order to
do that management needs to produce a strategic report and based on that future agenda will
be planned. This report will be made with the help of several strategic tools to evaluate how
capable the company is to execute the plan by receiving assistance of existing resources and
current market position.
At first, a brief description of the company will be given and after that, the reason
behind their decision to consider a strategic approach will be elaborated. As the company
wants to deal with one of the most busiest and popular travel destinations Singapore,external
forces will be revised by presenting PEST analysis followed by an analysis of micro
environmental factors. Then, porter’s five forces model will be appropriate to understand the
competitive position of the airline company within industry. Bowman clock will further help
to determine its market position and elaborate the reasons behind it. Finally, presenting a
SWOT analysis the report will shed light on the strengths and weakness of the company.
Based on that its market opportunity and threats will be examined. By adopting strategic tools
like ANSOFF, BCG and Blue Ocean model, a systematic analysis will be presented to frame
the strategies of gaining competitive advantage in the market for their new expanded route
(Homsombat, Lei and Fu 2014).
This assignment is about evaluating several marketing components. Therefore,
presenting a strategic report, which will work as a guideline for the company while executing
future strategies of route expansion connecting Singapore with some of the busiest
destinations of Europe.

5SYSTEMATIC STRATEGIC ANALYSIS ON VIRGIN ATLANTIC
Background of the company
Virgin Atlantic (VA) was established in 1984 with the former name of British
Atlantic Airways with its headquarter in United Kingdom. It deals with destinations of North
America, Africa, Middle East and selected destinations of Asia from its central base situated
in London, and secondary based which is in Manchester. It is operating business with a
strong brand name because of its fair corporate image, which has been made out of thirty-four
years of excellent service. The quality of the services are worthy for purchasing to experience
a premium journey. These are the reasons, which have made the airline company branded,
travel friendly for the consumers and one of the most recognised and respected brands within
the industry and across the world as well.
Reason behind revising the strategic approach
As the airline company has been experiencing significant growth in business since
years, the authority has decided to explore the opportunity of further expansion of routes
concentrating on the interest of both the Singaporean and European customers. From the year
of 2020, the flights will be on-board to maintain the commitment according to the plan.
Enhancement of the routes will be announced at the end of the 2019, if before that the
management could frame the appropriate strategies for this expansion (Dalby et al. 2014).
Regarding this important agenda, authority has decided to take a serious strategic approach
considering several strategic tools of business.
PEST analysis of Virgin Atlantic
The purpose of PEST analysis is to present a framework of macro environmental
factors, which are used to evaluate the potential of business environment when the company
is in need of a strategic approach.

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Political factors Economic factors
One of the relevant political factors
that influences airline industry is the fear of
terrorist attack. Due to political and
religious conflict as per Lawton, Rajwani
and Doh (2013), terrorism has become main
issues of concern across the world.
Therefore, Airline operators have to ensure
the passengers safe and secure journey. In
order to do that airline companies should
spend more efforts and capital to install
safety tools and required systems on every
flights (Cui and Li 2015). However, to
implement such infrastructure VA can
experience huge financial expenditure. The
political atmosphere of Singapore is
favourable for exploring business
opportunities as being a democratic country,
political risks are low. Although, opposition
parties do not have right to influence people
with derogatory comments on the ruling
party. However, political atmosphere of UK
is going through a turmoil. Britain has not
clearly mentioned future trade restrictions
Acknowledging the effects of
economic recession; it should be
remembered that the rate of unemployment
is high and potential consumers are cautious
against their habit of expenditure (Jean and
Lohmann 2016). For instance, as long as
economic situation remains under such
crisis, tendency of people will be like
cutting down expenses on travelling for
leisure purposes or else the frequency of
business travels as well may reduce in
number. As the views of Pagani (2013),
people can use digital aids to narrow down
the distance between places. This will
decrease the demand of travelling by air or
people can opt for small budget airlines for
fulfilling their purpose. As a result of this,
VA may experience a sudden drop in
volume of passengers. Singapore deals in a
‘free-market’ economy, which is
continuously developing. Apart from the
threat of the recession, recently, Singapore
government has invested to diversify their

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and policies to maintain trade relationship
with Asia, Europe and rest of the places in
the world. The facts will not be cleared until
2019. Therefore, Airline industries along
with VA are in a dilemma whether to plan
according to the market opportunity or trade
policy. Besides, huge aviation industries
need at least two years to make things works
accordingly. That is where the conflict
begins. However, if the policy will not go in
favour of company strategy again the
company can face monetary loss in terms of
changing their plan and infrastructure.
economic structure. The company can save
monetary resources, as labour cost remains
consistently low. Being one of the most
competitive industries, larger airline
companies may have better opportunities as
they possess more monetary resources than
the smaller ones. Although, VA possesses a
brand value in the market still it would be
better to practice innovation and creative
strategies in order to make the company free
from the threat of competitors within Britain
and across Singapore as well.
Socio-cultural factors Technological factors
People living in every corner of the
universe is experiencing considerable effect
of globalization. Based on that, the standard
of lifestyle is rising across the world. Asian
consumers are gradually becoming more
conscious even about their rights and
realising their contribution, which can alter
balance sheet of this business organisation
As the entire business industry is
going through a digital disruption, the
impact of technological factors are intense
as far as new business model is concerned.
As described in Castillo-Manzano and
López-Valpuesta (2013), various
technological inventions are effecting the
business operation of Airline industry over

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(Chew 2017). Therefore, people want
services, which are treating their
investments in the best possible way.
Singaporeans are selective enough regarding
these aspects as literacy rate is high and
citizens have enough knowledge to
communicate in several languages including
English. There is a consistent desire to be
productive to make the lifestyle better. As
people have too many options to choose
from, they can easily compare the features
and choose products and services, which
resembles with personalised standard.
Although, economic crisis is there, due to
the impact of globalization tourism
activities are increasing maintaining a subtle
rate (Martín, Rodríguez-Déniz and Voltes-
Dorta 2013). It has been observed that the
rate of visitors has been increasing since
past one decade rapidly. As per Guntoro and
Hui (2013), Singapore can be considered as
one of the popular tourism destination
across Asia and their culture is a blend of
western and eastern traditions (Li, Ngin and
Teo 2013). Considering that, Singapore’s
the past twenty years approximately. Both
positive and negative impact can be
identified due to extensive use of internet.
Digitalization enables VA to reach greater
percentage of tech-savvy Asian passengers
and provide them services in much lower
involvement of cost. Singapore’s
technological infrastructure is well develop,
which attracts multinational business
organisations to invest on operations based
on this country. Almost 70% of the
household has in-house broadband services
as well as handheld smart devices. Airline
industries like VA has already installed
central revenue management and customer
relationship management programme into
their system to increase the profit keeping
the operations cost low. Increasing usage of
internet and e-commerce websites have
made the booking operations easier
(Escobar-Rodríguez and Carvajal-Trujillo
2013). Moreover, promotion activities has
become much easier with social media
spending little monetary resource. As a
result, of this positive shift in technological

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demand as a tourist destination is
increasing. It is may be because of the trend
amongst people of experiencing different
culture, lifestyle and people of various parts
of the world. This trend of exploration is
undoubtedly beneficial and acknowledging
that if VA expands news rotes to Singapore,
high possibility is the company will
experience a great deal of profit.
aspects the expectation among the
consumers for better service has elevated.
However, competition has increased as
consumers can check and compare the deals
offered with just one click (Escobar-
Rodríguez and Carvajal-Trujillo 2014). On
the other hand, adaptation of advanced
technologies might be helpful to strengthen
the position of Virgin Atlantic within the
airline industry.
Micro-environmental analysis
There are several micro-environmental factors, which have a serious impact on
business environment. Those are as follows.
 Satisfying Customers are one of the central concerns, as generating revenue is
dependent upon them. Therefore, organisations focus on framing effective marketing
strategies to attract the potential customers and it is helpful to retain existing
customers as well. It can be said, if the services have been designed with the help of
advanced the advanced technologies keeping the requirements of the customers in
mind then customers will feel satisfied enough to travel with VA repeatedly (Leon,
Szmerekovsky and Tolliver 2013).
 Skilled and efficient human resource is the backbone of any business organisation as
far as accomplishment of the goal is concerned. Employees with several years of work
experience or qualification can execute regular business operations more efficiently

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and their work has always been towards gaining customer’s trust. Behind the
efficiency of employees, the company’s contribution is the most. In order to possess
such effective human resource VA needs to revise the hiring policy and following
training programme for development of employees. Especially in service industry,
development programmes and consistent motivation help to execute regular
operations effectively.
 Presence of competitors has direct impact on framing business and marketing
strategies. In order to gain a competitive edge the airline company should practice
creative ideas and innovative models to add value to their provided service unlike
their competitors (Purkayastha and Sharma 2016). There should be a non-imitable
unique selling point, which will make the company different from the existing
airlines. Virgin Atlantic should make their idea clear about their competitors and the
way they would react at the time of transformation of market environment. In this
case, several strategic tools like PEST, SWOT and analysis of marketing mix can
deliver ideas about the competitors and their nature. Major competitors of this airline
company is EasyJet, which operates in Singaporean routes and the name of British
airways can be taken into account.
 Shareholders, investors are important components, as without monetary resource
none of the activities can take place. As far as new business model is concerned,
realising the risk factors company can think of shifting ownership to public from
private as private shareholders have a pressure on the company to return a
considerable amount of profit against their investment.
Porter’s five forces analysis
i. It is known to all that, airline industry is much saturated and new carriers are
entering into the market with the central idea making profit consistently.

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Although, not all the airlines can make profit throughout the year yet it cannot
restrict the entry of new airlines into the industry. Therefore, it can be easily
assumed that high intensity of industry rivalry is effecting the market
opportunity of Virgin Atlantic on a large scale. Acknowledging the effect of
globalization into the aviation industry, fare war is increasing and so the
competition on every aspect. Again, the trend of acquisition can be spotted as
well because of rivalry within the industry.
ii. Aircraft manufacturers are one of the major suppliers. Boeing and Airbus are
the main suppliers for the airline company along with the fuel companies
(Sarlioglu and Morris 2015). Fuel is the necessity of airlines in order to
execute daily operation. The airport itself supplies the basic needs of aircrafts
(Dursun and Soutis 2014). Besides, multinational IT companies support the
company by providing IT solutions. As fuel is a premium product the numbers
of buyers are low, therefore, Virgin Atlantic carries an advantage and aviation
fuel companies consider them as one of the premium customers (Lee, Seo and
Sharma 2013).
iii. The airline company is eminent enough to carry a brand name for serving the
passengers with quality. Airfare is affordable too in a market of economic
recession as well. Previously, passengers used to buy tickets directly from the
airlines so power of the buyers were low in terms of bargaining and comparing
fares with other existing airlines. However, distributions channels has been
increased like, with technological advancement ad globalization people can
easily compare the deals and can choose the best deal according to the
requirements (Suki 2014). Moreover, presence of low budget airlines is
successfully conquering the market share of established airline companies.

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Power of the buyers have elevated that is a known fact yet business model
must possess non-imitable qualities and Virgin Atlantic should figure out the
strategies by which they can save their market share from small budget
airlines.
iv. According to Budd et al. (2014), a strong barrier can be found in terms of
entries and exits as huge monetary resource is involved within this aviation
industry. airlines cannot quit the venture according to their wish as pressure is
there from the end of regulators to accomplish the prior promised tasks to the
stakeholders. Apart from this, airline companies have to maintain several rules
and regulations regarding safety and for that, the company must be financially
stable. Therefore, it can be said Virgin Atlantic confronts with an external
environment, which is comparatively tough because when some company is
entering into the market it can be assumed that new rival is going to engage
itself into all kinds of competitive aspects.
v. Business organisations like Virgin Atlantic even with such market presence
and brand value can suffer from the threat of substitution considering the
global approach of every company within airline industry. Acknowledging the
effect of ongoing recession, as mentioned before business organisations are
cutting off travelling costs by arranging virtual meetings which is called
teleconferencing. Apart from this larger number of people feel to travel to
destinations, which are within their budget. Therefore, consequences are
people are becoming less dependent on quality airlines like Virgin Airlines
and the area of target market is decreasing.
Hence, it can be stated after performing porter’s five forces analysis that Virgin
Atlantic is surviving within a challenging and competitive external business environment.

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Considering these aspects operations should be more innovative in order to remain
competitive in the market.
Market positioning: Bowman’s strategy clock
Bowman’s strategy clock is a representation of the relationship between customer
value and service prices in a form of a diagram. The diagram presents eight probable
strategies based on the axes of prices and value of the services. It clearly shows the linkage
between ‘cost advantage’ or ‘differentiation advantage’ and competitive advantage of a
certain company.
Position 1st: low price-low value
Several companies adopt this market strategy of delivering poor quality products at
lowest price after coming under the influence of fare war. When competitors tend to supply
products at lowest prices, a certain company in order to win the fare war cannot do anything
but to adopt this strategy. However, in this case, companies fail to retain the customers and

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this strategy is appropriate for only to products of short life cycle. Virgin Atlantic can lower
the prices yet compromising with the quality might be risky as far as customer retention
policy is concerned.
Position 2nd: low price
Low price does not always mean the cheapest one. It can be termed as affordable too.
In this case, companies fix the prices keeping the operation cost as low as possible and know
how to balance high volume of passengers maintaining low margin of expenditure (Vieira
and Loures 2016). Virgin Atlantic is famous for delivering quality service in an affordable
price. Therefore, if the organisation have enough volume of passengers or strong strategic
reasons for their market position, then opting for this approach can help the company to gain
a sustainability within industry.
Position3rd: Moderate price and moderate differentiation
This position is termed as hybrid. Companies like Air Lingus keep the selling cost
low yet serve better service than their rivals serve (O’Connell and Connolly 2017). These
kind of companies raise a goodwill of serving better quality products at comparative low
prices. Customer retention becomes easy if such position can be maintained. Virgin Atlantic’s
present strategy is closer to the position. They have a reputation of serving quality service at
affordable price. This hybrid combination of perceived value and price establishes a
relationship of loyalty between customers and the company.
Position 4th: differentiation
Carriers that practice differentiation offer either high-perceived value or keep the cost
low to occupy larger market share. Companies with a brand name can opt for this market
position as whatever the price range may be customers will trust the brand as the services and
products perceived high value. Virgin Atlantic serves quality product and if they have to

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lower the prices to win the fare war with their competitors then there is high possibility that
customers will choose Virgin Atlantic over low budget airlines.
Position 5th: focused differentiation
Focused differentiation can be applied if the carriers target only the premium
customers. Here, the decision of purchase does not depend on the price range. Consumers
focus on the value of the product only. This does not mean that the product should be
valuable, if the brand name carries the perception of the value that is enough for the
customers to pay higher premium. When virgin Atlantic is thinking about expansion of
routes, they can initially keep the product price low to occupy the market share yet to attract
the attention of the premium passengers they have to make them believe the power of their
brand name by following focused differentiation.
Position 6th: standard product/ increased price
This market strategy can be followed if the company wants higher profitability using
their brand image in the initial stages of operating new routes to Singapore. This position may
involve risks as companies increase the price without modifying the quality of the products.
Eventually, if the market accepts the higher price the company runs on profit. On the other
hand, if this plan does not work they try to adjust the cost with the perceived value of offered
services. However, the carrier should keep in mind that this strategy is not applicable for
long-term, as competitors and customers are capable of identifying the flaw within system.
Position 7th: low value/ high price
Airline industry is highly competitive where price generally equals to marginal cost
and draws zero percent profit. In a monopolist setting, the firms experience economic profit
by increasing the price above the marginal cost. Virgin Atlantic can perceive competitive
advantage if both the price and the quality is efficient in terms of the market interest. As
companies are forced to participate in the fare war among the competitors this perfect

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monopoly cannot be maintained and if customers find the services are meeting all the
requirements they will eventually purchase without caring of the high price.
Position 8th: low value/ standard price
This position is not trustworthy as far as occupying the market share is concerned.
The customers cannot prefer services, which are not valuable enough irrespective of the
prices. Company will lose customer loyalty if they follow this strategy.
It can be observed that position 6th, 7th and 8th are not trustworthy as far as Virgin
Atlantic’s interest of occupying the market share and competitive edge are concerned. In
order to beat the competitors participating in the fare war is not enough. Simultaneously,
brand value should be aligned properly with the offered price.
SWOT analysis: evaluation of capabilities
SWOT analysis will define whether the carrier is capable of executing their new
business plan based on their strengths and opportunities. In order to do that which weak
points are needed to be overcome and which threats they have to face; those aspects will be
discussed elaborately.
Strengths
 The brand value: The airline company has its own brand value which helps to enjoy
them a positive perception across the global aviation industry (Milioti, Karlaftis and
Akkogiounoglou 2015). The company name is synonymous with quality services at
affordable prices and entertainment, which make them exceptional from other existing
airlines.
 Strong networks and joint ventures: The business remains profitable from the
initial days, as the core area of generating revenue has been the strong north Atlantic
network. The power of their business increased when they cut off some of the routes

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connecting London to Tokyo, Mumbai and Cape Town in 2015 to remain more
focused to the core area of business. Following the structure of the revenue their
decision of expanding the routes connecting the most popular Asian travel destination
can experience huge success as far as their brand image is concerned. Apart from that,
they can also think for joint ventures in order to get direct entry into the Asian market
as they have positive experience previously of working jointly with Delta airlines.
 Customer satisfaction: The carrier has three categories termed as economy, premium
and luxury, which reveal its wide range of target market. Services are personalized
and the management looks after every detail regarding customers’ requirements and
expectations (David Mc 2013).
Weakness
 Low budget airline plan has been a failure: Virgin Atlantic launched ‘little red’
brand promoting it as a low budget airline for the domestic UK routes. However, it
had been observed that the brand’s load factor was extremely weak.
 Financial difficulties: With the implications of BREXIT, Virgin Atlantic will
experience challenges in terms of monetary resources. As the airline makes most of its
expenses in dollars yet receives income in pounds. Businesses had faced heavy
financial losses due to the drop in the value of pounds in recent times.
 Poor choice of positioning strategy: Virgin Atlantic has been operating business
since 1984, so in terms of gaining sustainability the company was in need to launch
innovative ideas into the system, which they did not do. As a result of that
competitors easily imitated Virgin’s strategies and presented better perceived value
which went against the Virgin Atlantic’s favour. Moreover, passengers consider their
service as being expensive than other carriers which makes them reluctant to travel
with VA at times.

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Opportunity
 As businesses are being more serious about making global approach, travelling has
been increased in frequency for business purposes rather than satisfying leisure. This
is a positive sign as far as opportunity of making money is concerned for VA.
 The joint venture with delta airlines has made the entire north Atlantic network
stronger than before. The revenues generated from the core business is going to be
helpful balancing the operation costs of the proposed routes of connecting Singapore
to London via their airlines.
Threats
 Threats of geo political events work as a threat for airlines. Threats of terrorist attack
and natural calamities, which can disturb the customers’ perception (Grubesic and
Wei 2013).
 Being one of the most reliable and eminent airlines, VA experiences a huge scale of
competition from its rivals like British Airways, Emirates and many more.
 The business has seriously been affected by the implication of BREXIT as the number
of foreign passengers has reduced due to the policy.
Strategic management tools
ANSOFF’s growth matrix model
As per the views shared by Bereznoy (2015), this model is may be old yet effective in
terms of identifying all the strategic directions of a certain organisation. According to this
model, there are four strategies of growth. Market penetration strategy for existing services
and rest of the three strategies are for new launch of the services. Those are market and
product development and diversification strategy. VA ideally follows diversification strategy
by launching new routes to approach the new Asian market like its competitors (Redpath,

19SYSTEMATIC STRATEGIC ANALYSIS ON VIRGIN ATLANTIC
O'Connell and Warnock-Smith 2017). The major reasons behind doing that are gaining
efficiency in corporate sector of aviation industry, elevated market share. The founder’s
innovative strategies worked in favour of the diversification strategy.
The company also went for market penetration strategy to modify existing services
with the help of innovative ideas. It includes several acquisition decisions and 1000 dollars of
cashback facilities on upper class flights of VA. Besides, their new venture of connecting
Asian routes to London is an example of product development for that, strategies will be
discussed in later part of the report.
BCG matrix model
As per Didia and Ateke (2017), this BCG matrix model determines the company’s
profitability and potential cash contributions. The purpose is to evaluate two parameters such
as, market share and the rate of market growth. The purpose of this evaluation is to
understand profitability of the business model in terms of cash support and generated revenue
from the business model.

20SYSTEMATIC STRATEGIC ANALYSIS ON VIRGIN ATLANTIC
Dogs carries low share of market and operate in a gradual growing markets as
compared to its competitors. This factor deals with weak aspects of the organisations yet
these are equally important to discuss before deciding strategies. In the case of Virgin
Atlantic, considering the occasional low and unstable earnings strategic choices has been
divestiture. Besides, cash flow was not that high, it has been consistently neutral.
Most profitable brands are termed as ‘cash cows’ and demanded to be fed with ‘milk’
to generate as much as revenue as possible. The cash flow generated from these most
profitable brands are meant to be invested into Stars to maintain the consistent growth.
Profitable brands usually can be innovated into new products and they even possess the
capability of becoming future stars. Without proper financial support, though these cannot
grow into such biggest revenue generator. Therefore, VA should maintain a flow of
investment in order to generate high and stable income as well as cash flow.
Stars are operators of high growth services, hence it involves highest amount of cash
flow as it generates highest amount of profit as well. These services are expected to become
‘cash cows’, although not all of them can be that. Following this theory, the airline company
can concentrate on product and market development.
Question mark factor is considered in the case of brands, which hold low market
share. Brands, which possess a low market share in a rapidly growing market, consumes
larger amount of money and fail to gain profit. In the case of ‘little red’ budget airline VA

21SYSTEMATIC STRATEGIC ANALYSIS ON VIRGIN ATLANTIC
faced such a situation (De Poret, O'Connell and Warnock-Smith 2015). These brands need
huge investments to become ‘cash cow’ of organisation. Therefore, before deciding about a
new venture VA should evaluate its capability in terms of investment.
Blue ocean strategies
Instead of concentrating only on the competitive environment of the aviation industry
across Singapore, according to Agnihotri (2016), blue ocean strategy instructs to follow
certain strategic approaches.
 The strategy revolves around differentiating the products maintaining a low price to
introduce a brand into a new market space. This ensures rapid and profitable
acceleration of business. VA can propose the plan of low budget airline in order to
enter the new Asian business environment following blue ocean strategy.
 Therefore, irrespective of the industry challenges, VA can operate business
maintaining their way of execution perfectly.
 The central concern of VA must be to focus on customers’ perception and preferences
instead of competing with the existing airlines. In order to do that VA must diversify
its capabilities consistently by adopting innovation.
 Company must consider customers as a community instead of segmenting them into
different segments.
 In the case of any crisis, VA will try to solve it centrally instead of doing it in an
isolated way.
Marketing strategies
VA should frame effective marketing strategies considering their new venture
depending on its strengths and capabilities mostly. The concentration will be on weaknesses
and threats in order to overcome them along with strategic approaches provided by tools must

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be taken into account in order to structure the most effective promotional strategies in order
to remain competitive.
 As there is a perception of the customers of considering VA as expensive one, the
company can go for a global campaign of ‘flying in the face of ordinary’ people. In
order to gain popularity in the Asian market more than it used to be TV
advertisements would be helpful to present their innovative yet traditional approach of
making the journeys memorable and extra ordinary. The idea is to establish a bond
with the emotions of the consumers not only considering their interest.
 As globalization has stepped in into the business industry, it would be immensely
smart approach to launch their new venture over social networking pages on
Facebook and Twitter. In order to spread a positive vibe media marketing managers
must be recruited. These virtual pages work as tools to measure customer’s
experiences. It can predict even the balance sheet depending on the direct verdict. As
described in Hudson and Thal (2013), social media strategy is relevant in terms of
establishing and managing customer relationship. The company can use consumers’
verdict in their advertisements to make a positive approach over the audiences.
 The carrier engages themselves into various customer loyalty programmes as
mentioned before by providing them cash back offers. In future, in the case of
connecting with Singapore if they position themselves by providing quality services
with small discounts it will be beneficial for their brand value in a new business
environment.
 It is the smartest strategy of the carrier as their founder Richard Branson involves
himself into promotional activities unlike the rivals. Frequent presence in the
advertisement reveals his personal involvement with the business and it works well as
far as customer loyalty is concerned. In the case of new venture as well, if such

23SYSTEMATIC STRATEGIC ANALYSIS ON VIRGIN ATLANTIC
initiative of celebrity endorsement can be taken it would be approachable enough to
the Asian market (Wang, Kao and Ngamsiriudom 2017).
Conclusion
It can be concluded by revising all the strategic dimensions, that depending on the
cash flow and profit it would be a wise decision to avail the opportunity of expanding routes
to Asia. Their brand image, example of strong network across north Atlantic will work in
their favour in terms of customers’ perception. Providing quality services, it has an image of
balancing cost and perceived strategy. Based on the global characters of business customers’
preferences have been changed from occasional leisure trips to frequent business journeys.
Again, company should plan the fare chart keeping the economic recession and customers’
behaviour in mind. Competitors must be handled with creative non-imitable strategies.
Complying with the guidelines of Atienza (2015), ultimate strategic approach should be
serving the customers with quality yet satisfying the organizational goals simultaneously.

24SYSTEMATIC STRATEGIC ANALYSIS ON VIRGIN ATLANTIC
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