Operations Management Report: Etihad Airways Challenges and Solutions

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Etihad Airways' operations management. It begins with an introduction to the airline and the importance of operations management, followed by a discussion of the operational processes, including timely delivery and evaluation. The report then explores the airline's quality and cost leadership strategies. A significant portion of the report addresses key issues such as digital transformation, big data, and the rise of social media, and their impact on the airline. The causes of these issues, including resistance to change, lack of management support, and inter-departmental collaboration challenges, are analyzed. The report concludes with recommendations for improving Etihad Airways' operational strategy, including the alignment of tactics, implementation of linear programming, and the effective use of decision variables. The report utilizes various sources to support the analysis and recommendations, providing a well-rounded perspective on the airline's operations and potential areas for improvement.

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OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT

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Table of Contents
Introduction and importance of the operations management..........................................................2
Introduction..................................................................................................................................2
Importance of operation management..........................................................................................2
Operational process.........................................................................................................................2
Timely delivery............................................................................................................................3
Evaluation....................................................................................................................................3
Quality leadership strategy...........................................................................................................3
Cost leadership strategy...............................................................................................................4
Issues & causes................................................................................................................................4
Issues............................................................................................................................................4
Digital transformation and big data..........................................................................................4
The rise of social media............................................................................................................5
Causes..........................................................................................................................................5
Causes of digital transformation and big data..........................................................................5
Causes of rise of social media..................................................................................................5
Recommendations............................................................................................................................6
Operational strategy.....................................................................................................................6
Alignment of tactics with operations...........................................................................................7
Linear programing...........................................................................................................................7
Decision variables........................................................................................................................7
Objective function........................................................................................................................8
Constraints...................................................................................................................................8
Non-negative restrictions.............................................................................................................8

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Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................8
Bibliography..................................................................................................................................10

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Introduction and importance of the operations management
Introduction
Etihad Airways is known as the second largest airline after the Emirates in the UAE. The
head office of the organization is within the Khalifa City, Abu Dhabi. This has started the
operations in 2003. It was established by the Sheikh Ahmed Bin Saif Al Nahyan. This was
started by the initial capital of the AED 500 million. It provides the quality cabin crew services
to customers. The quality cabin is made through the high qualified food and beverage
management, cabin managers that are dedicated to provide the quality services to customers.
This airway carrier is operated within the 86 destinations at global level. These are located within
the total of 42 nations. The organization is operated in many destinations at globally including
America, Africa, Asia, Middle East and Europe (Maille, and Chaudron, 2014). It also provides
services including the Etihad Cargo and holidays. It delivers the quality within the flight
entertainment services to customers to meet the high level of comfort.
Importance of operation management
Operation management is known as the procedure which includes the planning,
organizing, managing, controlling, and supervising the process of production and manufacturing.
The main objective of the operation management is to manage the daily actions by use of sources
like labor, raw material, and money. Operation management improves the productivity. This
provides the measures regarding the efficiency of management and employees. For example,
operation management within the Etihad Airways is managing the many activities which takes
place in the organization and contributes to make the product and align them with the
requirements of the customers. Operation management in the Etihad Airways uses the sources
which lead to the many organization profits. The employee’s efforts and many raw materials are
effectively utilized by the operation management to handle the issues such as design, operations,
and system maintenance which is used regarding production of goods (AlSagheer, & Ahli, 2011).
Operational process
Operational processes are known as the organized set of actions which produces the
particular services and products. The operational process of the organization includes the

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capabilities to provide the airline services to the customers through regularly designs, models,
and monitor the processes and ensure to deliver the quality services. It not only includes to
producing the quality services.
Timely delivery
Primarily, the operational process of the Etihad’s airways includes timely delivery of the
products with the right quality. This presents the familiarity with the operation management.
Organization to maintain the position within the market applies the many strategies which help
the organization to remain strong and unique provider of air transport. It has segmented to
provide the gracious and generous Arabian hospitality which help the organization to win the
market confidence. It has the effective engagement within constantly automating and increasing
the process which is known as the strength that creates the competitive advantage and
strategically position the organization as the leader within the value-added services. It is
automating the air ticket booking which exemplifies the organization commitment to provide the
unmatched and exceptional services (Barnhart, & Smith, 2012).
Evaluation
Secondly, it is operating within the industry in which it is necessary to regularly design
and monitor the process and ensure to provide the quality services as customers has the demand
at high level. There is high number of competitors within the industry as resource availability
does not mean that organization will do well. The operational process of the Etihad Airways
includes the evaluation of the organization reveals resources transformation including aircraft,
information, and customers to deliver the optimized travel service. Operational process of the
Etihad Airways includes the management of sources through reconfigure the services to follow
customers changing demands.
Quality leadership strategy
The Etihad’s airways operational process is pursue the quality leadership strategy. This is
effective as establish the sizeable world-wide network by focus on the attributes like quality and
service. This kind of strategies helps to focus on the quality of services which enable to create
the strong image of the brand. It has the clear understanding about the customers and invests the
huge amount to satisfy the needs of customers. The customer rewards the uniqueness through the

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higher willingness to pay and increase the loyalty. The indirect offline sales play the very
important role. Booking through the online travel agencies and homepages of the organization
are also offered. Networks such as hub and spoke are effective for marketing and customers
relations as the distribution advantages by agents and improve the attractiveness (Chan, et al.,
2017).
Cost leadership strategy
Operational strategy of the organization includes the planning and integration of the
operations to achieve the competitive advantage. Etihad Airways uses the cost leadership
strategy to outperform the competitors through producing services at high labour and capital
productivity. The main attribute regarding the success of the strategy is standardization. The
operational strategy of the organization includes the concentration on the network structure with
the low cost basis which is achieved through offering point to point services to the high volume
routes.
Issues & causes
Issues
Digital transformation and big data
The president of the Emirates, Tim Clark has stated that each organization is going by the
digital transformation. This helps the businesses to embrace the culture of change and remain the
competitive within the organization but while Etihad Airways decided to go digital than process
was little bit like losing the weight.
 Resistance to change
Digital transformation and big data through the very nature bring the quite some change within
the Etihad airways operational process. Resistance comes from many reasons such as issues
regarding cannibalizing the revenue sources, difficulties regarding the justification, funding
projects like normal project cycle, and approaches not applies, fear regarding loss of job and
change of job.
 Speed

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The speed of digital transformation enables the experiences by thriving within the customer
space which create the new normal and have the impact on Etihad airways. It pushed the
organizational process to go fast and respond in high investment without proper approach and
objective which lead to the high level of financial loss.
The rise of social media
The experience regarding the travel has expanded multi-layered, screen, and fragmented
(Gillen, and Morrison, 2015). This recur theme across speakers inexorable the rise of social
media which lead to contrasting outcomes. Customers who travel are elevating expectations
while brands such as Etihad airways are facing the threat regarding the commoditization.
 Pushback employees
The rise of social media negatively affects the capability of employees as they uses the social
media sites and not focus on their work only. It also decreases the visibility of the employees
about the requirements of the customers, opinions and facilities.
 Antisocial behaviors
It has increased the antisocial characteristic of bullying behavior and creates the inability to
remorseful regarding wrongdoings, inability to showcase the empathy, and create the disregard
feeling towards employees.
Causes
Causes of digital transformation and big data
 Culture
This creates the fear regarding the change with negative attitude (Jones, and Saundry, 2012).
Organization loses the base without openness to change naturally and digital transformation not
goes according to the plan. This closes the channels of communication which are important for
digital transformation.
 Lack of management support

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The lack of management support within the organization has the negative impact to collaborate
with employees and design the organization through the digital strategy by encouraging the
ongoing innovation.
Causes of rise of social media
 Inter department collaboration
This creates uncertainty and increase gape to make the right corrections within the organization.
Technologies are increasing every day and it is hard for the employees to adjust and increase the
collaboration to work together and create the certainty within the organizational board.
 Change the expectation
This has increased the expectations within the organization. The average customer within the
market expects more from the Etihad airways compare to the other competitive organizations
such as Air Arabia, Emirates, and Flydubai.
Recommendations
Operational strategy
The operational strategy formulation at Etihad airways will remain the effective to owing
the fact. This will ensure and make the base of customers operations. This will ensure the
effective contribution of customers by the survey should be highly used and implemented. The
digital transformation and big data through the implementation of the operational strategies at
Etihad Airways should include the translation with the highly detailed policies. This will remain
the good to understand and highlight the organization functional levels such as research and
development, procurement of marketing, information system, production, and human resources.
Functional levels of the organization should include the identification of the sources which are
required to make sure that important organizational change is made (Kooij, et al., 2013).
After the successful implementation of the operational strategies, Etihad airways should
make sure that measurement and evaluation of digital transformation and big data with the
appropriate purpose will remain the effective to determine and make the strategy more
appropriate. This will be the main method which gives the more time to employees to understand

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and adopt the digital transformation and big data techniques. It will limit the possibilities of
occurrence of the errors and bring the positive results. Control through the operational strategy
will increase the flexibility within the organization to adjust and provide the surety that change
such as digital transformation take place appropriately within the operational process of Etihad
airways.
Alignment of tactics with operations
It is very important for the businesses to clear the operations and get the success at high
level. Proper execution process should be implemented within the organization it will help to
employees to focus with the more attention and implementing the growth strategy by aligning the
organization growth. It will be the high challenge for the organization but by the support of
proper execution of department it will provide the more chances to focus on the work. The
marketing revenue management workflow will remain the effective as align the employees and
teams to communicate by passing the work spreadsheets (Kyriazopoulos, and Samanta, 2012).
Linear programing
This is one of the simplest ways to perform the operational processes. This will be
effective to solve the critical operational problems by making the few simple assumptions. It will
remain the effective to obtain the optimal solution to the problem within the given constraints.
This formulates the issues within the mathematical model. It includes the objective functions and
linear inequalities. The linear programing is known as the powerful operational research
technique which is design to solve the issues. It is the combination of two words such as Linear
and Programming (Pandey & Tulsian, 2020).
Linear word is used to explain the relationship within the decision variables that directly
proportional. For example, doubling and tripling the product production will double or triple the
product and required sources and known as the linear relationship. Programming word is present
the planning of activities to achieve optimal results with the available sources. This programme
is optimal as it maximizes and minimizes the measure and criterion of effectiveness like profit.
The following quantitative techniques of the linear programing can be used by the operational
manager of Etihad airways.

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Decision variables
Decision variables will remain the effective to decide to output. This will present the
ultimate solution. To solve the issues, it is important to identify decision variables.
Objective function
This will define the objective to make the decisions. The operation manager in the Etihad
Airways should have the objective to increase the profit by serving the quality services to
customers as the main objective function.
Constraints
Constraints are known as the limitation/restrictions on decision variables. The operational
manager should limit the value of decision variables of risk within the organization. It will
increase the certainty within organization with the accuracy of functions.
Non-negative restrictions
The operation manager to gain the desire results should always take the non-negative
values to perform the Etihad Airways operations. This present that values for the decision
variables should more or equal to zero (Trullen, et al., 2016).
Conclusion
In the limelight of the discussion it can be concluded that operation process of the Etihad
Airways will become more appropriate through the application of strategies. Operational
processes have the high level of importance for any organization. The operational process of the
management in Etihad Airways has the importance at high level as involved within the service
provision. Operational process is the important determinant as organization become more
capable to achieve objective by successful implementation of operational strategies. The
management of the operational process for the Etihad Airways is effective as help to focus and
benchmarking themselves against competitors within United Arabs Emirates in place of targeting
the worldwide market. Organization through the operational process becomes more capable to
deliver the exceptional services to customers through transforming available sources to transport
service. The organization experiences the high operational risk due to the poor strategies. The
proper operation strategy helps the organization to develop and align organization for future

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success. Organization through the application of appropriate strategies will become more capable
to gain the competitive advantage. Further covers the importance of operational process. It
covered the issues and causes related to the operational process. Further at the end of discussion
it covered the recommendations through the operational strategy and alignment of the tactics
with the operations. At the end discussion covers the linear programming techniques for the
operational manager of the Etihad Airline.

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