Flight Centre Travel Group: Case Study Essay, BIZ102FC

This case study essay examines Flight Centre Travel Group (FCTG), the largest travel retail outlet in Australia. It explores the company's employee-focused business strategies, including its corporate culture, emphasis on employee well-being, and flat organizational structure. The essay highlights how FCTG's group behavior, team dynamics, and promotion of equality have contributed to its success. It also analyzes the company's future goals, including becoming a global leader in the travel industry. The essay suggests that FCTG could enhance its customer orientation and consider a matrix business model to support its continued growth and achieve its objectives. The study emphasizes the importance of employee motivation, diversity management, and reward and recognition in FCTG's success. The company's success is attributed to its employee-centric approach and the effective implementation of various policies and practices that benefit the employees.

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Flight Centre Travel Group (FCTG) is the largest travel retail outlet in the country,
Australia. The company currently is headquartered in Brisbane, Australia. The company has
had a humble beginning and since the company was listed in the ASX, which is the
Australian Stock Exchange the company has seen significant growth which has resulted in
the company being the laregest travel retail outlet in Australia. FCTG has around 2,800 shops
under several corporate and retail brands (Flight Centre Travel Group, 2019).
The key success factor of the company is said to be the group behavior that exists in
the company. Group behavior is considered be the association and interaction between two or
more than two people to achieve the same goal. Most organizations have incorporated teams
in order to work efficiently. Schjoedt et al, (2013) opines teams help in achieving
performance of high level. According to scholars, there are various factors and elements that
help teams be motivated to work hard and produce positive outcomes like corporate culture,
diversity in the workplace, efficient conflict management and positive team development
(Shahid & Azhar, 2013). The positive and healthy group dynamics has helped the company in
growing and developing constantly which has resulted in the success of FCTG.
FCTG has become a global company and is aiming on becoming the largest travel
retail outlet and a global force. The company has been aiming on bringing credible results in
various different sectors like travel, foreign exchange, fitness, finance and education by the
year 2035 (YouTube, 2019). The company believes with their structured business model and
their strong team of dedicated and driven people they will be able to achieve their target and
dominate the global market in the near future. This paper will reflect and highlight the
business startegies and company philosophies that the company has incorporated in the
business that has led to the success of the company and will also discuss other strategies
which FCTG can incorporate in their business structure that will help the business in
achieving their desired goals and have the desired growth.

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FCTG is seen to have come a long way since it beginning. The company opened their
first ever store in the year 1982 in Australia and since then has had a significant growth in the
market and has been growing continuously (Flight Centre Travel Group, 2019). According to
the information of the company, the philosophy of the company and the business model and
startegies drive the operations of the company (Flight Centre Travel Group, 2019).
The business strategy of FCTG is seen to be more employee focused. The core
philosophy of the company is to care for their employees and ensure their health, well-being,
financial security and their professional and personal development within the organization.
The future in the company is bright for the employees and the company believes that it is the
right of the employees to be a part of a team which is considered to be a part of the family in
FCTG. The various teams that work in the company are competent, skilled, dedicated,
strongly driven and passionate about the work. This kind of group behavior in companies is
usually achieved because of various factors like the corporate culture, the diversity in the
workplace, positive team development, motivation and emotional intelligence.
The corporate culture usually referes to the attitudes, shared values, beliefs and
standards that characterizes the members of a particular company and define the nature of the
company (Guiso, Sapienza & Zingales, 2015). The corporate culture of FCTG is considered
to be highly ethical and it has been seen that they are not selfish in terms of the profit that is
generated rather ensures every stakeholder benefits from the profits. FCTG provides an
opportunity to their employees to share the success of the organizaton through profit shares
and incentives (Blake, 2001). According to scholars, profit shares and incentives have a huge
role to motivate employees to provide enhanced performance (Blasi, Freeman & Kruse,
2016). The company has been seen to scrapping hierarchy within the organization and
promote equality. The hierarchy structure in the organization is different in comparison to the

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other companies that are thriving in the market. Thus nobody in FCTG has their own office to
maintain equality in the workforce.
FCTG is a global company and thus the company has a diverse work culture. FCTG is
seen to have promoting egalitarianism and unity in the workforce (YouTube, 2019). The
company believes in equality and thinks that it is the right of every person to enjoy equal
privileges in the company and the company highly prohibits any sort of discrimination in the
workplace not just in terms of culture but other factors like age, religious belief, income,
georgraphy location and many more. Sania, Kalpina & Javed, (2015) opines that the effective
management of diveristy in the workplace contributes to the reduction fof employee turnover,
increased creativity, employee engagement, fruitful decision making, crisis management and
positive reputation of the company. According to scholars effective workplace diversity also
helps in creating a sense of belonging among employees and facilitate positive and healthy
relationships in the workforce (Brimhall & Mor Barak, 2018).
By promoting egalitiarinism and unity in the workforce FCTG has successfully
managed to create a positive and healthy relationship among the employees which has
resulted them in communicating with each other on both professional and personal level.
People in FCTG are not just colleagues but also friends which has resulted in the company
creating cohesive teams. According to scholars, cohesive teams in organizations helps in
satisfying the morale of the employees in the workforce which results in employee
satisfaction as well as fruitful productivity (Franz et al, 2016). This has helped in developing
a positive team and has also helped in developing cultural competency in the workforce. The
promotion of unity and egalitiarinism in the company has resulted in integrated
communication and has also resulted in creating a mutual respect among the employees. This
has resulted in positive emotional intelligence of the employees. According to scholars,

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emotional intelligence is the capacity of an individual to be aware, control, express emotions
and to handle interpersona relationships empathetically and judiciously.
This shows that the company satisfies all the basic needs of the employees in the
company that has resulted in the oevrall development and growth of the company. According
to Maslows’ hierarchy of needs there are some basic needs that needs to be satisfied to be
motivated (Jonas, 2016). The needs are psychological needs, safety needs, social, needs, self-
esteem and self actualization (Jonas, 2016). It can be seen that FCTG has successfully
managed to satisfy all the needs of the employees that has resulted in the moivation of the
employees. The flexible shift timings, job security, friendly work environment, promotion,
autonomy and the challenge and creativity in the workplace has helped employees of FCTG
be motivated to work sincerely and efficiently for the development of FCTG and to help in
achieving the desired goals of the organization.
The business structure of FCTG is said to be flat and follows a primitive model in
comparison to the new organizations (Johnson, 2013). Accoridng to scholars, flat business
structure consists of few people at the hierarchy level like the CEO and the manager There
are very less sub-divisions made in the organization (Fleisch, Weinberger & Wortmann,
2015). Humphrey et al, (2017) states flat business structure often pave way for equality and
fair treatment among employees. The business structure of the organization is described to be
simple, lean, transparent and flat (YouTube, 2019). The business is considered to be
transparent that maintains a positive, healthy and peaceful environment. Cloutier et al, (2015)
states transparency in the business helps in building a positive relationship between the
employees and the organization which results in better productivity.
The business structure of the company is described to be family, village and tribe
(Johnson, 2013). The village here means the unfunded self-help support group which is

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considered to be an integral part of the organization. The employees of FCTG are self aware
which has led to the smooth and enhaned operations of the business because of the control of
the necessary emotions. Self awareness is described as the conscious knowledge of an
individual of their own feelings and character and is a part of emotional intelligence
(Caldwell & Hayes, 2016). It is from self awareness that employees often introspect their
own values and decide what needs to be done to imporve and contribute to the growth and
development of the person. This often leads to self directed learning. Which is an important
aspect in organizations as employees are motivated to learn necessary and essential skills by
themselves for their own development.
The family,village and tribes means that the company has accessible layers.
Employees can approach the team leader as well as the area leader when one needs help. The
company has become a major global company however, is siad to run the shops of the
company like small businesses where emphasis is focused on the details for the quality
services and products provided by the company (YouTube, 2019).
It can be seen that the business strategy of FCTG is mainly employee focused and
most of the philosophies of the company caters to the employees. Emphasis is given to
quality services and products however it can be seen that the company has not made any
chnages to their products or services except for the growth of the company.
To grow and develop in the future and to achieve the goals that the company is
currently aiming for it is important for FCTG to become more customer orientated and
enhance the travel experience. The company should introduce their own products in their
shops and come up with their own shopping websites that will help the company grow and
generate more sales in the organization. Scholars state that the online e-commerce market has

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been growing and has been estimated to grow further and impact the business of the local
shops (Laudon & Traver, 2016).
FCTG needs to come up with a new business structure like the matrix structure where
the organization will have subdivisions. FCTG is currently growing and has alread become a
global company. Hamza, (2019) states it is important for companies to monitor performances
minutely and distribute work according to the department which makes the organization more
structured and will help in understanding the business clearly and pave way for systematic,
structured and positive operations of the organization. This will help FCTG in operating in a
structured manner and will help in achieving the desired goals set by the organization.
FCTG is a successfu company that has been striving to grow and develop more to
become the largest travel retailer company in the world. The business structure and the
strategies incorporated by the company has played a vital role in making the business a huge
success. It can be seen that the strategy the buisness follows is employee focused which
shows that the company believes employees to be the biggest stakeholders of an organization.
Being employee focused the business has incorporated various policies and practices
activities that benefit the employees which is seen to be a huge motivatioal factor that makes
the employees focus on work more and produce enhnaced quality and service. There are
various factors that have contributed to the motivation of the employees like the corporate
culture, diversity management in the workplace and the reward and recognition. The business
structure of FCTG is flat and simple which has contributed to the success of the company.
However, with the growth and development of the company, FCTG needs to restructure their
business model and consider the matrix model where there are many sub-divisions which
help in giving the company a concrete structure and will help in handling the business
efficiently. Sub-divisions are necessary in a company to effectively solve problems, improves
work efficiency and quality and also during crisis management. The company to achieve the

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goals that the company has set in the year 2035, needs to come up with new products and
incorporate new operational method like online websites which will help the company gain a
compatitive advantage in the market and will help in generating more revenue and pave way
for profits in the market.

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Reference
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