MBA 600 Capstone: Strategic Analysis of Qantas Airlines' Strategies

This report provides a comprehensive strategic analysis of Qantas Airlines, focusing on its business performance and various initiatives. It examines Qantas's strategies, including competitive strategies, human resource management, innovation, and social media marketing, to achieve its long-term go...Read More

MBA 600 (CAPSTONE)
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Executive summary
This report focuses on summarization of strategies used by the largest airline company by
fleet, Qantas. This company has undertaken various initiatives in order to improve their
business performance. All the strategies of this company have been discussed and clear
overview of strategic implementation has been provided in this report. It has been found that
management of this firm cares about their employees and provides respect to them. This
approach is influencing employees to provide their best effort to help this firm to increase
revenue generation. Recommendations have been provided that can help to improve business
performance. At the end of this report, conclusion has been drawn from overall discussion.
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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................4
Summarization of strategy of organization................................................................................4
Outline of undertakings of the organization...............................................................................6
Recommendation........................................................................................................................9
Conclusion................................................................................................................................11
Reference list............................................................................................................................12
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Introduction
Organizational strategy can be stated as different actions that a firm takes for
obtaining long term goals. Sum of all these actions makes up strategic plan for an
organization. These actions include marketing, product development, and change
management strategies. Management of Qantas airlines has also implemented different
strategies and business models in order to gain a distinguished position in market.
Implementation of these strategies helps to fulfill organizational mission and vision. In this
assignment, different strategies and business model of Qantas airlines has been discussed.
Several strategies regarding marketing, development of products and managing changes have
been outlined in this assessment.
Summarization of strategy of organization
Qantas Airways is one of the renowned firms of Australian airline and strategic
management of this organization is helping them to achieve organizational goals.
Management of this firm focuses on both customers and employees (Qantas.com, 2019). This
approach of this company is helping them to remain competitive by nature. Development, as
well as implementation of strategies, is important part of this business. Major strategic
implementation of this aviation organization are mentioned below,
Competitive strategy: This firm is concerned about business growth of their rivals
and they are providing their best effort in order to beat competitors. One of the main
objectives of this firm is to provide top quality services at lower price to potential customers.
As opined by Aydiner et al. (2019), this strategy is potent enough to help in maintaining
customer satisfaction as majority of customers prefer to have top quality services at
affordable price. Development and implementation of this strategy are helping this company
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to maximize their customer base and they are being able to earn maximum profit
(Qantas.com, 2019).
Strategy for human resource management: This Company has realized that
competitive workforce is potent to help in serving best quality services to consumers
(Qantas.com, 2019). Due to this reason, management of Qantas has developed competitive
workforce within the organization. As mentioned by Leonidou et al. (2017), healthy
competition between employees helps them to improve their performance and organization
get opportunity to enhance business performance. On another hand, it is important to
understand competition of company and importance of maintaining position within
marketplace by employees. Development of competitive workforce is helping this company
to serve better than its competitors.
Strategy regarding hiring: Management of this firm has set aim to hire talented
candidates within their firm and due to this reason, they have implemented and unique
recruitment process within their organization (Qantas.com, 2019). Purpose of implementation
of this recruitment process is to hire talented people to improve business performance. All
kinds of biases are avoided during selection process and candidates are chosen based on their
abilities and working experience. According to Hafeez et al. (2018), it is important to ensure
provision of information regarding organizational support while hiring, as this approach is
potential to influence decision of candidates to join the concerned company. Qantas promise
to provide support including trust, respect, and good leadership. In return, they prefer to have
employees, who are able to face challenges.
Innovation strategy: This Company develops and implements innovation in fleets
for providing best experience to customers. As stated by Warren and Davies (2016),
innovation provides opportunity to establish unique identity of brand and organizations get
opportunity to attract maximum customers towards their business. In case o Qantas,
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innovative approach of this firm is helping them to provide the best experience to their
customers (Qantas.com, 2019). Management of this organization has put information about
their innovative approaches on the official website in order to attract potential customers. On
another hand, they ask their customers to share experience with their friends and families.
This approach of Qantas is helping them to influence potential customers to travel with them
(Zhang et al. 2016).
Social media marketing strategy: Qantas is a renowned name in social media
platforms and employees of this company communicate with people through social media
platforms (Qantas.com, 2019). On another hand, this company markets its services through
their social media pages. As opined by Garrison et al. (2015), millennial spend most of their
time on social media sites and this aspect is helping large aviation companies such as Qantas
to attract maximum young age customers towards their services.
Outline of undertakings of the organization
Qantas airlines undertake different operations by utilizing various resources like the
infrastructure of large fleet size and employees and top management. Management of talent is
an essential part of operations of this firm. They have implemented a proper recruitment
process that has helped them to acquire right talent that can give them competitive advantage.
Operations of this firm are managed on the basis of some standards like engagement of
employees, gross annual benefits and return on investment (Qantas.com, 2019). They have
taken the strategy of market focus operations. As mentioned by Akter et al. (2016), market
focus operations help an organization to design operational activities that can be able to meet
customer needs.
Qantas airlines have taken proper marketing approach in order to increase brand
recognition, which is identified as the main strength. Different department like digital IT and
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analytics, customer service, finance are involved in framing marketing strategies for this firm.
For marketing different products they take help of social media channels like facebook,
twitter, and YouTube. As stated by Cacciolatti and Lee (2016), social media channels help an
organization to reach to greater number of customers. This organization has launched
different advertising campaign that has helped them to attract customers. In 2010 they have
started a $44 million campaign of advertising with Tourism Australia. Other strategies of
marketing like discount have been adopted by this firm. For example, Qantas has offered
100000 tickets at just $49 during starting of Jetstar.
Figure 1: Twitter page of Qantas
(Source: Qantas.com, 2019)
Qantas has made significant investments in product development, which has helped
them to meet consumer demands. Different benefits are included while designing products
like scheduling features. Other benefits like luxury and convenient time of flight departure
are included while designing products in Qantas. Qantas tries to provide comfort to customers
and they have adopted a customer-centric approach while designing products. Different
comfort features like good quality meals, entertainment and seat width are included during
product development. As mentioned by Mu et al. (2018), customer-centric product
development strategy helps an organization to develop proper brand image.
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Travel industry relies on development and implementation of innovative strategy for
providing best experience to their customers as this approach helps them to ensure rapid
growth of company. Qantas has undertaken innovative strategies in order to improve process
and service quality. At the end of 2018, it has been found that this only company that ensured
non-stop flight from Perth to London over near about 17 hours in air. Qantas is recognized
within top 6 innovative companies in Australia. This company undertakes innovative
programs in order to modify facilities of their fleets. Purpose behind this approach is to
establish their brand as a unique one. As mentioned by Imran et al. (2016), implementation
of innovative strategy helps companies to ensure growth. Rapid growth can be noticed within
Qantas and their innovativeness can be considered as the main reason behind this rapid
growth.
In the weakness of this organization, it is mentioned that cost regarding employees is
high in this organization. Hence, they have adopted change management strategy to cope up
with the situation. They have implemented the strategy of job shedding and near about 5000
job cut occurred in 2014 (Smh.com.au, 2019).
Figure 2: Job shedding in Qantas
(Source: Smh.com.au, 2019)
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In addition, they have implemented wage freezing and wage cuts to reduce cost. Moreover,
they have split international and domestic operations that have helped them to seek many
foreign investors. In order to gain more government financial support, they have changed
foreign ownership policy. Foreign ownership cap has been done up to 49% and hence they
are recognized as an Australian carrier (Qantas.com, 2019). Different driving forces like
government legislation, employees and competition in market has forced this firm to
undertake change management. Due to strict government policies, this organization has
shifted focus to other areas and 40% of its subsidiaries are moved to Asia. Force-field
analysis helps this organization to identify driving and resisting forces of change. They
implement strategy to increase power of driving strategies more than resisting strategies to
implement change.
Figure 3: Force-field analysis of Qantas
(Source: Influenced by Imran et al. 2016)
This company plan for implementation of strategies developed by them and invests
time as well as money in this area. As mentioned by Burke (2017), strategic implementation
is one of the essential parts of business and it helps to ensure enhancement of business
performance. Management of this company focuses on development of planning for
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implementing each and every strategy of this business. They determine possible time period
and budget allocation as required in each strategy implementation. As mentioned by Whyte
and Lohmann (2015), this approach helps organizations to increase revenue generation. This
organization consists of different departments and the management distributes tasks to
managers of different departments. After that, managers of specific departments distribute
tasks within their subordinates. In this way, workforce of this company provides collaborative
effort to ensure strategic implementation. Contribution of employees is helping this
organization to implement strategies and gain success in all areas of their business.
Recommendation
Qantas can adopt different other strategies that can help them to increase growth
opportunities. Growth can be achieved by implementing online systems more in operations
like recruitment and training. Qantas needs to increase investment in increasing abilities of
human resource management by incorporating online service. This can help them to manage
a diverse workforce in a proper way. As suggested by Chiu et al. (2016), different HRM
software can be incorporated in order to manage performance of employees and identify
gaps. This can help them to provide more efficient service to customers in a proper way.
This, in turn, can help Qantas to achieve more growth opportunities and leadership in market
can be achieved. For mitigating threat from competitors like virgin, Qantas can offer more
improved service to customers via online channel. Providing clear information about flights
and improving booking procedure can be done.
Qantas needs to increase investment in developing service and offer innovative
products, which can help them to avoid market competition from close competitors like
virgin airlines. Onboard internet service, daily update about weather conditions and instant
update about flight delay or cancellation can help to improve customer satisfaction rate.
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Digitalization of service can help to increase brand image of this firm and competitive
advantage can be achieved. As stated by Law and Breznik (2018), modern airline customers
demand more connectivity and want interactive traveling. Hence, it is essential for large
airline firm like Qantas to increase digitalization and connectivity.
Qantas can use its strengths like brand recognition, talent management, and
innovative activities for increasing sustainability in operations. As said by Bamber, (2018),
sustainability in operations helps to increase reputation of a firm and growth opportunities
increases. For gaining ideas of green air travel employees can be rewarded to motivate them
to provide green ideas. Special attention can be given in reducing carbon emission and
inclusion of fuel-efficient airplanes needs to be included in fleet. This can help to increase
operational efficiency of Qantas and brand recognition can be increased further, which is a
major strength of this company. These recommendations can help Qantas to increase
organization's performance in future.
Conclusion
From the above discussion, it can be concluded that Qantas is developing and
implementing organizational strategies for meeting business objectives. This study has
provided clear insight of strategies of this organization and impact of strategic
implementation on performance of business. It has been found that management of this firm
cares about their employees and provides respect to them. This approach is influencing
employees to provide their best effort to help this firm to increase revenue generation. On
another hand, they are providing values to the opinion of their customers. Aim of this
company is to provide the best experience to their customers in order to maintain customer
satisfaction. It is expected that customers are sharing their experience with others and
influencing them to consider this largest airline company in Australia. This aspect may help
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this company to maximize their customer base. Recommendations mentioned in this report
may be followed by Qantas in order to improve performance of their business.
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Reference list
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Aydiner, A.S., Tatoglu, E., Bayraktar, E., Zaim, S. and Delen, D., 2019. Business analytics
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Chiu, S.C., Liu, C.H. and Tu, J.H., 2016. The influence of tourists' expectations on purchase
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Hafeez, M.H., Basheer, M.F., Rafique, M. and Siddiqui, S.H., 2018. Exploring the Links
between TQM Practices, Business Innovativeness and Firm Performance: An Emerging
Market Perspective. Pakistan Journal of Social Sciences (PJSS), 38(2).
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Imran, M.K., Rehman, C.A., Aslam, U. and Bilal, A.R., 2016. What’s organization
knowledge management strategy for successful change implementation?. Journal of
Organizational Change Management, 29(7), pp.1097-1117.
Law, K.M. and Breznik, K., 2018. What do airline mission statements reveal about value and
strategy?. Journal of air transport management, 70, pp.36-44.
Leonidou, L.C., Christodoulides, P., Kyrgidou, L.P. and Palihawadana, D., 2017. Internal
drivers and performance consequences of small firm green business strategy: The moderating
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Mu, J., Bao, Y., Sekhon, T., Qi, J. and Love, E., 2018. Outside-in marketing capability and
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Qantas.com (2019), Performance management, available at:
https://www.qantas.com/in/en/qantas-group/delivering-today/performance-against-our-
strategic-pillars.html [Accessed on 4th may 2019]
Smh.com.au (2019), Job shedding in Qantas, available at:
https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/qantas-cuts-5000-jobs-posts-252-million-first-
half-loss-20140226-33i4c.html [Accessed on 4th may 2019]
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