HM2022 Organisational Structure: Qantas Airways Case Analysis

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Qantas Airways' organizational structure, leadership style, and business strategies in both Australian and overseas markets. It begins by introducing the importance of organizational structure and leadership in the modern business environment, particularly within the airline industry. The report then delves into Qantas's structure, highlighting its matrix-type organization with centralized and decentralized elements, and examines the roles of various departments and subsidiaries. The leadership style at Qantas is described as a mix of authoritative and democratic approaches, influencing decision-making and employee management. Furthermore, the report explores Qantas's strategies, including diversification, cost leadership, and expansion into new markets, assessing their effectiveness in maintaining competitiveness. The analysis concludes by commenting on the appropriateness of Qantas's structure and strategies, suggesting areas for improvement and emphasizing the importance of stakeholder involvement and situational leadership in achieving organizational goals. The report concludes that Qantas is one of the biggest airline company in various terms and has adopted a matrix type organisational structure.

ORGANISATIONAL
STRUCTURE
AND
EFFECTIVENESS

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Contents
INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................................................1
Company’s structure..............................................................................................................................2
Leadership style.....................................................................................................................................3
Companies strategies within Australia and overseas market..................................................................4
Comment on structure and strategies.....................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION.....................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES......................................................................................................................................6

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INTRODUCTION
Modern day business has changed significantly and hence it has become essential for the
companies in various industries to ensure that they have an effective organisational structure.
The same is the case in Australia where the organisations need to understand their position in
the Industry and make strategies accordingly. Leadership style plays a very crucial role in the
development of the organisation and achieving goals and objectives of the firm (Grant, 2014).
Airlines industry has extended its reach in the global market. This got possible only due to
the strategies they have made. It has also become essential for the Airlines firms to make an
organisational structure that brings smoothness in their work. Travel and tourism industry has
also empowered airlines industry. Airlines Industry has played a very major role in making
the world a global village (Sridhar, 2011). A lot of technological advancements have been
seen in this industry hence making flights lot safer. Due to lot of turnouts in the Industry there
are large numbers of companies who have come up. This has made business a bit difficult for
the companies that were operational in this industry from past decades.
Qantas Airways is one of the largest airlines by fleet approx. 124, international destinations
around 85 and international flights. It is the third oldest airlines in the world and has been
found in the year 1920. QANTAS stands for Queensland and Northern Territory Ariel
Services. It is also known to be as “The Flying Kangaroo” (Swanson, 2012). Qantas owns
Jestar Airways which is known for their low cost flights that operates in both domestic and
international services from Australia and domestic services within New Zealand and
Australia. Qantas owns a share of 65% in domestic market of Australia and 14.9% of the
international passengers. Its subsidiaries includes QantasLink, Qantas Freight, Jestar
Airways, Qantas Holidays, Qantas ground services, Jetconnect, Express gound handling,
Snap fresh, Q catering. In 2015 it earned revenue of 15.8 billion American dollars and is
having employee strength of 29,596 individuals.
This report illustrates the organisational structure of Qantas Airlines as well as the leadership
style that is followed within the company. It also depicts the strategies that are used by
Qantas Airlines in the domestic and International strategies for the business operations.
Company’s structure
Every organisation has some or the other structure that is somehow unique to them.
Organisational structure plays a very crucial role in their operational mechanism. It is

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important for identifying the way in which power, roles and responsibilities are monitored,
coordinated and allocated (Homsombat, Lei and Fu, 2014). It is very crucial for managing of
the information that gets generated in the business process. Organisational structure highly
depends on the strategies and objectives they have made for themselves. Majorly there are
two forms of organisational structure that exist i.e. centralised or decentralised structure.
Qantas has adopted both the types of organisational structure i.e. centralised and
decentralised.
Qantas comprises of several subsidiaries headed by different executives. Every executive are
assigned with specific roles, authorities and responsibilities. These are exercised under their
specific area of their operations. Employees of Qantas have been arranged in such a manner
that smoothness of the work process is maintained and hence contributing significantly in
achieving their objectives and goals (Sarina and Wright, 2015). The management of the firm
is based on distinct businesses, Qantas International and Qantas domestic. Both of them are
managed by the Chief executive officer. Additionally, there are two business divisions having
functions related to commercial and operational units. Such an organisational structure has
been adopted for focusing on the strategies of the firm related to transforming the Qantas
International business and improving the business of Qantas Domestic business. To be
precise they have adopted a structure that is of matrix type. Companies top most management
comprises of individuals that are related with corporate governance as well as an executive
top management team (Hierarchy structure, 2018). The top management is responsible for
making of policies and practices that has been adopted and implemented within the firm.
Under the leadership at the top, there are several departments like commercial business
administration, administrative management, functional management and project management
(Whyte and Lohmann, 2015). All these departments are working with several teams for
making sure that organisational objectives and goals can be achieved.
Matrix organisational structure helps in providing stability to the work process as this
organisational structure helps them in facing challenges that are confronting their business.
This Organisational structure is highly flexible and helps them in managing the issues that are
present in the industry and will be coming in the future (Sarina and Lansbury, 2013). There is
a disadvantage associated with this organisational structure is that it is complex and hence
management of information becomes a problem. This is because there are several nodes
attached with this information system that is implemented in such organisational structure.

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Leadership style
Leadership style followed by an organisation plays a very crucial role in the management of
the operations. Leadership style is always responsible for confronting the challenges that a
firm faces in their day to day operations (Dobni, Klassen and Sands, 2016). Success of the
organisation in terms of managing the business processes in a better way depends on the style
of leadership. It is crucial for any leader to understand the organisational behaviour of its
employees and make changes in their leadership style accordingly so as to improve the
effectiveness of the firm. Leadership style is paramount in finding the organisational
direction and success. In the modern day business leadership style is an important and
effective management aspect. This is because it is directly connected to motivating the
employees, implementing the strategies and plans so as to achieve the objectives they have
made for themselves. Leadership style has the direct role in the making of decisions. In
authoritarian style only leaders are responsible for the making of decisions while in
democratic style other employees are also included in this process.
Qantas Airlines have implemented all the aspects of leadership style in their management of
activities and operations within the firm. Top management plays a very critical role handling
the management of people that comes from different cultural background in order to avoid
any kind of conflict between them (Crawford and Northey, 2013). There is a mixed
leadership style in the organisation. This is because sometimes they adopt authoritative while
sometimes they have adopted democratic and participatory style. This helped them in making
decisions that are highly favourable. Sometimes they also have faced several criticisms like
closing of the Singapore. This was attributed by the fact that stakeholders said that leadership
needs to follow more of a democratic style. This suggests that their leadership is following
more authoritative leadership style rather than democratic style. Qantas leadership style
founds the following elements:
 Vision: Top management leadership of Qantas is providing strategy, vision and
direction to help the firm’s employee in the execution of their operations.
 Diverse management team: Qantas management must contain individual from
different fields. Firm’s diverse field must offer several types of education, skills and
views that help in improving the management of Qantas. The cited airlines must
recognise the importance of worker’s perception and the leadership must adopt a
particular style accordingly. Top leadership plays a crucial role consulting other
stakeholders while making of the decision. Democratic leadership plays a highly

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crucial role in encouraging and motivating employees which is necessary for
improving their productivity.
 Collaborative: Qantas management feels that the leader must be collaborative, open
and honest. This helps in bringing the confidence inside the workers as they start
understanding themselves to be important.
Companies strategies within Australia and overseas market
Company has adopted various types of strategies in the operations so as to maintain their
competitiveness in the market. In the stiff competition that Qantas is facing in Australia and
overseas market, they need to make sure that they attract large numbers of people towards
their services. In order to gain competitive advantage in the domestic market, they need to
adopt diversification strategy (Skotnicki, 2012). It has helped them in enhancing the growth
opportunities in the market. This is because the company is offers various products for
different types of consumers. Lower product pricing is another strategy they have adopted in
order to attract the price lovers (Qatas, 2011). The want to market their services as the highly
cost efficient services that is having capability to attract both domestic and international
target customers. Using the diversification and low pricing strategy they have been able to
attract consumers from different sections of the society like leisure travellers, business
travellers and corporates. Cost leadership has been their prime focus over the years and has
helped them in easily making their name in the market (Kolesnikoff, 2011).
Along with this they have used expansion strategies where they offered products in the region
that is less dominated by airlines. This was primarily seen when they expanded their services
in the Asian region when no other players have reached in the market (Biddle, 2012). They
named this strategy as the gateway strategy that focused on connecting Australian people
with other parts of the world. They have done this with the help of their subsidiaries. This
also helped them in capturing the larger part of the market and hence becoming market leader
in Australia and other overseas market.
Comment on structure and strategies
The organisational structure that they have is very appropriate as it helps to make the work
process easier which is necessary for the growth of the organisation in the competitive
environment around the firm. The matrix type structure of Qantas can help in solving
problems related to various domains inside the organisation. With important people sitting at

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the important positions they have been able to solve the problems they are facing on the long
and short term basis (Lohmann and Spasojevic, 2018). This organisational structure will
become better when they will involve larger numbers of people in their decision making. It
will provide stability to their work process which is necessary for their growth. Their
organisation structure has helped them in checking the interest of all their stakeholders. With
such an organisational structure they have been able to make strategies and implement it in a
better way which is necessary for their development. This also aided them in putting them on
the roads where they can achieve their mission, vision and objectives in a better manner. By
adopting various leadership styles in different situations they have been able to address the
problems that they encountered in their strategies. Adoption of situational leadership has
helped them in achieving the strategies that have made for themselves.
Along with this there strategies like cost leadership has played a greater role in their
capturing of larger market share (Aharoni and Noy, 2012). This is due to the fact that people
these days wants air fare to be on the lower side. This is highly effective strategy in the
modern day context where there is heavy demand for the cheaper services. This is difficult
for the cited company as the fuel prices are increasing in the market at a much faster rate.
Differentiation also played a major role in their growth as this strategy made them capable of
satisfying the need of their wide ranged target section. Their strategy of entering into the new
market has helped them in expanding their market base which is necessary for the making
edge over their competitors. It can be well seen in the case of its expansion in Asian region
where in many countries they have become the market leader.
CONCLUSION
From the above based report it can be said that Qantas is one of the biggest airline company
in various terms. They have adopted a matrix type organisational structure which has helped
them in solving the problems they have faced over the years. With their effective strategies
utilised within the organisation they have made edge in the Australian market and has also
helped them in their expansion in the overseas market. Qantas airlines have adopted a
leadership style that is situational. This has helped them in solving their various challenges
which they have faced over the years and hence ensure long term growth. Their situational
leadership has also assisted them in their process of achieving their set objectives, mission
and vision.

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REFERENCES
Aharoni, Y. and Noy, E., (2012) The components of airline business strategy and their impact
on revenues. Editorial and Advisory Board, 3(2), p.52.
Biddle, I., (2012) Outsourcing operations at Qantas. Busidate, 20(3), p.5.
Crawford, H. and Northey, G.A., (2013) The role of the internet in international competitive
strategy: the case of Qantas. International Marketing: An Asia-Pacific Perspective, pp.658-
663.
Dobni, C.B., Klassen, M. and Sands, D., (2016) Getting to clarity: new ways to think about
strategy. Journal of Business Strategy, 37(5), pp.12-21.
Grant, R., Butler, B., Orr, S. and Murray, P.A., (2014) Contemporary strategic management:
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Vision. Equity, 25(10), p.11.
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[Accessed on 20th may 2018].
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relations in Qantas and Jetstar. Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources, 51(4), pp.437-453.

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