Analysis of Ryanair's Strategy, Enterprise, and Innovation Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Ryanair's strategy, enterprise, and innovation, focusing on the key drivers behind its success as a leading low-cost airline in Europe. It examines the shift from a red ocean to a blue ocean strategy, emphasizing cost reduction and increased passenger volume. The report delves into specific strategies such as low prices, short-distance point-to-point operations, and a no-frills policy, including the impact of these choices on operational costs and customer service. Furthermore, it evaluates Ryanair's marketing strategies, including pricing, product/service offerings, place (airport selection and distribution), and promotion. It highlights the company's entrepreneurial vision, innovation frameworks, and market opportunities, with a focus on how Ryanair has shaped its business model to achieve a competitive advantage. The report also critiques Ryanair's approach to customer service, particularly concerning disabled passengers, and suggests areas for improvement in marketing and communication channels.

Running head: STRATEGY, ENTERPRISE, AND INNOVATION
Strategy, Enterprise and Innovation
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author’s Note:

2STRATEGY, ENTERPRISE, AND INNOVATION
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Low Prices...................................................................................................................................3
Short distances traveling..............................................................................................................4
Point to point operation...............................................................................................................5
Low operating costs.....................................................................................................................6
Price.............................................................................................................................................6
Product or service........................................................................................................................7
Place.............................................................................................................................................7
Promotion....................................................................................................................................8
Innovation strategies......................................................................................................................10
Reducing the costs below Industry............................................................................................10
Create new commercial value....................................................................................................10
Raise profits above industry......................................................................................................10
Eliminate fares in Industry.........................................................................................................10
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................13
References......................................................................................................................................14

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Introduction
Ryanair is known as the leading low-cost airline services of Europe. There has been a
shift in the business strategy followed by Ryanair. They have shifted their focus from the red
ocean strategy to the blue ocean strategy. This was mainly an action taken by Ryanair to sustain
in the market of high competitiveness. The existing strategies of Ryanair were not at all
profitable. So, they thought of bringing about some changes like creating supreme value for all
their customers, having a total possession over the resource base and also present their superior
value-adding services in the most efficient and effective manner (DaSilva and Trkman 2014).
However, it has been seen that right from the beginning of the changes that they have taken in
terms of their business strategies, they have always tried to generate value for both the company
and their shareholders as well. However, this transformation or the shift from the red ocean to the
blue ocean strategy has been helpful for Ryanair airlines. They have been able to attract a large
number of customers. This not only helped them increase their total sales and at the same time,
they also have been able to check their overall operational costs.
Identification and evaluation the key drivers of innovation contributing to the success of
Ryanair
Some of the important factors that are responsible for the success of Ryanair are as follows are
Low Prices
One of the most important strategies that were followed by Ryanair was to fly only across
the small distances. This enabled in keeping the fares of the flights low. This indeed was a good
strategy because there are different kinds of passengers having different economic status. There
are many of the passengers who are the conscious travelers and look for lower priced tickets.

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These passengers would have opted for any other means of communication if the prices of
Ryanair tickets have been very high. It was also seen that the European passengers are mainly
choosing the low fare air tickets because it goes them the best value for money air services. One
of the important strategies that have been used by Ryan air in this context is the Blue Ocean
Strategy. It has made use of this strategy in order make itself the leading low-cost airlines to
operate in Europe. The main objective of Ryan air in using this strategy is to emphasize more on
the reduction of the operational cost and increasing the total volume of the passengers. The key
objective of this strategy is to offer air tickets to the passengers at a considerably lower price so
that it can be afforded by a large number of passengers.
Some of the key factors of this strategy are
Short distances traveling
Short distances traveling, which is also known as the point go pint operations or the short
route traveling. Ryanair unlike its many other competitors like Easyjet, Norwegian, Vueling,
Wizz Air,did not believe in carrying the passengers across a vast distance. They wanted to keep
their distance short and maximize their efficiency and reducing their operational costs at the
same time. Unlike the other airline service, Ryanair used to fly single aircraft fleet of Boeing
737-800. This naturally resulted in a smaller number of passengers. As the total volume of
passengers was small, it also became manageable at the same time. As a result of this, the
number of free services and customer services that had to be offered to the customers could also
be checked and easily managed. The number of free services could also be stopped or at least
reduced comparatively. The airline stuff could also function freely and peacefully without any
compulsion of the European leader. Ryan air has also been highly successful in breaking the age-
old normative belief that the basic rule of prospering on this business is by providing luxury

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goods and luxury services at a very high price. It has been able to grab the attention of media in
the best way possible by creating a huge and vast marketing and advertising of the air tickets.
The sales and marketing of any brand play a major role in promoting the success of the brand.
The massive advertising of the Ryanair tickets has helped in attracting the attention of a huge
number of passengers, who would have opted for any other possible means of transportation
otherwise. This has proved to be a dual advantage for Ryanair. On one hand it increased its
customer base to a great extent and on the other hand, it also had given a great challenge to the
other competitors who now found themselves under a huge pressure. This pressure was the price
wars. However, the classic carriers or the competitors have taken different strategies to deal with
this problem. If they try to combat this problem reducing the amount of free or complimentary
services on board in order lower their cost, then they would suffer a major loss in terms of their
customer base. They will lose a large portion of the business clients. On the other hand, if they
try to retain these business customers, then they will have to lose their regular customers. Even if
these airlines increase the number of passengers they cannot maximize their profit because of
less fare and often lose their regular customers. However, they try to maintain a high standard of
the customer services that they provide on board so that they can attract more number of business
passengers and travelers in comparison to those companies like Ryanair that has reduced its
amount of on board of services (Peppard and Ward 2016).
Point to point operation
Ryanair mainly carries on its operations by following the point to point model. They
mainly carry on their flights among the short-haul routes. These destinations mainly connect the
secondary and the regional airports. Ryan air has helped to reduce the unnecessary costs that
were required in order to serve the passengers on board. Hence, it led to the foundation of no-

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frills policy. Ryanair carries on its point to point operations on a regular basis thus eliminating
the necessity of frills. These frills or the extra costs are otherwise needed to be borne by the
airlines in the long haul routes. Some of the strategies that were adopted as a part of the no-frills
policy were to introduce the pay and use toilet and selling of food on board, in other words, the
passengers would no longer get free food or any kind of complimentary food (DaSilva and
Trkman 2014). No Frills policy meant that passengers will have to pay the necessary fares for
buying any kinds of food or drinks that would be sold on board. Ryan air also believed that there
must be extra charges charged from the passengers for carrying extra luggage, for changing the
flights in between, in-flight retail and several other such facilities. Installation of pay toilets also
had reduced the cost of the tickets and made the flight much easier.
Low operating costs
Ryanair believes in lowering the operational costs. One good step that was used by the
company was using the policy of lowering the aircraft equipment cost. Ryan air believed in using
one single kind of aircraft. However, these aircrafts were later upgraded to the modern versions
for meeting the stiff competition.
(B) Using appropriate strategy and innovation frameworks, critically analyze the different
approaches taken by Ryanair in shaping its entrepreneurial vision and identifying market
opportunities
The marketing strategy used by Ryanair
Price
The two important strategies used by Ryan air are low price and price with a different
arrangement. They have selected a very good and working strategy. They sell out major portion

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(70%) of their seats at the lowest price. The remaining 30% are sold at a higher price and the rest
6% of the seats are sold at the highest price. So, it is evident that only a small handful of seats are
sold at a high price whereas the majority of the air tickets are sold at a much lower price so that it
can easily be afforded by a major number of people (Shaw 2016). This is really very beneficial
because most of the customers are highly price sensitive and they would otherwise opt for other
alternatives. However, they also face several problems with their advertised price and the real
price. They often have faulty advertisements and the advertised prices are very controversial.
Often legal actions are also taken against it.
Product or service
Ryan air started charging an extra amount of money from the passengers on carrying an
extra amount of luggage, priority boarding. As per the opinion of Ryan air's manager, they were
targeting to generate about 20% of the total revenue from ancillary sources. They also decided to
cut down their expenses on all the additional services, like serving all minds of complimentary
food to the passengers on board and also all the other customer services (Shaw 2016). However,
Ryanair has been criticized for the improper handling of the disabled passengers(Small & Harris,
2014). This is because if they cut down their expenses on all the customer service facilities then
it will be a great problem for the disabled and the aged people. In the year 2002, Ryanair refused
to provide wheelchairs for some of the disabled passengers. So, it is advised that Ryan air must
carry ion their strategies in such a way that it does not overlook the welfare of the passengers on
board.
Place
They do not use any agency commissions so they do not have to pay any extra amount of
money. They mainly use the marketing techniques to hire and retain their customers. It mainly

8STRATEGY, ENTERPRISE, AND INNOVATION
used the secondary destination airports so that the flying experience is easier. It is also very easy
to afford the flight. The cost required to operate the aircrafts in these places is comparatively
lower. The aircrafts can be turned around easily and Ryanair also tries to keep the aircraft in the
air for the maximum time possible. Skylights have been invented by Ryanair which is their new
reservation system. However, Ryanair does not have any online medium to the customers for
reaching out to the company. They can only use the phone lines by paying the standard rates to
call up and contact the Ryanair Company. So, it would be good if, Ryanair introduces many new
communication channels so that people can reach out to the company easily (Chiu et al. 2016). It
is needed for every company to provide a proper place or a platform to enable their consumers to
contact them easily.
Promotion
Ryanair uses very little expenditure to carry on their advertising and marketing activities.
They do not use any showy or massive advertising methods. The advertising is usually carried on
through newsletters, brochures, leaflets or posters to make the passengers aware of the new
offers or the low tickets that they have. The advertising is mostly carried on an in-house basis.
However, they have not really updated themselves as per the modern scientific and technological
developments. In the present day scenario, the world is developing rapidly and the internet has
become one of the unavoidable things. It has also become mandatory for each and every
company to make sure that they are carrying on their marketing and advertisements through the
internet so that maximum customers can easily reach out to them. Ryanair must make efforts to
increase more e-marketing tools and launch several web pages, which will be a good platform for
the promotion of their products and services. They can also try social media marketing. Most of
the people nowadays are active social media users. So, if Ryanair can grab this opportunity, then

9STRATEGY, ENTERPRISE, AND INNOVATION
they will be much more successful in promoting their activities. They can post any new offers or
discounts on the ticket prices over the web pages or over social media networking sites like
Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and many other such popular and well known social media
networking sites (Florido-Benítez and Martínez 2015).
Figure1: Innovation strategy of Ryanair
(Source: Baker 2014)

10STRATEGY, ENTERPRISE, AND INNOVATION
Innovation strategies
Reducing the costs below Industry
Ryan air has tried their level best to reduce the operational costs so that they can provide
their services to a large number of customers at the same time. There are many customers who
are price sensitive and would always opt for low priced air tickets. So, Ryanair started offering
the air tickets at a very low price.
Create new commercial value
As they have started with a totally new business idea, so they have to carry on their
advertisements and marketing in a proper way so that they can easily promote their products and
reach out to the customers (Taneja 2017).
Raise profits above industry
Ryanair has adopted several strategies for increasing its sale and check its operational
costs at the same time.
Eliminate fares in Industry
The main objective of Ryanair was to provide low priced tickets to a large number of
customers. It is for this reason that they have taken several strategies like using a single aircraft,
reducing the number of onboard customer services, pre-booking of seats and many other such
things to check the additional operational costs. This has attracted a large number of customers
thus giving a tough competition to the rest of the competitors in the industry.

11STRATEGY, ENTERPRISE, AND INNOVATION
(C) Critically analyze the view that Ryanair’s success can be attributed to the successful
application of the Blue Ocean strategy
Ryan air is known to be Europe’s leading low priced airline service. One of the most
important strategies that it is followed is the Blue Ocean Strategy. This was a new business
model that was launched in the 2nd half of the 1970s. The main key aspect of this new
strategy is using a low-cost model (Bowie et al. 2016). This meant that the companies using
this new approach will be able to check the operational costs yet utilize the fleet unification,
modern technologies, and the reduction of free services.
This is a new business approach that Ryan air has adopted in order to maximize their
sales volume. They have left the Red Ocean Strategy and adopted the blue ocean strategy.
This shows how they have been able to grab the business opportunity and make the fullest
use of it. The main objective of Ryanair was always to provide low fare tickets to a large
volume of passengers. In order to do this, Ryan air had reduced its overall operations cost by
reducing the number of aircrafts being used. They started using only one single aircraft fleet
of Boeing 737-800. This resulted in the increased motivation of staffs. However, an author
like Baker (2014), is of the opinion that though blue ocean strategy might be very helpful but
it is often very tough to get hold of the right kind of new business idea. Often selecting the
new business idea or the new business strategy is a matter of huge time and discussions.
There can also be some mistakes in selecting the right kind of business strategy which might
make the company suffer a loss. However, in case of Ryanair, nothing has really taken place.
The other step that was followed by Ryan air was to reduce the amount of customer service
facilities that had to be provided to the passengers on board (Kesting and Günzel-Jensen
2015). There would be no free or complimentary food provided to the passengers. The

12STRATEGY, ENTERPRISE, AND INNOVATION
passengers on board will have to buy the foods that will be sold on board. The other
strategies that were taken included, implementing a complete no towards the usage of paper
tickets, passenger meals, pre-booked seats and many other such services. By checking all
these, Ryanair were able to check the major grounds of expenditure in running the aircraft.
They also introduced the pay and use toilet service on board. This really made flying easier.
However, as per the opinion of Thomas (2015), this could also have been very risky for Ryan
air because they brought in an entirely new strategy that had the chances of not being well
accepted by the public. Following blue ocean, the strategy is dusky because it is an altogether
a very new concept (Chiu et al. 2016). A good example in this context can be that of the
Amiga computer which was a new and brilliant technological marvel but it could not flourish
as the customers in the market did not accept it. It is never a cake walk for any brand new
business idea to flourish in the market just after it is launched. Same was the case with
Ryanair’s usage of the blue ocean strategy. However, Ryanair did not face any such issue
with their usage of the blue ocean strategy. Though it was new and different, they could
channelize it well among all their customers. Apart from this, they also made it sure that they
only carry on their operations over short distances. They made sure that their distances ate
only restricted to small regions. They made sure that they are concentrating on carrying the
passengers only across short-haul routes so that the number of passengers can be kept within
a manageable range and can easily be managed. This has helped Ryanair to attract a large
number of customers. All these additional charges would otherwise have added to the ticket
fares and many passengers would then have given up boarding Ryanair and would have
selected some other means of transportation. However, an author like Johnson (2017), was of
the opinion that Ryanair would also have suffered a major loss if there was lack of proper

13STRATEGY, ENTERPRISE, AND INNOVATION
clarity about their new business strategy. As it was a very new concept and it had to be
implemented among the customers in such a tough competitive market, so it would have
totally gone wrong if the concept was not clearly defined and explained to all the staffs of
Ryanair. Trust and patience was another important factor that had to be considered in case of
this blue ocean strategy (Taneja 2017). As the shift that Ryanair took from the red ocean to
the blue ocean strategy was a new one, there had to be enough trust and patience built both
among the company stuff and among the customers as well. This was because using the
results would not be seen immediately but only with the due course of time. It had really
been a tough challenge for Ryanair to build the correct level of trust and patience among their
company and among the customers as well. At the same time, Ryanair air also had to be very
defensive so that the sharks (competitors) from other oceans are not able to snatch the
competition from them.
Conclusion
Thus, it can be concluded that Ryanair has adopted many new strategies for providing
their customers tickets at a low price. However, there are also several loopholes within these
strategies. Hence, care has to be taken that that these strategies do not make any compromises
with the welfare of the passengers. Ryanair has to keep in mind that though there are many price
sensitive customers, who look for low priced tickets, but at the same time there are some who are
also in need of some welfare services. So, there are still some areas of improvement that Ryanair
has to look after.

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