Management Report: Strategic Direction of Virgin Atlantic Airlines

This management report analyzes Virgin Atlantic Airlines' business strategies using tools like SWOT, PESTEL, VRIO, and stakeholder mapping. It identifies challenges such as deregulation and increased competition affecting profitability. The report suggests strategies like differentiation through low-cost, high-quality service, expansion into US domestic routes, and adoption of greener biofuels to reduce costs and environmental impact. It emphasizes the need for Virgin Atlantic to leverage its brand image, implement cost leadership, and invest in sustainable projects to enhance competitiveness and adapt to the changing business environment. The report concludes with recommendations for strategic choices to ensure differentiation and competitive advantage.

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Linkage between Business Strategies with Virgin Atlantic Airlines
From the overall analysis of the respective company Virgin Airlines with the help of the
strategic tools such as SWOT, PESTEL, VRIO, VRIN along with stakeholder mapping, it can be
identified that there are few challenges which are faced by VAA which was inclusive of the
deregulation which increased competition in the marketplace and it affected the profitability of
the firm and experienced huge losses. From the analysis of the Virgin Atlantic Airlines, there are
few business level strategies which can be implemented by them in order to improve their
business operations and become successful in their operations in comparison to the other
competitors present in the market. The different aspects which can be followed are described as
follows:
The company is required to become less diverse and the name of VAA has become
diluted and the brand is purely endorsement brand. There are different lessons for the analysis of
environment must be learned as the brand image is not enough alone as the public are sensitive
in their approach and they prefer the corporate strategies. In such scenario, Virgin Airlines needs
to analyze the opportunities which are the differentiation strategy. Firstly, in order to maintain
good performance of the current flights, looking for the different opportunities to expand the
routes in the US domestic routes to be able to compete with the different competitors who own a
large amount of routes in the market (Matt, Hess and Benlian 2015).
Moreover, as the price of the fuel of jet will be remaining stable in the coming two years,
instead of purchasing the fuel in advance, Virgin Atlantic Airlines can look for the greener and
cheap bio-fuel which will be helpful for the company to reduce the footprint and save on costs as
well. In addition, in order to implement the differentiation strategy, the Virgin Atlantic Airlines

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can implement the low cost and high quality service to their target market which will be
beneficial in attracting the target market and gain competitive advantage in the market as well.
Furthermore, from the VRIN and VRIO analysis of Virgin Atlantic Airlines, it can be
identified that the brand image of the company is strong, however there is moderate threat of
substitutes for VAA that can be reduced with the implementation of differentiation as well as
cost leadership strategy that can prove to be helpful in becoming more competitive in
comparison to the other competitors (Serra and Kunc 2015). Moreover, Virgin Atlantic Airlines
need to bring in more environmentally friendly sustainable green projects which will be
beneficial in making up the poor fuel efficiency performance.
Therefore, from the overall analysis of the different strategies which have been
implemented by the company VAA, it can be identified that in order to achieve the appropriate
and performance, the company needs to be open with the different recommendations to
guarantee the strategy related to differentiation in order to adopt themselves with the changing
business environment and gain competitive advantage in comparison to the other competitors
present in the market.

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References
Matt, C., Hess, T. and Benlian, A., 2015. Digital transformation strategies. Business &
Information Systems Engineering, 57(5), pp.339-343.
Serra, C.E.M. and Kunc, M., 2015. Benefits realisation management and its influence on project
success and on the execution of business strategies. International Journal of Project
Management, 33(1), pp.53-66.