EasyJet Company's strategy

One of the most reputable airlines


One of the most reputable airlines both in Britain and around the world is EasyJet. Based at London's Luton Airport, it operates both domestic and international flights. It is known to run mostly on the low cost carrier model. With more than 830 itineraries throughout more than 32 nations, it primarily operates on both domestic and international flights. In 1995, when it had just two routes, it made its inaugural flight. Its first international flight took place in 1997, and for the following two years the company was unable to fly abroad due to certificate and route problems. By overcoming many challenges, the company was able to expand remarkably and grow its revenue to a competitive level. What has made this company to expand is the different acquisitions and expansions it has undertaken throughout the years.

The services provided by EasyJet


The Company is a service provider and offers various services in the comfort of their customer. Services include passenger handling, cargo transport and warehousing, food and refreshment drinks, parcel and valuable goods transport, business travel, on board and cabin services, loyalty products and EasyJet holidays and hotels among others. The Airline industry is very competitive and each day companies come up with very attractive services to attract as many customers as they can. The main competitors of EasyJet Company are the British Airways PLC and British Midland Airways limited. All these companies offer very close and similar services. The target customers for EasyJet Company are people across all financial divide since it has different classes to cater for them.

Literature review


The main function of organization operations is to get things done that is, providing goods and services to their customers. The general belief that operation management is concerned only with the day to day and short term tactical issues is wrong and needs to be rectified by looking at the importance of having strategic operations to achieve good performance. All organizations in the business world are concerned with how they will survive and reach their ultimate goals in the future. In response to this, many businesses come up with strategies that will see through their success. However, this strategy can only become meaningful if it's operationally enacted.

The relationship between organization operation and strategy


The relationship that exists between organization operation and its strategy is what determines whether the organization will achieve its long term survival and even success. The ultimate objective of operation function is to produce services or goods in a way their customers want and at the same time manage resources in the most efficient way. Also, operations affect profits in a significant way. This is because operations can contribute to the financial performance of the organization for instance by forming smart operation groups that in turn give added value or by reducing expenses in sales. Therefore having the strategic operation is paramount for any organization to prosper and reach its long term goals. Also, it’s not smart for business to use income statements to measure performance because even if net profit surges and the operating expenses increases, there will be a serious problem hence it’s important for the organization to define operation performance objectives. To do this, a company is needed to come up with changes that make sure it achieves one of the following operation performance objectives (Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development, 2011).

Quality


Quality to a business organization is more about giving the customers satisfaction by providing the right goods or services. It’s more than conformance to a description. Quality also determines how well a specific product from the organization will perform its envisioned function, how much it will be desired and the overall reliability when it comes to the product. It’s also about how the product is durable and how easy it is to get it and more importantly how the customers think, that is whether it’s worth their money. It's critical and strategic for companies to maintain high quality when providing their goods and services because it determines whether or not they will keep their customers. Externally, quality performance objective is based on the specification of the service or the product while internally it’s more about error-free processes (Malakooti, 2014).

Speed


Speed performance objectives of a company are the degree at which that company can rapidly deliver its products and how fast and often it produces them. Depending on the nature of the industry, speed is vital as some such as medical industries require utmost speed in their cause of action. Moreover, speed is also the time that is required by the companies to manufacture their products and also the time they need to develop and research new products. Companies that do things faster are more likely to become successful. Internal effects of Speed performance objectives are about fast throughput while external effects are about short delivery times (Slack & Lewis, 2011).

Dependability


Dependability is established over time, and in most cases, it supersedes all other operational factors. Dependability performance objectives of a company are attained if the company produces and distributes its goods or services to its esteemed customers on the agreed prices and cost at the right time. Even if a company's products are cheap, innovative, or fast to get, but the customer cannot depend on it to be delivered in their desired time, the customer will automatically look for other options. Internally in business organizations, dependability will give stability because it saves money and precious time when an organization practices it. It also is a great way reduces the ineffective use of resources and time thereby having quality operation performance. Internally organization processes will be reliable when there is dependability (Bauer, 2010).

Flexibility


Flexibility when it comes to a company’s performance objective is the ability to change on how, when and what regarding providing goods or services to their customers. Flexibility means that a company can produce products of different levels regarding quality and that these products are usually of different modifications. A company that has good operation strategies is one that adapts easily to accommodate changing or new production volumes and delivery schedules. A company has to meet service or product flexibility, mix, volume, and delivery flexibility. Internally, flexibility is vital at it hurries up responses to various changes, upholds dependability and saves time. Companies that have flexible objectives performance strategies will have the upper hand when it comes to achieving their long terms goals, and they tend to usually be successful compared to those that lack this key operation objective (Malakooti, 2014).

Costs


It’s the dream of every organization to have low costs. The cost regarding performance objectives is the difference in unit cost that comes as a result of a change in the rate at which goods and services are produced and the different types of products produced. For most organizations, the higher the variation in goods and services produced, the higher the unit cost due to the low the volume produced. What is important to note when it comes to costs is that the cost of services or goods will differ and this, in turn, affects the profits, costs, and overall product prices. The external effects of a cost performance objective are high margin or low price while internal entails overall high productivity (Dess, 2012).

Application of concepts


Operation performance objectives are a part of organizations management that is most neglected for long periods and only receives attention when the organization is a disaster. However, some companies have utilized several key performance objectives to survive and prosper for many years. EasyJet Company is one of those companies, and it has performed well when it comes to some performance objectives. Since the company began operation in the 1990s, it has continued to expand and grow despite the stiff competition it receives from its competitors in the airline business. Recently, the company announced the purchase of 25 planes of making Airbus A319 serve the ever-increasing demand for airline services. Millions of customers board the company's planes every year, and this is projected to increase even further (Malighetti, Paleari & Redondi, 2015).

Cost


EasyJet has invested heavily in coming up with low costs of their travel charges, and this has revolutionized the industry of airline in the world and especially in Europe. Coming up with low cost is an operation performance strategy that has worked for EasyJet Company in many ways because it has increased its number of customers it gets every year, thereby increasing overall success. EasyJet Company has come up with several strategies to make sure they minimize cost. Some actions include the reduction of distribution costs through the use of the internet, ticketless travel, thereby reducing the distribution, issuing, and processing of receipts every year, elimination of free catering in onboarding, manageable and efficient use of airports, and paperless operation. The cost performance objective applies well in the EasyJet Company and has helped the company to achieve success throughout the years. The company has strategically used this aspect of cost to its advantage to build a good name and slow down its competitors. Internally, the company can reduce costs that come by removing some unnecessary services, thereby reducing overall operation costs (Dess, 2012).

Dependability


Dependability is very key for the operation of EasyJet Company and its overall progress. Being a company that offers services, customer care approval is very key. It’s important for the company to satisfy its customers so that they can feel that they are connected to the company and that they can depend on it for anything. Through offering flight services that are reliable and not having delays in arrival or departure is important for the progress of the company (Bauer, 2010).

Quality


Quality is everything when it comes to the airline industry. Customers need to get the best services for them to trust the company and come back. The key quality aspect of the EasyJet Company operations is whether the services they offer meet the desired quality approval by the customers. The company has tried to maintain the highest quality by buying quality planes that are much comfortable to the customers. Also, its employees are skilled and offer quality services to the company and the customers.

Flexibility


Flexibility in the airline industry is a core part of the operation. EasyJet Company has in many years now proven to be flexible. Since its foundation in the 1990s, the company has continued to change with the demand of the market. The company made several acquisitions of its competitors to reduce destructive competition that existed. Flexibility has allowed the company to save time and increase dependability from its customers (West, 2015).

Speed


Planes are high-speed, and just as planes, companies in the airline industry need to be fast. People who board EasyJet planes are usually in a hurry, and most of them are business people. The company depends on technology to deliver fast services regarding booking of tickets. This, in turn, reduces wastage of time, making both the customer and the company happy. The key speed aspect of EasyJet company operation is providing its services speedily and efficiently.

For EasyJet Company, all the operational performance objectives are critical for it to achieve the success it desires. From the five key operational performance objectives, the key one and the most important is cost. Having and setting a strategic cost to run its business, the company can achieve success and progress to reaching its dreams. The lowering cost to the customers only attracts them even more, and putting in mind that the company has one of the best services, the company can eliminate many of its competitors. Quality is very close to cost regarding its importance as a performance objective. Dependability, flexibility, and speed follow in that order with speed being less critical (Malighetti, Paleari & Redondi, 2015).

EasyJet has utilized the operations performance objectives very well and has seen it enjoy much success on the way. However, one aspect it has not utilized fully is flexibility. Flexibility in business is a wide topic and even though this company has tried to utilize it, there some things it could add. For instance, when it comes to changing tickets in the airline, customers have complained that it’s much harder to do it as compared to other companies. The company should come up with a clear outline and policy for ticket changes so that customers can feel more comfortable when dealing with such a situation. The challenge that might come up is to convince all board members that this is a good move since they can think that this is a backward move (2011, EasyJet).


Reference List

(2011). EasyJet: a tale of two strategies. Aviation Strategy (Online). http://www.aviationeconomics.com/cgi-bin/aviationstrategy.pl?_cmd=backissue&i=166.

Bauer, J. (2010). The Use of Operations Objectives and Performance Measures In Private And Public Organizations: White Paper. Http://Purl.Fdlp.Gov/Gpo/Gpo52125.

Dess, G. G. (2012). Strategic Management: Text and Cases. New York, Mcgraw-Hill/Irwin.

Malakooti, B. (2014). Operations and Production Systems With Multiple Objectives. Http://Public.Eblib.Com/Choice/Publicfullrecord.Aspx?P=1574350_0.

Malighetti, P., Paleari, S., & Redondi, R. (2015). EasyJet pricing strategy: determinants and developments. Transportmetrica. A, Transport Science (Print). 7-8.

Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development. (2011). Performance Measurement.

Slack, N., & Lewis, M. (2011). Operations Strategy. Harlow, Essex, Pearson/Prentice Hall.

West, L. S. (2015). Easyjet V Commission: Complainants Not Eentitled To A Second Bite. Journal Of European Competition Law & Practice. 6, 498-501. Http://Dx.Doi.Org/10.1093/Jeclap/Lpv028.

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