Qantas: A Brief Overview
Qantas is a company that was founded in 1920 and is the largest domestic and international airline in Australia. The organisation includes groups such as Qantas Domestics, Qantas International, Qantas Loyalty, Jestar, and subsidiary companies (QANTAS Company, 2018). The giant company has more than 30,000 employees and is a listed company in the Australian Securities Exchange. The QANTAS group's role is to offer transportation of clients using its two complementary airline brands (Qantas and Jestar) as well as offering catering services to its customers.
Modern Organisation Theory and Structure
The company employs the modern organisation theory whose concepts were developed during the industrial revolution in the early 1900s (QANTAS Company, 2018). In this case, there is use of an organisation structure, which defines responsibilities for employees as well as rules, procedures, and policies that control behaviour of workers. The organisation culture allows for shared assumptions, values, and beliefs that help in governing the actions of people such as how they dress, perform duties, and act. The company has been organised in a well-defined structure to allow employees achieve the company's goals. The top management consists of members of corporate governance and the executive team, which establishes practices and policies that are adopted and implemented throughout the organisation. Below the top management there are several departments hat include administrative, commercial business, project management, as well as functional team. The leadership style helps in creating an environment that is motivating to workers according to Bhatti, Maitlo, Shaikh, Hashmi and Shaikh (2012). The leadership team is responsible for implementation of organisational strategies and plans.
Leadership Styles and Marketing Strategies
Qantas is organised in a way that allows accommodation of various aspects of leadership styles in managing its operations and activities. The vision of the company is provision of direction, strategy, as well as support to the employees to enable them executes their tasks effectively. The diverse management team ensures variety of skills, views, and knowledge, which are necessary for enhancing the Qantas management. The leadership has a tendency of seeking opinions from employees during decision making processes (Bhatti, Maitlo, Shaikh, Hashmi & Shaikh, 2012). In addition, collaboration is highly valued in which employees and the management share views on ways of improving performance and providing the best services to the world. The marketing strategies for the organisation conform to the company's vision and mission since they ensure achievement of objective as argued by (Lynn, 2011). The marketing strategies for the company allow for competitive marketing despite stiff competition from other airline operators in the world. Even the low-cost customers can use the Qantas airline services at affordable prices. Some other strategies include cost efficiency that focuses on low cost for flights that allows many people to travel and increase the company's profit margins (Karakaya, Badur & Aytekin, 2011). This allows the company to penetrate domestic and international markets. The company also uses segmentation of brands as another strategy to service many customers such as corporate, business and leisure travellers. Extending to regions that have little penetration allows Qantas to expand its operations before other airlines can venture in the regions. For instance, the organisation has expanded into Asia and gained a relatively large market compared to the competitor.
Qantas' Board of Directors and Departments
Qantas has achieved a lot from its strategy of using the modern organisation theory that involves formulation of strategies relevant to its needs. The company is managed by a Board of directors consisting of 11 members who have great experience in running a big organisation (QANTAS Company, 2018). The team brings about independence, judgement, and accountability skills to the board during important deliberations that maximizes the benefits to customers. Other parties that enjoy the excellent performance of the company include shareholders, suppliers, employees, the community, as well as the government. The board consists of four women and seven men, which reveal that gender representation is considered when selecting the team.
Key Departments: Procurement and Engineering
The company is organised in different departments such as procurement. The Qantas procurement approach aims at maximising shareholder value by having excellent relationship with suppliers. The company therefore ensures that the process is systematic, disciplined, and ethical to ensure supply of goods and services lower the total cost, are of high quality, and meet the current technological needs. Some of the goods and services procured include stationery, aircraft, food, and many others spending more than 60 percent of revenue (QANTAS Company, 2018). The company therefore, has a procurement policy that ensures that it obtains goods and services that meet the required specifications and are delivered on time. In addition, the price must be competitive to ensure that the company obtains the best value for its money as well as ensure consistent procurement processes that are in accordance with Qantas policies.
The other important department for Qantas is the engineering and Maintenance, which has been in operation since the 1920 employing of about 3,300 workers (QANTAS Company, 2018). The department is very crucial to the company as it ensures that over 200 aircrafts are in good condition to ensure safe and successful flights. Use of modern technology helps in improving the company's products, systems, and processes to ensure that it is the most cost efficient in the airline industry. The company provides engineering services 24 hours per day since it has high-qualified aviation engineers (QANTAS Company, 2018). In addition, all line maintenance stations for Qantas are able to communicate with inbound aircraft to provide advice on incoming defects. In this case, engineers can prepare for the appropriate resources to ensure that delays are minimised.
Additional Departments and Training Facilities
The company also has another department known as the government, industry, and international affairs that plays a role in ensuring growth of the national economy by contributing to the development of public policy. Aviation is a highly regulated industry and the Qantas group offers support in many ways such as constituting to the liberalisation policy. The company has therefore, opened aviation markets to ensure greater benefits to customers and all industry participants. The flight and training department ensures that the employees acquire skills beyond the ones required by the government. The organization is committed to promoting safety by offering great expertise to the pilots and flight attendants. The main aim is to ensure an outstanding reputation by provision of aircrew with skills that exceed the standard aviation requirements. Every year, the company examines the proficiency of more than 12,000 Qantas and customer aircrew (QANTAS Company, 2018). The main training centres are in Sydney and Melbourne allowing consistent acquisition of skills for the workers. Both practical and theoretical skills are taught regularly in centres with flight simulators, aircraft cabin mock-ups, ditching pools, as well as multimedia learning centres. Qantas has centre of Service Excellence that has hosted more than 200,000 guests who are out for various events and training courses. In addition, the company's staff has well-designed uniforms from experienced designers. Clearly, Qantas is a company with an excellent organisation system that places it at an excellent position in the global airline industry.
References
Bhatti, N., Maitlo, G. M., Shaikh, N., Hashmi, M. A., " Shaikh, F. M. (2012). The Impact of Autocratic and Democratic Leadership Style on Job Satisfaction. International Business Research, 5(2), 192-201.
Karakaya, Ç., Badur, B., " Aytekin, C. (2011). Analyzing the Effectiveness of Marketing Strategies in the Presence of Word of Mouth: Agent-Based Modeling Approach. Journal of Marketing Research and Case Studies, 11(3), 1-17.
QANTAS Company, (2018). https://www.qantas.com/travel/airlines/company/global/en
