Assignment Sample on Management Report
1. Introduction
The report presents an analysis of the change process in the aviation flag carrier industry of the United Kingdom, British Airways. Besides that, the coping up capacity of this organisation with the situations facing the consequences of the internal change process are discussed in detail. Proceeding with the report, a brief background of the organization will be conferred in order to understand the issues in detail. Some internal key changes will be analysed further with the help of SWOT analysis model. Finally, the report is closed off discussing some implementations of Kotter’s and Lewin’s models to critically evaluate the change process that occurred internally.
2. Organization background
British Airways is the second largest transportation company of the United Kingdom headquartered in London, England. The history of this airline industry began in 1924 after the war when small companies like Instone Airline LTD, British Marine Air Navigation, Daimler Airway and Handley Page Transport LTD together merged to form Imperial Airways LTD. Imperial Airways had around 2830 kilometres of route across Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia (Britishairways.com, 2021). In the year of 1939, Hillman’s Airways LTD along with two other aviation companies merged to form the first version of BA which again merged with Imperial Airways resulting in the formation of British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC).
British Airways was then formed in 1974 by the British government and merged with Iberia, which is the national aviation industry of Spain in 2011. Together British Airways and Iberia form International Airlines Group (IAG) that has become the second largest airline industry in Europe. In 1987, serving for almost 13 years now the company decided to get privatised in the month of February. British Airways used to be the largest aviation industry by passenger numbers around 34.6 million until 2008 (Britishairways.com, 2021). The rival industry easyJet did count a higher number of passengers around 44.5 million onboard leaving BA behind that very year.
3.Diagnosis: Change recognition
In order to spot changes within an organization, several techniques related to an internal diagnosis need to be cultured. One globally favoured analysis is known as SWOT analysis. Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats can be measured by this analysis in order to come down to a proper conclusion regarding the industry being analysed.
3.1 SWOT analysis
This analysis will be solely focused on strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the British flag carrier, British Airways.
| Strengths | ● British Airlines is highly reputed to be within the top 20 safest airlines globally.
● Strong government of the UK makes the industry a strong player. ● The brand name made it possible to present itself all around the world. ● BA has around 150 international destinations across 6 continents. ● Development intending to change both internally and externally, has been attracting passengers from everywhere. The company has reduced its carbon footprints using fuel-efficient engines and aims to reach at zero carbon by 2050.
● Partnerships with other aviation giants like Finnair, American Airlines and Iberia has brought sustainability within the business improving customer satisfaction. |
| Weaknesses | ● The competitive market left no choice for British Airways to strive within the limited market share.
● Internal HR related problems made the pilots gather for a strike against the company in 2019. This puts a negative image on the brand globally. ● Rolls Royce Trent 1000 engines caused several significant hindrances that have been used by British Airlines for quite a long time. If the issue continues, the company will need to think of doing some considerations. |
| Opportunities | ● British Airways needs to do some modifications in their services being provided. Adding some extra services will not only attract more passengers but also high-end customers would love to enjoy the premium services on their business trips.
● More routes across new places around the world will be able to serve a greater number of passengers. |
| Threats | ● The Covid-19 pandemic has massively hit the revenues being generated by the aviation industries across the globe. British Airways also had to compromise with its Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) in order to keep the whole system running during the pandemic.
● The congested competitive market is creating problems for BA redrags to market shares. ● Brexit at the end of 2020, has caused severe economic headaches for the organization. British government had to work on some acts or new laws in order to have considerable impacts on airlines operations. |
Table 1: SWOT analysis of British Airways
(Source: Britishairways.com, 2021)
4. Change management approach
In 1981, due to the competitive market congestion British Airways was struggling to stand on its ground and thus multiple changes needed to be made within the organization. Privatization was the first step taken by the conservative government towards the change. 2 years later in 1983 a committee was formed in order to change the internal culture seeking change. The committee focused on two major programs: Putting People First (PPF) and Managing People First (MPF).
- PPF: This program was introduced aiming to develop its existing customer service. The main motive of this program was how to build a strong relationship with the customers through providing a better customer service. “We’re putting people first” was seen written on lapel pins that employees had begun to wear (Golden, 2021). This also visually represented the organization’s willingness to create a better environment for their customers.
- MPF: This program simply focused on managing the crowd in a better and convenient way (Mills, 2017). Managers were assigned with new tasks in order to build satisfactory relationships with the customers.
These two programs actually helped gaining more customer’s attention and developed a brand-new culture within the organization (Endrizalová et al. 2017). Moreover, there are different types of leadership models that also can be implemented in order to make changes in management. Two major categories of leadership models are the following:
- Relationship-oriented style of leadership: It generally allows the leaders to build a better relationship within the team members in order to motivate them every possible way. Liberties of free communications are given through this leadership technique (Tan, 2019).
- Task-oriented type of leadership: Though this type of techniques, leaders basically focus on the tasks to be done and give instructions accordingly (Whitfield, 2020).
5. Modes of Change: Lewin’s Model
Lewin’s Model: In order to understand the model, three easy steps to remember are unfreeze, transformation, refreeze.
- Unfreeze: It is the very first stage where an organization would give up and begin to restructure the strategy. In this step all externally bound cords are cut to be within the core of the organization. By doing so, the organization acquires both scope and time to build something new (Czyrka and Frąś, 2019). During this time, it goes through a provision period of adapting new behaviour, culture and system changes to happen. Communication plays a key role in this stage. While having each member connected with the team it becomes too easy to make the workspace convenient (Abdirahman, 2017). In order to the help of communication, the vision gets cleared and the organization can choose to walk on a solid sustainable path.
- Transformation: This is the second stage of this model and in this model transformation occurs within a company. It does not matter either there’s a huge transformation going on or a minor, it only is judged by its effectiveness. it is a play of the hierarchy (Havlovic, 2020). It solely depends on the professionals who have been studying since its ups throughout its downs. The leader trains the framework to his team for proper implications and thus the organization adapts to change (Renold, M., Kuljanin and Kalić, 2019). Transformation occurs afterwards in favor of the organization and it learns new ways of doing things.
- Refreeze: This stage creates a platform for the organization to go for a long run. It basically forms the base from where it would control the whole system. At this stage going side by side with the change is obviously a must, but the organization also has to be ready for different kinds of unknown challenges. Organization needs to have a positive approach every time to keep the workforce always motivated (Kholod et al. 2019).
6. Conclusion and Recommendation
Every organization always tends to be within the comfort zone and hardly tries to go beyond it. In order to survive and succeed in the contemporary competitive market it often requires to get out of the comfort and do something new. To this end, the company will start adapting new methods to fit in again and this process is guided by the change management methods that have been implemented. Change within an organization can be occurred in many ways. Individual change is important in order to adapt the new work culture that has newly been implemented. Change in infrastructure helps develop relationships among team members as well as with the customers. Change in the system like offering attractive deals to the customers, improving the organization climate and strengthening the contemporarily engaged team as well.
References
Czyrka, K. and Frąś, J., 2019. Automation in purchasing processes and customer reflection. Zeszyty Naukowe. Organizacja i Zarządzanie/Politechnika Śląska. Available at: http://yadda.icm.edu.pl/yadda/element/bwmeta1.element.baztech-9c37ac12-2140-4523-9c98-4fa0b02701a9/c/Czyrka__Fras_ZN_PSL_Org.Zarz_2019_z.138.pdf
Abdirahman, H.S., 2017. Effect of Turnaround Strategies on the Performance of Kenya Airways (Doctoral dissertation, University of Nairobi). Available at: http://erepository.uonbi.ac.ke/bitstream/handle/11295/102612/Abdirahman_Effect%20of%20Turnaround%20Strategies%20on%20the%20Performance%20of%20Kenya%20Airways.pdf?sequence=1
Endrizalová, E., Novák, M. and Kameníková, I., 2017, September. Development and trends in airlines business models. In New Trends in Process Control and Production Management: Proceedings of the International Conference on Marketing Management, Trade, Financial and Social Aspects of Business (MTS 2017), May 18-20, 2017, Košice, Slovak Republic and Tarnobrzeg, Poland (p. 119). CRC Press. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Eva_Endrizalova/publication/320198608_Development_and_trends_in_airlines_business_models/links/5ab4cdb1aca2721710046117/Development-and-trends-in-airlines-business-models.pdf
Golden, D., 2021. Review of: Phil Taylor and Sian Moore (2019) Cabin Crew Conflict: The British Airways Dispute 2009-11. Global Labour Journal, 12(1). Available at: https://mulpress.mcmaster.ca/globallabour/article/view/4589/3844
Havlovic, S.J., 2020. European Works Councils in the Airline Industry. In Strategic Innovative Marketing and Tourism (pp. 1-6). Springer, Cham. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mounir_Elatrachi/publication/339812910_Determinants_of_ICT_Integration_by_Teachers_in_Higher_Education_in_Morocco/links/5ec31c49299bf1c09ac8f187/Determinants-of-ICT-Integration-by-Teachers-in-Higher-Education-in-Morocco.pdf#page=27
Kholod, M., Lyandau, Y., Golubtsov, P., Okunkova, E. and Mrochkovskiy, N., 2019. Traditional Versus Budget Airlines—Comparison of Tickets Costs and Demands on the European Air Transportation Market. In Smart Transportation Systems 2019 (pp. 215-224). Springer, Singapore. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Marina- Available at: Kholod/publication/333656048_Traditional_Versus_Budget_Airlines-Comparison_of_Tickets_Costs_and_Demands_on_the_European_Air_Transportation_Market/links/603ea01ea6fdcc9c780c68ab/Traditional-Versus-Budget-Airlines-Comparison-of-Tickets-Costs-and-Demands-on-the-European-Air-Transportation-Market.pdf
Maurice, J., How has the organisational management response to COVID-19 differed between British and foreign-based airlines, how has it been influenced by internal and external factors, and how can they successfully emerge from this crisis?. General Management in Lockdown, p.18. Available at: https://www.pmb.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/em_student_project_tt20.docx.pdf#page=18
Mills, A.J., 2017. The Gendering of Organizational Culture: Social and Organizational Discourses in the Making of British Airways☆. In Insights and Research on the Study of Gender and Intersectionality in International Airline Cultures. Emerald Publishing Limited. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Albert_Mills/publication/228221453_16_Mills_AJ_1994_The_Gendering_of_Organizational_Culture_Social_and_Organizational_Discourses_in_the_Making_of_British_Airways_Proceedings_of_the_Annual_Conference_of_the_Administrative_Sciences_Assoc/links/02e7e529ccbba90b6a000000/16-Mills-AJ-1994-The-Gendering-of-Organizational-Culture-Social-and-Organizational-Discourses-in-the-Making-of-British-Airways-Proceedings-of-the-Annual-Conference-of-the-Administrative-Sciences-Asso.pdf
Renold, M., Kuljanin, J. and Kalić, M., 2019. The comparison of financial performance of airlines with different business model operated in long-haul market. Transportation Research Procedia, 43, pp.178-187. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S235214651930599X/pdf?md5=c297a9cb198447f189b0689754038a6b&pid=1-s2.0-S235214651930599X-main.pdf
Tan, L., 2019. CorporateMetrics Methodology Application for the Market Risk Quantification in British Airways Company. Available at: https://dspace.vsb.cz/bitstream/handle/10084/135345/TAN0038_EKF_N6202_6202T010_2019.pdf?sequence=1
Whitfield, G.J., 2020. Phil Taylor and Sian Moore, Cabin Crew Conflict: The British Airways Dispute 2009–11, London: Pluto Press, 2019;£ 20.00. Available at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/bjir.12540
Website
Britishairways.com, 2021. About, Available at: www.britishairways.com. [Accessed on: 02.05.2021]
Know more about UniqueSubmission’s other writing services:
