Business Management for Cathay Pacific - Essay Example

? Business Management Table of Contents Introduction 3 Company Overview 4 Global Economic Climate of the Airline Industry 4 Financial assessment of Cathay Pacific within the Context of Prevailing Global Economic Climate 5 Calculations 5 Analysis 10 Profitability ratio 10 Company’s liquidity 11 Working Capital 12 Financial ratio 12 Investor ratio 13 Further financial Analysis 15 Recruitment, Selection and Retention Plan of Cathay Pacific 20 Recruitment Plan 21 Selection Plan 22 Retention Plan 23 Conclusion 24 References 25 Bibliography 27 Introduction Business management is fundamentally regarded as a particular form of science that is principally concerned with the evaluation of the profit-oriented market related to any particular type of business. It mainly deals with managing and performing different operational functions effectively. The prime intention of business management has been viewed to be profit maximisation (Badenhorst-Weiss & et. al, 2008). It has also been apparently observed that the financial performance of different companies is regarded as one of the important aspects of modern business. In this age of global economic crisis, companies are more interested in managing business in such a way so that they can accomplish their respective business targets successfully. Its financial statements can determine the financial performance of any company. Various factors can affect the financial performance of companies at large. Hence, it is the responsibility of the management of different companies to detect the potential threats and ensure that their financial position remains stable. One of the major business targets of the companies is to maintain sustainable business with profitable growth. It can be seen that the financial performance of companies largely depends on the efficiency of their operations that is directly related to the performance of the employees in this present day context. In order to make itself different from other rival competitors, companies need to have a proper and efficient work force that can effectively work towards the accomplishment of the organizational goals by a considerable level. In this regard, the recruitment and retention policies of different companies seem to be quite significant in as far as goal attainment is concerned (Knight& Bertoneche, 2000; Jackson & et. al., 2011). This paper seeks to provide a clear assessment of the financial performance of Cathay Pacific within the context of the prevailing global economic climate. On top of that, the paper also seeks to develop effective plans in terms of recruitment, selection, and retention for Cathay Pacific. Company Overview Cathay Pacific is a Hong Kong based Airline Company. The company operates in 42 countries throughout the globe and it was established in 1946 in Hong Kong. Since then it has acquired a leading position in the global airline industry. The company competes with different airline companies across the globe and it strives to deliver quality services to the customers. The company achieved numerous awards since its inception. In 2003, the company attained airline carrier of the year award that significantly distinguished itself from its rival competitors. The company became extremely popular for its excellent services to the customers better known as “service straight from the heart.” This unique quality of the company eventually made it one of the most reputable airline companies in the world (Cathay Pacific, n.d.; Cathay Pacific, 2011). Global Economic Climate of the Airline Industry The global economy experienced a downfall during the previous years. It can also be said that the airline industry was not spared by this global economic crisis. The rise of fuel price also had a severe impact on the airline industry. In addition, it has been further noted that the new regulations imposed by the European Union especially in the catering area as well as safety has also effected the working operations of the airline companies and ultimately affected the overall airline industry by a greater extent (Betz, 2010). Financial assessment of Cathay Pacific within the Context of Prevailing Global Economic Climate Calculations 1. Return on Capital Employed (ROCE) 2. Asset Turnover 3. Operating profit margin 4. Current ratio 5. Acid Test 6. Inventory Turnover 7. Trade receivable days 8. Trade payable days 9. Gearing 10. Interest cover 11. Earnings per share EPS 12. Price per earnings 13. Dividend per share 14. Average remuneration per employee 15. Net profit per employee 16. Sales per employee 17. Director efficiency Analysis 2011 2010 ROCE 6.5% 16.9% Asset Turnover 0.98 0.96 Operating profit margin 5.6% 15.7% Profitability ratio Profitability ratios generally measure the ability a company has to generate earnings from its sales together with its equity and assets. Several analysis tools are available in that can measure a company’s profitability however in this paper, we have used three. These are Return on Capital Employed, the company’s operating profit margin and the ratio for Asset turn over. Starting with ROCE, when we compare the ROCE results for the year 2011 to 2010 it is clear that the company is not performing well due to the decline from 16.9% of previous year to 6.5% in profit realized from capital employed. The company can therefore employ either of the following options. First, it can increase its operating profit while maintaining the capital employed or secondly it could maintain the operating profit while significantly reduces the capital employed. The Asset Turnover on the other hand is used to measure how hard the employed assets are working to generate sales. Although the Company’s asset turnover is significantly low this can be understood because this is Service Company and most of its assets are long term. It can also be noted that the Asset turnover improved from 0.96 times per year to 0.98 times. This can be attributed to the higher increase in revenues as compared to capital employed between the years 2010 and 2011. Operating profit margin is an analysis that explains a company’s ability to handle its overheads. For Cathay Pacific there is percentage drop in this ration from 15.7% in 2010 to 5.6% in 2011. This means that the company faces higher financial risk than the previous year. The best way to solve this would be for the company to work on reducing its costs so that there is larger profit margin. 2011 2010 Current ratio 0.85 1.04 Acid test 0.84 1.02 Company’s liquidity A company’s liquidity ratios help it to understand its position in meeting short-term liabilities were they to be paid if they fell due immediately. Current ratio analyses the ability of the company to cover its debts that fall within a year by utilizing the assets expected that year. For Cathay pacific, this ratio was manageable as it stood at 1.04 in 2010 however the fall to 0.85 in 2011 is cause for alarm since it means the company cannot meet its debts that fall within that year by utilizing assets receivable. Unlike Current ratio, Acid test measures a company’s assets that are liquid and eliminates those that may take a while to turn into cash. For Cathay pacific, the acid test reveals that in 2010 the company was in a better position with a ratio of 1.02 to pay its debts within that year compared to 0.84 in 2011. This is a cause for alarm and the company needs to review and increase its short-term assets. 2011 2010 Inventory turnover 151.3 days 125.4 days Trade receivable days 230.1 days 261 days Trade payable days 317.5 days 329.5 days Working Capital The working capital gives a company’s overview of how effective it is employing invested resources, which are in terms of working capital and fixed assets. The company has improved in this section, as there is evidence of efficiency when comparing the year 2010 and 2011. The overall debt payable and receivable days reduced from the year 2010 to 2011. The company can be able to pay off its debts in averagely 317 days compared to 329 from the previous year. However, in terms of stock management the company is performing poorly. This is because of the increase in stock turnover days from 125.4 in 2010 to 151.3 days in 2011. 2011 2010 Gearing 38.36% 39.02% Interest cover 11.3 22.6 Financial ratio Financial ratios help a company determine its stability particular to show the effect of changes in finance or capital structure on the company. Gearing measures the level of a company’s borrowings. For Cathay pacific there was a slight drop in this value from 39.02% in 2010 to 38.36% in 2011 which is a positive feedback showing the company is reducing its borrowings. In terms of interest cover, this value is supposed to give an overview the company’s ability to service its debts. This is done by measuring whether the company’s profits are able to pay off the finance costs and interest for the business. In this case, when we compare the rate within the two years it is evident that there is a drop from 22.6 to 11.3, which warrants concern for the company’s profitability. 2011 2010 Earnings per share 1.4 3.57 Price per earnings 9.5 6 Dividend per share 0.18 0.33 Investor ratio These ratios give an investor a clear overview of how a business venture is performing and whether it is worth investing into or taking the alternative. The EPS measure an average profit made for each share for the given period and from the analysis, the EPS was better in 2010 as compared with that of 2011. If an investor were to base a decision on these values then it would be an unfavourable venture to invest. The price per earnings on the other hand measures the level of the business in the market and the results show that the company’s shares are highly valued in the market, which attributes to the increase in PE ratio form 6 to 9.5 between the two years. The dividend per share better known as DPS shows the company’s ability to settle its dividend payments over time. In addition, it also checks the amount of earnings the business retains. For Cathay Pacific, the DPS between 2010 and 2011 dropped significantly, which is not a positive sign to investors and measures should be put in place to improve this value. 2011 2010 Average remuneration per employee 0.71 0.68 Net profit per employee 0.31 0.78 Sales per employee 4.7 4.4 Director efficiency 2 2.1 From the analysis above it is clear that there were some significant changes in employee and director performance. For starters, the average remuneration per employee went up from 0.68 in 2010 to 0.71 in 2011. This was brought about by a greater increase in wages and salaries to employees and directors as compared to the number of new staff that joined the company. Second, there is a significant drop in the net profit generated per employee from a high of 0.78 in 2010 to a low of 0.31 in 2011. This means that on average, the company has more staff than the work available for sales or it could also mean the staffs is underperforming as per the expectations. Thirdly, the average sales per employee increased with a small margin. As much as this is supposed to be a positive feedback when compared with the average net profit per employee it still means there was an underperformance. Lastly, there was also a significant drop in the director efficiency with a margin of 0.1, which is small but significant considering the overall performance of the company. Further financial Analysis Cathay Pacific is regarded as one of the most reputable companies in the airline industry. The company has its operations in various parts of the world. The core business of the company has been affected by uncertainty due to unstable global economic climate. However, the customers enhanced the passenger business of the company considerably because of increasing demand of premium class travel. On the other hand, the cargo business of the company was largely affected due to drop in shipments demand in certain operational regions of the company. It can also be noted that the price of fuel also affected the business in various ways. However, one of the prime concerns for the company is to manage the risk related with the rise in price of fuel (Cathay Pacific, 2011). It has been observed that the passenger revenue of the company in 2011 showed an increase compared to the previous year, 2010. In addition, it has been noted that the sitting capacity of the company has also increased in 2011 compared to 2010. The company carried about 27.6 million passengers 2011, which shows an increase of 2.9%, compared to 2010. The comparative strength of numerous currencies that the company receives in the form of revenues also plays a major role towards raising market share. It has been apparently observed that the demand for the premium class travel remained quite positive in the year 2011. The stability in the demand for the business class seats on short-haul routes also shows relative stability of the Asian economy. However, the business of the organization in its endeavour to penetrate Japan was largely affected natural disasters such as earthquakes and Tsunami among others. Similarly, the business of the company positioning in Thailand was also affected by the occurrence of serious floods in the region (Cathay Pacific, 2011). Furthermore, it has been viewed that the cargo revenue of Cathay Pacific has increased considerably by 0.3% in the year 2011 as compared to the preceding year, 2010. Notably, the cargo business of the company has performed quite well in the first quarter of 2011, but it later declined due to weak order of shipments. The tonnage carried by the cargo for the company in the year 2012 fell by 8.6% in comparison with the year 2010 (Cathay Pacific, 2011).This can be better understood with the help of the following graphical representation. Source: (Cathay Pacific, 2011) Despite the current economic crisis, it has been observed that the company has remained confident about enhancing its performance particularly in cargo business in the near feature. This can be owing to the reason that the company started to conduct its cargo businesses in other places like Bangalore in India and Zaragoza in Spain among others. Moreover, the company also introduced other new aircrafts that ultimately impose significant impact on its financial performance. It is worth mentioning that the role of Air China especially in formulating consolidated profit for the company was quite significant. This is due to the reason that Air China contributed about 31.1% in the overall profit for the company in the year 2011. One of the most important aspects responsible for the rise in revenue of the company is the passenger load factor. The following chart would depict the performance of passenger load factor of the company in the last few years (Cathay Pacific, 2011). Source: (Cathay Pacific, 2011) It has also been observed that the company has substantially invested on the development of Hong Kong in order to make the nation as one of the premier aviation hubs in the world. The investments of the company further include growth handling, building of new cargo terminal and increasing fleet of modern aircraft among others. In this similar context, the company accomplished a low profit of HK$ 5,501 million in the year 2011 as compared to the year 2010, which recorded HK$ 14,048 million. After making certain adjustments, it has been realized that the company recorded a decrease of 50.1% in profits compared to 2010. The reasons in this regard can be due to low growth of passenger traffic and decline in the demand for cargo business. Additionally, it has also been observed that the prevailing global economic uncertainty and rise in price of fuel have also played a major role concerning decline in profit of the company for the year 2011 (Cathay Pacific, 2011). The turnover charts of the company for the last few years are shown below. Source: (Cathay Pacific, 2011) After observing the turnover charts of the company, it is worth mentioning that the group turnover of the company has increased by about 9.9% from the year 2010. It has also been noticed that the total operating expenses of the company have increased in 2011. This can explain the reason why the company has recorded a decline in profit of the company. The data for the operating expenses of the company has been provided below (Cathay Pacific, 2011). Source: (Cathay Pacific, 2011) Furthermore, there has been rapid increase especially in fuel costs in the year 2011 that ultimately affected the financial performance of Cathay Pacific. The increase in fuel price was around HK$10,601 million compared to the fuel expenditure incurred 2010. Moreover, it has been observed that due to the result of lower profit of the company, there has been a decrease in the tax charge for the company by a greater extent. In addition, it has been assumed that dividends per share of the company have also decreased from HK$1.11 million to HK$0.52 million in 2011. The total assets of the company recorded in 2011 were around HK$137,133 (Cathay Pacific, 2011). There are also other aspects that can be taken into concern while assessing the financial position of Cathay Pacific within the circumstance of the prevailing global financial climate. For instance, the borrowings of the company have been increased by 9.4% in 2011 from the preceding year, 2010. The borrowings of the company have been viewed to be mainly dominated by US dollars, Japanese yen, and Euros among others. There has been a decrease of 19.0% in the liquidity funds of the company in the year 2011 as compared to 2010 (Cathay Pacific, 2011). Thus, because of the above discussion, it can be concluded that the financial performance of the company has shown a steep decline in several of its business sectors. The performance of the company has been largely affected by the rise in fuel prices as well as the different prevailing economic issues in the global economy. Recruitment, Selection and Retention Plan of Cathay Pacific In this present day context, it is quite significant for the companies to increase their level of performance constantly. As the market is quite competitive, companies may not survive, if they do not perform efficiently. In order to perform as well as to preserve better performance, one of the foremost aspects that the companies require is the formation of an effective workforce. An effective workforce supports a company in competing with its chief market participants by delivering effective and efficient performance. It can be observed that recruitment and retention plans of the companies are quite vital. In order to acquire as well as to form an efficient and unique workforce, companies need to adopt and implement effective recruitment plans. Cathay Pacific is viewed to be one of the airline companies across the globe that has an effective recruitment plan. The effective service that the company provides to the customers can be regarded as one of the major reasons for its success. It can be stated that it is the employees of the company who are responsible for the deliverance of such services. Thus, in order to recruit, select, and retain effective workforce, companies need to devise as well as implement certain plans (Compton & et. al, 2009; Dibble, 1999). Recruitment Plan Recruitment is the process of attracting and appointing appropriate individuals for a particular job within a specific organisation. The process of recruitment is fully integrated with the Human Resource (HR) process of the organizations (Bernardin, 2012). A proper planning is required for recruiting people. The first step of the recruitment process for Cathay Pacific would be to identify the type or the sort of people required by the company. Cathay pacific can implement two particular sources for recruitment. In this similar context, the company could recruit employees or staffs through both internal as well as external process of recruitment (Eriksen, 2009). The internal process of recruitment would include the recruitment through the referrals of the existing members, current workforce and transfer or promotion among others. This is the process that develops interest amid the current employees of the company as there lays the probability of attaining a particular position in the company. Cathay Pacific could use this form of recruitment, as it would be quite cost-effective and timely in nature. The company could recruit from its existing employees. In this regard, the company needs to inform the available positions in the company to the existing employees. Then, the company would have to choose the desired employees for a particular position. Cathay Pacific could also recruit employees from its previous staff members. This process of recruitment would be quite beneficial for Cathy Pacific as the employees that they would recruit through this process already have the knowledge required to perform different tasks in the company (Tanke, 2001; Sahu, n.d.). Conversely, Cathay Pacific could also recruit employees using external process of recruitment. In this process, the company would have to recruit its desired candidates from outside the organization. In this process, the company would initially have to recognize the requirement of the available job position in the organization. There are various sources of external recruitment that would eventually enable the company to acquire potential candidates. These sources include advertisement, services agencies, and campus recruitment among others. This form of recruitment would enable Cathay Pacific to select potential as well as desired candidates for various positions. In addition, Cathay Pacific would be able to introduce fresh talents in their set of workforce that may enhance as well as raise operational effectiveness by a significant level by applying the external process of recruitment. As the company can implement both recruitment processes mentioned above, it is obvious that it would be able to recruit both experienced as well as fresh talents (Durai Pravin, 2010). Selection Plan Selecting appropriate people for the right job is regarded as one of the significant aspects for the companies to enhance as to raise their productivity along with profitability by a greater extent. In this regard, selection is the process of choosing appropriate people from a group of applicants who are best suited for the job. The process of selection that Cathay Pacific can follow has been described below. In the first step, the company can conduct a formal interaction with the applicants in the form of preliminary interview, where they would ask certain general questions to the applicants. In the next step, the company can review the application or the resume of the applicants who have successfully gone through the first step. Furthermore, in the next step, a selection test can be held by the company to understand the skills and competencies of the applicants. In this regard, the company can conduct a psychometric test. This test would depict the characteristics of the applicants and enable the company to decide whether the applicants are suited for the job or not. After this step, the company can conduct interviews for the applicants who successfully concede the psychometric test. After the interview, the candidate can be directly selected for the existing job position in the company. This particular selection planning can enable Cathay Pacific to acquire appropriate personnel that would support the company to enhance and to raise its operational performance at large (Kleynhans, 2006). Retention Plan Retaining the employees is also regarded as an important aspect for various companies. It has been observed that if companies lose their employees after providing proper training, it can cost huge amounts of money to them in terms of financial performance (Stevans & Streatfeild, 2003). For this particular reason, companies nowadays adopt necessary steps to retain their employees. Cathay pacific can implement certain vital steps towards retaining its employees by a greater extent. One of the most important aspects of employee retention is to hire and train the right person. This could be done during the time of recruitment where the applicant undergoes several tests. The company would need to identify and recruit the right kind of people for the job. In addition, it has been viewed that providing regular incentives and attractive financial rewards to the employees can also help the company to retain their employees. Moreover, the company also needs to ensure the safety of the employees and provide them a safer working environment (Hor & et. al., 2008). In order to retain the workforce, Cathay Pacific can gather valuable ideas as well as opinions from its capable personnel and provide them with effective training frequently so that they can grow and develop themselves. This could be quite effective in retaining the employees from long-term perspective. Most importantly, Cathay Pacific needs to build a generous association with its employees with the intention of retaining its employees by a considerable level (Williams & Scott, 2012). Conclusion After assessing the financial performance of Cathay Pacific against the background of the prevailing global financial climate, it can be stated that running business in an efficient manner is one of the key elements for the success of the organisation. It has been viewed that the financial performance of different companies directly relies upon the strategies adopted as well as implemented by their respective management team. In this worldwide economic crisis, companies like Cathay Pacific need to adopt and utilise effective business strategies as well as decisions in order to mitigate the situation concerning worldwide financial downturn. Moreover, it has also been observed that the procedure of recruitment, selection, as well as retention is quite crucial in maintaining or acquiring sustainable performance of business. Thus, it can be concluded that only a better workforce can be able to provide better or positive results for different companies in terms of raising their profitability along with productivity and accomplishing superior competitive position. Ensuring better performance of business is quite significant in order to survive in the competitive market of today. References Badenhorst-Weiss, H. & et. al., 2008, Business Management: A Contemporary Approach, Juta and Company Ltd Bernardin, 2012, Human Resource Management 4E, Tata McGraw-Hill Education, Betz, F., 2010, Creating and Managing a Technology Economy, World Scientific, Cathay Pacific, No Date. History, Home, [Online] Available at: http://www.cathaypacific.com/cpa/en_IN/aboutus/cxbackground/history [Accessed March 15, 2013] Compton, R. L. & et. al., 2009, Effective Recruitment and Selection Practices, 5th ed. 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