How Emirates Airline Can Improve Its Competitive Advantage - Case Study Example

UAE Company: Name: Institution: Date: Emirates is an Airline company belonging to United Arab Emirates (UAE) which is a property of the EMAAR. It is a subsidiary of the Emirate Group of companies based in Dubai whose ownership is under the government of Dubai. Indeed, it operates with about three thousand, three hundred flights every week from its headquarters at Dubai International Airport to more than one hundred and forty-eight cities across the globe. It is also the third largest international carrier globally regarding the passengers’ carried, fleet size, and revenue generation. The airline started its operation in the year 1985 with only two aircraft which was Boeing 737 and an Airbus 300 B4. However, the main goal of the organization was to offer quality standards of services to its clients rather than offering bulky services without quality. Accordingly, this goal has led the company to develop into a globally influential airline. Due to competitive increase in the global business environment, the Emirates Airline has responded well in this scenario by reporting massive profit yield while its competitors reported big losses. The appropriate strategies of the company have led to the profitability and success of the Airline. Some of which include expansion of the fleet program, new aircraft delivery, investment in brand support, and network expansion of its airlines that has led to the success of Emirates by winning millions of customers using Emirates services[Plu12]. Recently, Emirates has deployed an Airbus 380 which is the largest passenger aircraft in the whole world. Indeed, this strategy captured the interest and imagination of the passenger globally winning hearts of many customers to use the airline. Further, the total increase of the passengers using the Emirate`s air services leads to increase in reported net profit generated by the company. Also, Emirates operates three of the ten globally longest flights which are non-stop from Dubai to three destinations in Los Angeles, Houston, and San Francisco. This non-stop flights could become a preference flight to majority passengers in the world. Hence, it is an added advantage to Emirates Company as compared to its rivals who offer flights to short destinations[Plu12]. Notably, the prominence in the profit making margin of the Emirates Company has been a success resulting from a stable and experienced leadership management team. Additionally, there is a good decision-making policy in the operation of the company, and great invention and innovative ideas leading to a ground-breaking performance. Nevertheless, Emirates observe business ethics and is also customer care focused when comes to its operation. Indeed, its professional operations have led to the success and solid foundation which the company boasts. In essence, the success of any business goes along with how well it creates its awareness and brands its image in the eyes of the public. Emirates has been a great success in this field. Indeed, it is evident on how well the company has sponsored sports and games globally. Such social activity serves as an effective advertisement reaching out a wide customer market as it ensures the customers are aware of its existence. As such, when time comes to purchasing air travel need, majority customer would wish to be an associate of such a company, hence, demanding its services. Also, the company treats its customers well and cares about its employees by minding their welfare giving and them motivation to deliver quality services to its clients. These strategies have played a prominent role in the success of the company over its rivals giving it a competitive advantage. Another significant competitive advantage of the Emirates Company is its uniqueness and overall scope of its operations. Dubai city is located in central point connecting the East and the West enabling the airline to be at a strategic location thus giving services to both sides. Also, the scope of operation in Emirates has increased since the world`s populated and fastest growing economies of India and China are at a closer access of the Emirates. Additionally, when customers from both countries want to explore different parts of the world they find Emirates to be convenient due to its location and connectivity majority states. Indeed, it has enjoyed Profitability in the functioning due to increase in the economic boom of these two countries. However, one of the main successes of the Emirates is primarily for its innovative and creative ideas to pursue opportunities and its ability to solve problems as they emerge. In fact, the company has a principle that drives its success, believing and doing right things. Also, it avoids circumstances that do not quite fit its operational targets[Eur11]. Therefore, its expertise has become a core competitive advantage of the Emirates over its competitors and has led to significant profit margins in the operation of the Company. As the city of Dubai grows, Emirates takes advantage of this scenario by enjoying the resources in the city and its flourish in businesses, tourism sector, and international center that attracts entrepreneurs. In reality, the success of Emirates is in close association with the Dubai city`s success. As people from the different destination in the world visit the city for various reasons, they make use of the Emirates resources which include accommodation, food, and Airlines. Therefore, this global travel boom to Dubai city makes the company enjoy a competitive advantage over other airlines around the globe. There is also the fact regarding the ownership of one hundred and forty-six aircraft. This plane has different capacities of carriage both cargo and passenger. Also, the fact that it operates the world`s largest A380, and B777 fleets have made it one of the most reliable customers for Airbus and Boeing Manufacturers. Indeed, this has built interest from many clients in the world prefer the Emirates Airline. When many customers engage a service from a business unit, there is an increase in cash flow hence generating raising its revenue and profits. As a result, other flight companies have a rough time in the market due to scarcity in demand of their services. Therefore, its strength in capability, customer care, and reliability competition makes Emirates successes to blossom. When Emirates introduced A380, it generated excitement in the Airline industry due to its comfortable and best cabins in the world. Definitly modern cabins and comfort has led to higher market share and also profit margins for the company in the global economies. Furthermore, Emirates is set to acquire an added competitive advantage as it plans to have over three hundred and twenty aircraft by 2018. On the other hand, the remarkable safety of the Emirates Airlines makes it enjoy a competitive advantage over other Airlines. Research indicates it is safer to take flight with Emirates which has no crash records compared to other Airlines that have records higher incidences of plane crashes. Customers prefer safety, and no one would take a risk of his or her life. This advantage makes Emirates dominate in the global market compared to its rivals hence winning more customers which increase the company`s resources and profitability. Indeed, Emirates airline has outperformed in the quality of services it offers to customers as compared to its competitors such as Air France, Etihad Airways, British Airways, Qatar, and Swiss Airways. According to the research and a very detailed survey conducted in the year 2010 to measure the quality of customer service and experience in the different Airlines, the Emirates is the overall leader. Consequently, it has received more than four hundred global awards making it the best airline globally. Also, the strength of the human resource has strengthened the workforce in the company, which has led to the recruitment of quality and up to standard workforce with prominent skills. In fact, in the specialized fields. Emirates` Vice Chairman considers high labor costs as a measure to increase the quality of output for the workers. For the past years, pilots in the company have received forty percent salary increment as motivation to increase quality output in their services to the customers. Such incentives make the Emirates the best airline company to work for and a desire for workers to deliver best results making it an outstanding performer in the market as compared to its rivals in the industry of Airline. Moreso, Emirates enjoys a competitive advantage as opposed to its rivals from the external audit. Indeed, they have the responsibility to bring focus on evaluating and identifying the events and trends that are beyond the company’s control. Essentially, the auditing team identifies the main threats and key opportunities confronting the Company so that the management can evaluate and decide on right strategies to make. The team also ensures the company makes good use of the opportunities and avoid the dangers that could result from competitors threats. In fact, threats can lead to the financial constraint of an organization which leads to massive losses. Therefore, the external team ensures this does not happen to the Emirates airline. However, the political atmosphere in the Emirates has been favorable which has yielded a fortune in its success. Indeed, majority countries have signed agreements with the Airline to promote better political cooperation and trade with the Emirates. Therefore, the agreements have opened up immense opportunities to the Emirates with the outside world. Some of these opportunities are markets to expand its networks. Another advantage the company takes over its competitors is good governance from the government of Dubai, who have supported the company by developing infrastructure to meet its target expectations. Also, low taxes levied on the company by the government of Dubai creates a conducive external environment for the airline’s operation. As such, the low tax levy leads to low cost of inputs that makes it so competitive in the economic sense Additionally, the government of Dubai has endorsed easy immigration requirement enabling immigrants to have an easy time in using the Airline due to reduced procedural inconveniences in acquiring the visas to use the Airline. Extensive use of technology by the Emirates has also led to its competitive advantage. Since Emirates is an international company, it requires a good technological platform which has been a great success to its operations. Emirates has invested massively in technology to localize each market. It transacts payment in forty-two currencies using high-quality technologies. Additionally, Emirates controls a high profile inventory system by use of technology by geographical regions to optimize the preferences of each market[Ved13]. The prominent performance of the Emirates is a result of proper strategies implemented for the core operation of the company. Certainly, with high concern over the safety of its passengers, it targets to have one hundred and twenty Airbus in the fleet by the time the airport space will be made available. In fact, one of the strategies in the Emirates is the operational strategy which targets to introduce a new product in the Airline. It is renowned for pioneering new market trends and ideas. These new products include personal entertainment in every passenger seat, use the mobile phones while on board, introducing of safety solutions such as smart-landing, and smart-runway. Without a doubt, it is focusing on becoming the first Airline to make huge Aircraft orders. These solid strategies are the core measure of the success of the Emirates contributing to its competitive advantage[Ved13]. Further, the formulation of the unique growth strategy has improved products and services in the Emirates Airline. For sure, it has expanded focus on customers` experience on board to progress their familiarity in the Airport. Another important strategy for the Emirates is the diversification strategy which focuses on investing in its subsidiaries. Also, Emirates has gone far to diversify into related sectors of the industry, which includes air catering, and aircraft ground handling. Besides, Emirates airline has about six subsidiaries while the Emirates Group has got about fifty. In fact, the SWOT analysis for Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, and Strength has enabled Emirates to identify many positive and negative element that could benefit or destroy the company`s reputation regarding massive profit margins that it enjoys. Some of the strengths its strengths are strong Dubai government support has a prominent team of skilled employees of fifty thousand. Some of the weaknesses include limited market share growth and costly benchmark standards. Also, policies concerning labor need revision. Another significant weakness of the Emirates is the elimination of the military agreement with the United Arab Emirates allowed the Canadian forces to make use of the logistic base close to Dubai after the Emirates Airlines refused to expand the landing rights in Canada. Nonetheless, the Emirates Airline faces some opportunities and threats on several platforms. For instance, the Emirates partnered with Qantas opening extensive network in the operation of its Airline. Another opportunity for the Airline is the release of the new fleet of aircraft that will help to bring improvement in the customer confidence in the Airline. The Emirates also has strategies to implement additional new Airline destinations on its list. This opportunity will enable the Airline to make mega profit margins. Also, it is set to create new products and services. In any organization whenever there is strength there is also threats facing the organization. Therefore, some of the threats facing Emirates include an increase in competition in the market in the Middle East. An increase in fuel cost is another threat, change in policies and regulations by the government of Dubai could be another threat[Ved13]. The group chose to work on Emirates Airline because of its competitive strength in the global market and its creativity and innovation in different fields of operation. Indeed, Emirates has the ability in identifying the new trends in the market as opposed to its competitors which made the group so interested in conducting a research and survey on this company. With the world`s booming technological platforms the group was so much interested to find out which company in the world is using innovative technology in its operation. Therefore, after comparing and contrasting several companies the group made an analysis and finally pointed out Emirates Airline as the firm that has extensively invested in using technology to localize its market. However, for the Emirates Airline to improve its competitive advantage, the group suggested that it should use broad technology to bring efficiency in service delivery of the company. Also, the company should be innovative and creative to come up with new ideas that will counter emerging trends in the global market. Therefore, the group concluded by remarking that, the Airline should improve the quality of its services to win a huge market share. Certainly, improvement would enable the company to gain a competitive advantage over other airlines. References Plunkett, Jack W., & Plunkett, Jack W. (2008). Plunkett's Airline, Hotel & Travel Industry Almanac 2009: Airline, Hotel & Travel Industry Market Research, Statistics, Trends & Leading Companies. Plunkett Research Ltd. European Conference on Knowledge Management., Massaro, M., & Garlatti, A. (2015). Proceedings of the 16th European Conference on Knowledge Management, University of Udine, Italy, 3-4 September 2015: ECKM 2015. Reading: Academic Conferences and Publishing International. Vedder, H. (2008). Strategic alliances in the aviation industry: An analysis of past and current developments. München [u.a.: Grin-Verl. Read More