Turkish Airlines: Widen Your World SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Strategy & Execution
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Turkish Airlines: Widen Your World
This case tracks Turkish Airlines' transition from regional player to global powerhouse. With an order for 212 aircraft in the first half of 2013, the airline had moved to double its size and become one of the industry's top-ten players. Growing its fleet would allow Turkish Airlines to fly many more destinations, boost revenues, increase aircraft utilization, and achieve higher cost efficiency. But it would also increase the already intense competition with European giants like Lufthansa, Air France, British Airways, and the fast-growth Gulf airlines Emirates, Etihad, and Qatar Airways. Critical questions faced CEO Temel Kotil and his team: How would Turkish Airlines keep growing without jeopardizing profitability? How would it manage the operational complexities and other external factors? Recruit the best people? Continue to differentiate itself in a fiercely competitive industry?
Swot Analysis of "Turkish Airlines: Widen Your World" written by Juan Alcacer, Esel Cekin includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Turkish Airlines facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Turkish Airlines: Widen Your World case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Emerging markets, Financial management, Globalization, Growth strategy, Joint ventures and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Turkish Airlines: Widen Your World casestudy better are - – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing commodity prices, there is backlash against globalization, increasing energy prices, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Turkish Airlines: Widen Your World
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Turkish Airlines: Widen Your World case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Turkish Airlines, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Turkish Airlines operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of Turkish Airlines: Widen Your World can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Turkish Airlines: Widen Your World case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Turkish Airlines
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Strategy & Execution field.
4. Making a Strategy & Execution topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Turkish Airlines
Strengths Turkish Airlines: Widen Your World | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Turkish Airlines in Turkish Airlines: Widen Your World Harvard Business Review case study are -
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Strategy & Execution industry
– Turkish Airlines: Widen Your World firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Turkish Airlines to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Turkish Airlines to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Turkish Airlines has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Turkish Airlines has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
High brand equity
– Turkish Airlines has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Turkish Airlines to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Turkish Airlines is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Turkish Airlines: Widen Your World are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Turkish Airlines has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive segment. Secondly the value chain collaborators of the firm in Turkish Airlines: Widen Your World HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Innovation driven organization
– Turkish Airlines is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Turkish Airlines: Widen Your World Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Diverse revenue streams
– Turkish Airlines is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Turkish Airlines: Widen Your World case study a diverse revenue stream that has helped it to survive disruptions such as global pandemic in Covid-19, financial disruption of 2008, and supply chain disruption of 2021.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Turkish Airlines are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
Training and development
– Turkish Airlines has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Turkish Airlines: Widen Your World Harvard Business Review case study by analyzing – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Turkish Airlines has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in, as mentioned in case study Turkish Airlines: Widen Your World - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Turkish Airlines in the sector have low bargaining power. Turkish Airlines: Widen Your World has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Turkish Airlines to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to lead change in Strategy & Execution field
– Turkish Airlines is one of the leading players in its industry. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in its segment but also across the whole industry. The ability to lead change has enabled Turkish Airlines in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Weaknesses Turkish Airlines: Widen Your World | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Turkish Airlines: Widen Your World are -
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Turkish Airlines: Widen Your World, in the dynamic environment Turkish Airlines has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Turkish Airlines has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Turkish Airlines: Widen Your World, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Strategy & Execution strategy. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Turkish Airlines: Widen Your World HBR case study still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Turkish Airlines has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Turkish Airlines: Widen Your World HBR case study mentions - Turkish Airlines takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Turkish Airlines has some of the most successful products in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. firm in the HBR case study - Turkish Airlines: Widen Your World should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Turkish Airlines has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Turkish Airlines needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Turkish Airlines has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. Turkish Airlines even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Turkish Airlines, firm in the HBR case study Turkish Airlines: Widen Your World needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Turkish Airlines: Widen Your World has high operating costs in the. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Turkish Airlines 's lucrative customers.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Turkish Airlines is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Turkish Airlines: Widen Your World can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Opportunities Turkish Airlines: Widen Your World | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities highlighted in the Harvard Business Review case study Turkish Airlines: Widen Your World are -
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Turkish Airlines to expand its talent hiring zone. According to McKinsey Global Institute, 20% of the high end workforce in fields such as finance, information technology, can continously work from remote local post Covid-19. This presents a really great opportunity for Turkish Airlines to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Developing new processes and practices
– Turkish Airlines can develop new processes and procedures in Strategy & Execution industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Turkish Airlines can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Strategy & Execution segment.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Turkish Airlines to increase its market reach. Turkish Airlines will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Turkish Airlines can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Turkish Airlines can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Strategy & Execution industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Turkish Airlines can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. Turkish Airlines can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Turkish Airlines can build a diversified supply chain model across various countries in - South East Asia, India, and other parts of the world. This reconfiguration of global supply chain can help, as suggested in case study, Turkish Airlines: Widen Your World, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Turkish Airlines is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Turkish Airlines: Widen Your World case study suggests that firm can utilize new technology to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Turkish Airlines can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Turkish Airlines operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Strategy & Execution sector.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Turkish Airlines has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in the sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled, as illustrated in the Harvard case study Turkish Airlines: Widen Your World - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Turkish Airlines to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Turkish Airlines in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Strategy & Execution segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Turkish Airlines has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Turkish Airlines to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Turkish Airlines: Widen Your World case study. Turkish Airlines can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats Turkish Airlines: Widen Your World External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Turkish Airlines: Widen Your World are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Turkish Airlines high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Turkish Airlines can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the field.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Turkish Airlines demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in the industry and other sectors.
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Turkish Airlines.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Turkish Airlines with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Strategy & Execution field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Turkish Airlines can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Turkish Airlines needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Strategy & Execution industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Turkish Airlines in the Strategy & Execution sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Environmental challenges
– Turkish Airlines needs to have a robust strategy against the disruptions arising from climate change and energy requirements. EU has identified it as key priority area and spending 30% of its 880 billion Euros European post Covid-19 recovery funds on green technology. Turkish Airlines can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry.
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Turkish Airlines will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Turkish Airlines can face downward pressure on margins from increasing competition from international players. The international players have stable revenue in their home market and can use those resources to penetrate prominent markets illustrated in HBR case study Turkish Airlines: Widen Your World .
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Turkish Airlines: Widen Your World Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers in the HBR case study Turkish Airlines: Widen Your World needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of the case study Turkish Airlines: Widen Your World is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of the Harvard case study Turkish Airlines: Widen Your World is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of Turkish Airlines: Widen Your World is to provide strategic recommendations includes – joining likelihood of external strategic factors such as opportunities and threats to the internal strategic factors – strengths and weaknesses. You should start with external factors as they will provide the direction of the overall industry. Secondly by joining probabilities with internal strategic factors can help the company not only strategic fit but also the most probably strategic trade-off that Turkish Airlines needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.