Case Study Description of Emirates Airline: Connecting the Unconnected
Narrates the story of Emirates, an airline founded in 1985 in Dubai that by 2013 was among the three largest commercial airlines in the world. The case emphasizes how Emirates capitalized on its location-a small city-state strategically located to reach A? of the world population in a flight of less than eight hours-to build a fast-growing and profitable hub-based business model. The case details how Emirates' chooses new routes, technology, and equipment and manages its human resources, marketing and branding, and government relationships-together forming an internally consistent strategy that capitalizes on opportunities across geographic markets. Importantly, students are asked to evaluate if the airlines' strategy will be sustainable as Emirates faces technical and political challenges to expand and must compete with numerous new players from the Middle East.
Swot Analysis of "Emirates Airline: Connecting the Unconnected" written by Juan Alcacer, John Clayton includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Emirates Airline facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Emirates Airline: Connecting the Unconnected case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Emirates Airline: Connecting the Unconnected casestudy better are - – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, there is backlash against globalization, technology disruption, geopolitical disruptions, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Emirates Airline: Connecting the Unconnected
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Emirates Airline: Connecting the Unconnected case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Emirates Airline, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Emirates Airline 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 Emirates Airline: Connecting the Unconnected can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Emirates Airline: Connecting the Unconnected case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Emirates Airline
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 Emirates Airline
Strengths Emirates Airline: Connecting the Unconnected | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Emirates Airline in Emirates Airline: Connecting the Unconnected Harvard Business Review case study are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Emirates Airline has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Emirates Airline 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.
Analytics focus
– Emirates Airline is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the industry. The technology infrastructure suggested by Juan Alcacer, John Clayton can also help it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Training and development
– Emirates Airline has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Emirates Airline: Connecting the Unconnected 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Emirates Airline is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Emirates Airline in the sector have low bargaining power. Emirates Airline: Connecting the Unconnected has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Emirates Airline to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Learning organization
- Emirates Airline is a learning organization. It has inculcated three key characters of learning organization in its processes and operations – exploration, creativity, and expansiveness. The work place at Emirates Airline is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Emirates Airline: Connecting the Unconnected Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Emirates Airline is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Emirates Airline: Connecting the Unconnected are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Emirates Airline in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High brand equity
– Emirates Airline has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Emirates Airline to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to lead change in Strategy & Execution field
– Emirates Airline 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 Emirates Airline in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Innovation driven organization
– Emirates Airline is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Emirates Airline: Connecting the Unconnected Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Emirates Airline 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 Emirates Airline: Connecting the Unconnected - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses Emirates Airline: Connecting the Unconnected | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Emirates Airline: Connecting the Unconnected are -
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Emirates Airline is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Emirates Airline: Connecting the Unconnected can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Emirates Airline 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Emirates Airline: Connecting the Unconnected that the firm needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department in the case Emirates Airline: Connecting the Unconnected can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Emirates Airline is planning to shift buying processes online.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Emirates Airline has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Emirates Airline is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Strategy & Execution segment. Emirates Airline needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Emirates Airline to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Need for greater diversity
– Emirates Airline has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
Lack of clear differentiation of Emirates Airline products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Emirates Airline needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Juan Alcacer, John Clayton suggests that, Emirates Airline is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the industry.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Emirates Airline 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Emirates Airline: Connecting the Unconnected 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 Emirates Airline has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Emirates Airline: Connecting the Unconnected, in the dynamic environment Emirates Airline has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Emirates Airline has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Opportunities Emirates Airline: Connecting the Unconnected | 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 Emirates Airline: Connecting the Unconnected are -
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Strategy & Execution industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Emirates Airline can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Buying journey improvements
– Emirates Airline can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Emirates Airline: Connecting the Unconnected suggest that firm can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Emirates Airline 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Emirates Airline has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Emirates Airline 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 Emirates Airline to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Emirates Airline is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Emirates Airline: Connecting the Unconnected 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Emirates Airline to increase its market reach. Emirates Airline 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.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Emirates Airline can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Emirates Airline to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Manufacturing automation
– Emirates Airline can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Strategy & Execution segment. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Emirates Airline can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Emirates Airline operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Strategy & Execution sector.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Emirates Airline 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, Emirates Airline: Connecting the Unconnected, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Emirates Airline to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Threats Emirates Airline: Connecting the Unconnected External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Emirates Airline: Connecting the Unconnected are -
Increasing wage structure of Emirates Airline
– Post Covid-19 there is a sharp increase in the wages especially in the jobs that require interaction with people. The increasing wages can put downward pressure on the margins of Emirates Airline.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Emirates Airline is facing in Strategy & Execution sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Emirates Airline 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 Emirates Airline: Connecting the Unconnected .
Consumer confidence and its impact on Emirates Airline 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.
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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Emirates Airline with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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 Emirates Airline in the Strategy & Execution sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Emirates Airline has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Strategy & Execution industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Emirates Airline needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Strategy & Execution sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
Environmental challenges
– Emirates Airline 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. Emirates Airline can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry.
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.
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. Emirates Airline needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Strategy & Execution industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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. Emirates Airline can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Emirates Airline 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Emirates Airline: Connecting the Unconnected 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 Emirates Airline: Connecting the Unconnected 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 Emirates Airline: Connecting the Unconnected 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 Emirates Airline: Connecting the Unconnected 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 Emirates Airline: Connecting the Unconnected 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 Emirates Airline needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.