Air India and Indian Airlines Merger: Is it Flying? SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Strategy & Execution
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Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Air India and Indian Airlines Merger: Is it Flying?
The case describes the merger of Air India and Indian Airlines, two national carriers. The due diligence predicted both airlines would survive and prosper amidst fierce global and domestic competition by leveraging combined assets and capital more efficiently and by building a stronger sustainable business. However, the merged entity suffered huge financial losses year after year, raising doubts about Air India's continued existence. The case highlights various reasons for the merger failure as argued by the media, analysts and experts.
Swot Analysis of "Air India and Indian Airlines Merger: Is it Flying?" written by Sumit Mitra, Pradeep Kumar Hota includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Airlines Air facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Air India and Indian Airlines Merger: Is it Flying? case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Mergers & acquisitions and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Air India and Indian Airlines Merger: Is it Flying? casestudy better are - – wage bills are increasing, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
geopolitical disruptions, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Air India and Indian Airlines Merger: Is it Flying?
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Air India and Indian Airlines Merger: Is it Flying? case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Airlines Air, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Airlines Air 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 Air India and Indian Airlines Merger: Is it Flying? can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Air India and Indian Airlines Merger: Is it Flying? case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Airlines Air
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 Airlines Air
Strengths Air India and Indian Airlines Merger: Is it Flying? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Airlines Air in Air India and Indian Airlines Merger: Is it Flying? Harvard Business Review case study are -
Analytics focus
– Airlines Air 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 Sumit Mitra, Pradeep Kumar Hota 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.
Ability to lead change in Strategy & Execution field
– Airlines Air 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 Airlines Air in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Airlines Air 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 Air India and Indian Airlines Merger: Is it Flying? - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Organizational Resilience of Airlines Air
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Airlines Air does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Airlines Air 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Airlines Air is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Innovation driven organization
– Airlines Air is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Air India and Indian Airlines Merger: Is it Flying? Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Airlines Air in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Digital Transformation in Strategy & Execution segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Airlines Air digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Airlines Air has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
High brand equity
– Airlines Air has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Airlines Air to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Air India and Indian Airlines Merger: Is it Flying? Harvard Business Review case study comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Airlines Air has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.
Weaknesses Air India and Indian Airlines Merger: Is it Flying? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Air India and Indian Airlines Merger: Is it Flying? are -
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Air India and Indian Airlines Merger: Is it Flying?, it seems that the employees of Airlines Air don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Airlines Air, firm in the HBR case study Air India and Indian Airlines Merger: Is it Flying? needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Air India and Indian Airlines Merger: Is it Flying? HBR case study mentions - Airlines Air 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Air India and Indian Airlines Merger: Is it Flying? 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 Air India and Indian Airlines Merger: Is it Flying? can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Airlines Air is planning to shift buying processes online.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Air India and Indian Airlines Merger: Is it Flying? 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 Airlines Air has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Need for greater diversity
– Airlines Air 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Air India and Indian Airlines Merger: Is it Flying? 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 Airlines Air 's lucrative customers.
Lack of clear differentiation of Airlines Air products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Airlines Air needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Airlines Air has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Sumit Mitra, Pradeep Kumar Hota suggests that, Airlines Air 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
Airlines Air 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.
Opportunities Air India and Indian Airlines Merger: Is it Flying? | 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 Air India and Indian Airlines Merger: Is it Flying? are -
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. Airlines Air can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Airlines Air in the consumer business. Now Airlines Air can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Airlines Air is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Air India and Indian Airlines Merger: Is it Flying? 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Airlines Air 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 Airlines Air to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Airlines Air can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Airlines Air operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Strategy & Execution sector.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Airlines Air 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Airlines Air 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 Air India and Indian Airlines Merger: Is it Flying? - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Airlines Air to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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 Airlines Air 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.
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. Airlines Air 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. Airlines Air 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.
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. Airlines Air can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Airlines Air 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Airlines Air can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Airlines Air has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Airlines Air to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Air India and Indian Airlines Merger: Is it Flying? case study. Airlines Air can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats Air India and Indian Airlines Merger: Is it Flying? External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Air India and Indian Airlines Merger: Is it Flying? are -
Backlash against dominant players
– US Congress and other legislative arms of the government are getting tough on big business especially technology companies. The digital arm of Airlines Air business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. Airlines Air needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Strategy & Execution industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Regulatory challenges
– Airlines Air needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Strategy & Execution industry regulations.
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.
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.
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 Airlines Air in the Strategy & Execution sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Airlines Air 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Airlines Air 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 Air India and Indian Airlines Merger: Is it Flying? .
Environmental challenges
– Airlines Air 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. Airlines Air can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Airlines Air 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Airlines Air 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.
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. Airlines Air can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Airlines Air with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Air India and Indian Airlines Merger: Is it Flying? 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 Air India and Indian Airlines Merger: Is it Flying? 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 Air India and Indian Airlines Merger: Is it Flying? 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 Air India and Indian Airlines Merger: Is it Flying? 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 Air India and Indian Airlines Merger: Is it Flying? 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 Airlines Air needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.