The Southwest Airlines approach of offering cheaper rates and concentrating exclusively on short haul clients, unlike its competitors in the air industry, has enabled it to record outstanding developments within the past years. Operating and maintaining the biggest 737 fleets and applying connection philosophies enables the Airlines venture to offer more clients their services at reduced costs. Through prioritizing their employees' attitudes and experience, Southwest Airlines has successfully managed to tap business success in the industry. The Southwest Airline's management fully understands that satisfied employees are best at service provision. Additionally, the Airlines Company maintains their growth through a thorough market study before selection (Thompson, Gamble and Strickland, 412).
The Southwest Airlines Vision
The company’s vision is to effectively and efficiently connect individuals to important destinations through the provision of affordable, friendly, and highly reliable air travel. The Southwest Airlines aims to dedicate itself entirely in offering top notch client service, characterized by team spirit, warmth, personal pride and utmost friendliness.
Methodology Applied to Attain Goals
The Airlines Corporation has over time expanded to become the favorite in the industry since 1966. Coupled up with its attention to effective operations, affordable fares and commuter benefits, the corporation qualifies among the best in the industry. While most of its competitors prioritize comfort and amenities, the Southwest Airlines leads with its client oriented business model which accommodates individuals seeking point to point painless, fast and affordable flights. Their success is therefore attributed to their business model which combines client warmth and focused innovation, at the same time, keeping in minds its company values and business purpose (Murakami 289).
The company has successfully attained continuous growth of their stock to enable it to rank as a leading flight enterprise. Most of its competitors offer a wide array of options and services and have also committed to a large variety of planes to achieve their mission. This strategy employed by most flight companies creates diversity which in turn translates to higher costs of operations. The Southwest Airlines, however, has concentrated strictly on the Boeing 737, saving the company operation and even maintenance costs. The millions saved by the company through this strategy enable it to afford to offer services to its customers at reduced rates.
Other air travel ventures are infamous for low profitability and fluctuating costs. To tackle this situation, most of these corporations have in most cases raised their service fees and even cut perks. However, instead of passing down the expenses to the clients, Southwest Airlines has embraced appropriate fuel management among other solutions. This step has enabled the flight company to maintain the affordable prices of tickets for their clients (Thompson, Gamble and Strickland 420).
Another most important strategy in place within the Southwest Airlines Company is its priority of its staffs’ satisfaction and comfort. The company’s management believes that when the employees are contented and comfortable, they offer top notch services to clients who come back and even make referrals. The employees in the Southwest Corporation receive some of the most attractive employee packages and benefit. Although most of the staff members are members of a union, there has never been a reported case of union strike at the corporation. This depicts the favorable and attractive environment of work offered at the venture. Moreover, the customers treat the clients with evident warmth, understanding, and concern (Brown 411).
The Airlines Company also offers a simplified service to their clients. Unlike their competitors, they can cut costs by avoiding the provision of an assortment of drinks and meals to the clients. The airline only offers necessary snacks supplemented with a drink. This enables the corporation to efficiently and easily clean up and even load the plane, to prepare it for a quick turnaround.
The Southwest Airlines is also backed up with one of the most capable and talented management team as compared to other corporations within the industry. From its founder, Herb Kelleher, to the CEO and the team, they have managed to successfully remain aligned as per the company’s values, of customer service. This enabled the corporation record rocket high revenue per capita as compared to its competitors. The management has organized the corporation in a way that the front line employees can solve problems within their capabilities. The management is referred to as an upside -down approach. The corporation, therefore, does not prioritize the structure as much. This arrangement of management at the corporation ensures that cases affecting the venture in a negative way do not cause congestion; they are easily solved as only the complex ones are transferred to the top management team. Crucial decisions are therefore made in a faster most efficient way possible (Murakami 290).
On top of the business model in use by the Southwest Airlines Corporation, the company has selected appropriate and successful ways of executing their business strategy through an almost flawless strategic alignment. The corporation came up with a simple business purpose, unlike other companies who embrace complex business aims which require radical professional interpretations. The success also comes by due to the manner in which the management team utilizes the purpose interpretation to drive the company towards organizational structures, strategic goals, and their culture (Thompson, Gamble and Strickland 429).
Entrepreneurial Decision-Making
Entrepreneurs make operational and strategic decisions, which can be routine, repetitive and necessary judgment in aspects of the Southwest airlines including its failures, risks, strategic planning, ethics, leadership, growth management among other factors. To make these decisions, the entrepreneurs first identify the main inconsistencies regarding the aspects mentioned earlier. The entrepreneurs identify their personal vision about strategic planning, leadership, and risk management among others; they then proceed to carry out internal and external analysis regarding the same to identify exactly where the corporation falls short in incorporating and executing these aspects. An overall approach is then considered and followed by adequate and strategic preparation and planning. Henceforth, an appropriate action is identified and executed to give forth the desired outcomes.
Risks including passengers’ safety must be of significant priority in the decision-making attempts. The overly aggressive operations including traffic control, analysis of ground logistics, and other operations that require the attention of crew members and pilots indicate the safety risks flourish. Therefore entrepreneurial decision-making process will ensure analysis of internal and external factors, which will enable an appropriate implementation and application of necessary steps (Brown 410).
Conclusion
As discussed above, it is evident therefore that the Southwest Airlines Corporation is a very typical example of a venture that has precisely selected an appropriate business model to sustain the purpose of the venture. The company has also explicitly defined its purpose and consistently shown its main characters and values completely derived from its purpose.
Works Cited
Brown, Travis J. "Corporate Innovation at Southwest Airlines: An Interview \a\with Herb Kelleher, Founder & Former Chair & CEO". Business Horizons 52.5 (2009): 409-412. Web.
Murakami, Hideki. "Dynamic Effect Of Low-Cost Entry On The Conduct Parameter: An Early-Stage Analysis Of Southwest Airlines And America West Airlines". ME 04.04 (2013): 281-292. Web.
Thompson, Arthur, John Gamble, and A. J. Strickland. Crafting And Executing Strategy: The Quest For Competitive Advantage: Concepts And Cases, 17Th Edition. 17th ed. MCGRAW-HILL, 2009. Print: 407-431. Web.
