Improving Business Processes For Qatar Airways: Selection Of Potential Candidate For Consultancy

This assignment is a project statement which describes your selected organisation and a project management improvement you might suggest for this organisation. The project management improvement you suggest will be considered the ‘consulting project’.

The current project focuses on selecting an entity to give consultancy in improving their current business procedures. A business function depicts the actual condition of the business in front of all the internal as well as external users of an entity. The motive of the business is to attract a large number of stakeholders to invest in the business to get the desired return as compare to the other business located in a similar industry (Baruch and Gregoriou,  2017, January). Improvement is essential in an entity as this will identify all the potential and weaknesses of the firm to beat all their competitors. Process improvement process act as a checker to tests the compatibility of the business against all the users of the market. Image and goodwill of the business concern will emerge in this process. The focus of the corporation is to deliver quality oriented services to all the users exists in the external market by ensuring the business survival for a longer period of time.

A Qatar airway has chosen for this assignment as some of the business operations of the business are requires in eliminating from the firm to maintain the dignity of the business in the industry (Gonenc and Scholtens, 2017). Qatar Airways had been enjoying tremendous advantages from fuel prices till recently dip in margins where it had to undertake significant services improvisations. With growing dominance of low-cost carriers, airlines as Qatar needed to offer much greater comfort and convenience to customers to attract them. Case of QA is complex hence has been analysed for understanding growing fear of losses that has led to the Company devise strategies for sustainability. Aviation and hospitality industry is a wide industry which includes a variety of firms offering the similar services as they all are giving tough flights to each other. Various competitive factors use by all the rivals in the market cover airfares, flexibility, schedule of the flight, airline services.

Qatar Airways is a fastest growing airline which maintains its dominance in the world in offering quality oriented airline services to all their customers. It is government Owner Company as the government of Qatar have major shares in this firm as they take all the major decisions of this entity. Headquarter hub of this airways is Hamad International airport with a fleet of over 180 aircrafts that give their services to over 150 destinations. An international destination of this airline includes Africa, South Asia, Middle East, North America, South America and Oceania (Böhm, Eggert and Thiesbrummel, 2017).

This airline has various subsidiaries which are interrelated with their main business of airline business includes Qatar Airways cargo, The Qatar Aircraft catering company, Qatar Airways Holidays, United Media International, Qatar duty-free, Qatar aviation services, Qatar Distribution company and Qatar executives. This shows that firm has adopted internal expansion as all their businesses are complementary in nature as the main business of airlines requires the services of all their subsidiaries (Gómez?Bezares, Przychodzen and Przychodzen, 2017). This entity has worked on two important criteria’s such as cost and quality as their motive is to reduce the overall costs by using the resources of their own which, in turn, minimises the cost of food outsourcing.

Challenges Faced by Qatar Airways

A Qatar airway is a brand name which shows their expensive airline service that is affordable only by rich people as the airline tickets are too high. The rationale behind selecting this organization is to suggest better ways for this entity to expand their target market by offering affordable pricing options as per the budgets of all the individuals. Services of this entity are very high but airfare at the same time reducing middle and lower class people who intend to use the services of this airline but they are not capable enough to afford the flight tickets. Revising of pricing patterns of all the fight ticket is essential for the business to get a large number of customers as against all the competitors operates in the same market (Padachi, Ramsurrun and Ramen, 2017).

The mindset of users differs from one person to another as they want quality oriented services in lower price which will consider by Qatar airways by identifying ways to cater the needs and higher expectations of all the customers. This action of the corporation will boost the financial performance of the concern as their revenues get increases due to increasing number of customers added to the consumer list of the firm. During festive days, a price of flight a ticket gets an increase which creates difficulty for the users to travel from one place to another. This problem faced by all the people will transform into one of the biggest opportunity by Qatar Airways to grab the attention of all the users who are in need of travelling to various places to meet their families (Buckley and Tian, 2017).

Services offer by the airline differs from economy to first and business class passengers as they pay to get luxurious services. Currently, Qatar Airways offer lounge services for all the first and business class passengers to get relief from a long duration flight at the airport itself. Extending this service for economy passengers will give the sustainable competitive advantage to an entity as they target economy consumers of all their competitors. Majority of customers of all the airlines are economy passengers as an individual migrate from their native place to other countries for employment purpose due to lack of jobs there in their own country (Ferri and Pedrini, 2017).

A Qatar airway has poor risks management approach as future uncertainty imposed on an entity is not tracked by an enterprise (Brindley ed., 2017). The current strategy of this airline chooses reactive approach rather than a proactive approach which, in turn, increases the burden on an entity. Reactive nature of strategy proves negative for the business in accomplishing all the desired aim and the objectives within a stipulated time. It is not beneficial for the business as this leads an entity towards the path of complexities imposed on the business concern.

A change plays an integral role in an entity as it consists dual advantages for the business that identifies the weakness of the firm and also improves the overall performance of the business enterprise (Cohen, Krishnamoorthy and Wright, 2017). Changes are part of the business enterprise which will increase and boost the overall earnings of the firm in the external environment. A change comes in two major forms such as internal change as well as external change. Internal change is controllable as an enterprise owner intentionally made changes into the organisation to overcome all the internal conflicts and problems. On contrary to this, an external change takes place in an entity is generally non-controllable as this will not in the hands of an individual (Hopkin, 2017). Such changes are an acquisition in the business in which one strong entity acquires another business to compensate the losses and debts of that firm.

Targeting a New Market Segment

Filling the weaknesses of an entity is beneficial for the business entity that helps in increasing the overall returns in a particular time period. A motive of the business is to cater the needs of all the users of the business whether internal or external customers. Employees are internal users of the firm which provides their services for the betterment of the business and external users are shareholders, investors who invest in the business to boost their earnings (Rugman and Verbeke, 2017). A wealth of the business portrays its image in the external entity to satisfy the higher expectations of the business entity.

A Qatar airline service reflects higher brand name which has the majority of customers belongs to a rich and upper class of the society. Different approaches to market segmentation will use by an entity to grab the attention of its majority of users. A target audience is expanded to the middle class and lower class customers to show social equality to get the response of all the society members of the entire world (Nan and Tanriverdi, 2017).

Consultation is essential for Qatar airlines to conduct swot analysis of their entire business processes to boost its desired sales and the revenues by eliminating all the weaknesses affecting the business of this airline. Consultants needed to explore more varied and complex possibilities that can create sustainability for the organisation as digital marketing. Whole initiative has to be focussed on deriving synergies in complex industrial structure for brand extension.   

Basic weaknesses lie in the pricing strategies adopted by the firm is to target high-class people as even the economy airfares of this airline is very high. Services offered by this airline is amazing but they are also charging higher prices for the services they offer to all the customers. It can say that quantity and quality of all the services of Qatar airline is positively correlated with the prices of the flight tickets. Higher the price of the ticket, better will be the services offer by an entity to please its customers. Extending this service to the middle class and lower class people in the standard airfare will create additional opportunities for the firm to survive for the longest time in the external market (Bakker, 2017). This action of the business will attain all the competitive goals as compared to other rivals exists in the similar market.

Cost-plus pricing technique is currently in use by Qatar airline as higher margin includes in the airfares of different classes such as the economy, business and first class. Rich class people prefer to travel first class ether business class as they can afford to pay the higher prices of airfare but middle-class people do not afford to travel from one place to another even by purchasing economy tickets of the flights. Other airlines such as jet airways, Ryan air and British airways grabs most of the potential customers of this entity as Qatar Airways airfares are so high which cannot affordable for normal people for travelling purpose. Majority of the population of the developing countries like India is middle class and lower class people who migrate from one place to another for employment purpose cannot afford to purchase the tickets of Qatar Airways (Liu, J.,and et.al., 2017).

Process Improvement

This problem can resolve by Qatar airways by launching new scheme through which all the middle classes people and lower class people can purchase economy flights ticket to explore the services of this airline. Different class and budgets tickets offer by this airline will help Qatar airways in maintaining their dominance in the whole world by stealing the attention of most of the customers in the entire world (K?r?lmaz and Erol, 2017).

Completive advantage uses by this airline by decreasing all the charges for cancelling the flights as every airline charges fees for cancelling the flights which steal the attention of price-sensitive customers towards the business of Qatar Airways. There can be various possible negative outcomes emerging from gong mass-market, primarily costs driven. While retail strategy might sound attractive it involves spending large amounts of marketing endeavours towards extension of brand name to reach out to customers. In mass-marketing while the brand might be perceived highly by some, it might be not considered in good frame by others. This leads to complex and confused image regarding the brand. Hence, it is best to target specific segments at a time and then devise strategies accordingly.     

From a business perspective, Qatar Airways will launch a scheme under which all the members who purchase the membership plan at a specific charge can avail the benefit of no cancelling charges on the tickets for 1 year. In this way, the problem faced by a corporation transforms into the biggest opportunities (Chen and et. al., 2017). This launching of membership scheme plan is one of the important approaches of marketing that attracts different customers’ to purchase this plan as costs associated with this plan is lower than overall benefits an individual can avail by buying this particular plan.

Above mentioned pricing rates are for one way trip from Qatar to Singapore destination. The airfare offers by an entity in 5 options whose rate is increasing from one option to another (Chen, Ling and Giannakis, 2017). It is not affordable for an individual to purchase the return ticket from Qatar to Singapore as economy saver option is of 5990QAR is the very higher price for middle-class people. These rates are standard rates which slightly decrease for other destinations ravels by an entity. These rates of flights a ticket is higher as compared to other airlines services offer by other entity who located in the similar industry.

Revised pricing rates use by the airline to attract more customers towards their business (McQuigg and et.al., 2017). Competitive and cost-plus pricing method will adopt by an entity to grab the attention of most of its customers as their motive is to showcase the skills of the firm in marketing its products. A rate of the flight's tickets of an entity is an important weapon to steal the attention of all their customers as advertising of the business is not sufficient enough. Showing revised prices of all the airfares will catch the attention of the users as most of the price sensitive is eager to grab the offer as compared to other firms offering the similar kinds of services (Kamrani, Wali and Khattak, 2017).

These revised prices will catch the interest of the majority of customers towards the business of Qatar Airways as people think they can’t afford to travel in this airline. The action of the firm will promoters social equality by catering the needs of all kinds of customers whether middle class or higher and upper-class peoples who can afford the services offered by an entity.

A proactive approach is requiring an entity to know the strategies of all the competitors before crafting their own strategy. Novelty is required in every strategy develops by Qatar Airways to catch the attention of customers as similar strategies of the firm will not convert potential customers into the regular users of the business. Risks management approach is nothing but identifying all the prospective risks that may incur in an entity in the future (Qatar Airways reports profits up 21.7% in FY2017, 2017). Likelihood of all the risks is identified to compare the capability of the business as compared with all the competitors. The risks management approach will help in identifying all the technical as well as non-technical problems faced by an entity in the future. Prices of the competitive airlines also identify by the firm to set an appropriate price by considering all the factors.

Facts and figures about the prices of flights ticket are taken from the official website of Qatar Airways airline that is facing the problem of the lower target market. Financial performance of the firm will evaluate by analyzing the annual report of the business. Sales and the revenue of the firm are increasing from one period to another as customer’s loyalty generates higher earnings for the business concern. The motive of the business concern is to cater a variety of needs and objectives of all the customers of the business concern. An entity focuses on various aims and the objectives develop by the firm just to stay four longer time period in this entity. QA had been reporting profitability of 21.7% in FY2017 with profitability figures being net profit QAR 1.97 billion. This profits had been significantly higher to profits in FY2016 of QAR1.62 billion. Profit margins was 5% as compared to previous year’s of 4.5%.

The column chart is visual presentation tool used by an entity to portray the performance of the business in front of all the external market users. There is three variable shown in the above chart includes old rate, revised rate and % change from old airfare to the revised airfare. This figure shows that old rate is higher and revised Rate is lower which shows loss of an entity. But at the same time, loss of an entity will transform into higher customers base of the business. An entity tries to capture a large number of customers to beat all the competitors giving a tough fight to an entity by offering the similar kinds of products. Percentage change increases from one share to another show the big step of the firm to convince all the customers by offering similar services to all the economy as well as business class passengers. QA had undergone significant losses in the pasts, but with implementation of competitive strategies the Company had been rising in profitability figures. . Its financial statements reveals rise in profitability with increase in operating costs. With its rising profitability it also aims at purchasing 10% stake in American Airlines. The airline is expected to be less bountiful considering the economic blockade instituted by Qatar’s Persian Gulf neighbours.  

References

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Qatar Airways reports profits up 21.7% in FY2017, 2017. Available through: <https://atwonline.com/airline-financials/qatar-airways-reports-profits-217-fy2017> [Accessed on 1^st December 2017].