Business Environment Analysis Of Emirates Airlines In An Essay. (70 Characters)

Emirates Airlines Overview

The business environment denotes the situations, trends and factors that influence the performance, services and production of a company. There are multiple aspects of the business environment that directly or indirectly impacts the business overall. The business environment covers a number of elements like the customers, suppliers, competitors, social political, technological, legal and environmental factors (Vlados and Chatzinikolaou2019). At the same time, the existing business entities can face challenges if they fail to address these changes in their management and operations (Akpoviroro and Owotutu 2018). The business environment analysis is the part of research and development on the basis of which the business strategies are developed. This report concerns with the business environment analysis of the Emirates Airlines in the UAE. Different approaches for the micro and macro business environments are discussed and applied in the case of Emirates.

Emirates is one of the oldest and most popular airlines in the middle East that is operating in more than 80 countries through 155 airports (emirates.com 2021). The company is the largest among the UAE airlines. The airlines are based in Dubai and is the subsidiary of The Emirates Group. The company CEO is Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum since 1985. The world-wide data states that Emirates is the second largest airline on the basis of the freight Tonne Kilometres flown and the furth markets airlines on the basis of the revenue for passengerkilometre flown. The company has been in profit for constant 30 years, but the report of 2020- 2021 shows a drop in the revenue because of the COVID 19 situation worldwide (reuters.com 2021). The mission, vision and objective of the company is stated as below-

The company mission is the process that is associated with the philosophies of the company and narrates the values. The mission of a company gives it the scope to narrow down their objectives and direct their endeavours towards the positive outcomes. According to the company website, the mission of the company is to deliver the best services in the airlines industry (emirates.com 2021). In order to achieve this mission that company works with their objectives and strategy development aspects. In addition to that, the company has the mission of expanding their network to different countries and working in their networking system. The quality of the services is at the base of the company mission and they are aimed to become the market leaders in the airlines industry worldwide. The Emirates has gained success in becoming the prime name in the airlines industry. Their mission of becoming the market leader in the UAE has been achieved to certain extend.

The vision is the statement of the future actions that the company intends to have in coming years through effective strategy building. The sustainability is one of the important visions that the company has designed for their coming ventures. The airlines also want to have a profitable business growth in the international market. The company visions states that the airlines want to serve their customers with quality services, sustainable busines practices and long- term relationship building (cdn.ek.aero,2020). The focus of the company vision is customer oriented, employee focus, environmental value on the economic values.

Mission, Vision, and Objectives

The company annual reports state the problems that the company is facing and wants to solve through their strategy development. The first problems or issue of the company is lack of substitute markets in the UAE. The company is looking for the substitute markets in the international platforms for expanding their business. Other issue that is base for the company vision statement is the financial losses. The company has reported loss for the first time in past 30 years (reuters.com 2021). The financial loss is creating challenges for the company operations and therefore, the company vision is directed to get the profit numbers increased in next few years.

The company objective of Emirates is divided in two different sections. The first objective concerns with the sustainable profit making, the other objective is related to the retention and maintenance of the employees and customer’s base. The loss that the company has encountered in the year 2020 is to be recovered in coming years. The financial profit gaining, and sustainable service providence is the basic objective of the company for coming years.

Different approaches to understanding the macro and micro environments for business

The analysis of the business environment for a company could be done using the tools like PESTLE, Porter’s Five Force, SWOT, COSMIC and many more. The study has been done using these tools effectively in the case of Emirates Airlines. For the Macro analysis, the PESTLE analysis tool has been implemented. On the other hand, for the micro environmental analysis, SWOT and COSMIC analysis has been done for this study.

 

Figure 1: PESTLE analysis for Emirates Airlines

(Source: created by the author)

PESTLE Analysis

Political factors are the part of the macro environment that impacts the business from the outside of the company. The political factors are associated with the governmental regulations, policies and laws (Cunninghamand O’Reilly2018). The political factors that can impact the business of Emirates in the global context are the Political Party believes and the taxation process.

The Emirates has its operations in different countries that believe in different political overviews. For example, in country like China, the communist political views prevail. in order to work in these countries, the airlines have been aware of the participation and interference factors of the government effectively. On the other hand, in the country like USA, the government interference is quite low and manageable through legal aspects (Wirtz and Daiser 2017). Having a political upheaval could affect the profit making for the company at large scale.

The next factor in the political aspects is the different taxation process. While operating in the international platforms the airlines like Emirates has to understand and work with different taxation process. The duty taxes amount could cast impact on the business profits. Therefore, it is necessary for the airlines to understand the taxation structures of the country before making any crucial decisions.

The global organisations must face challenges because of the economic conditions the country is going through. The economic factors that can affect the business environment of the Emirates are the global recessions and price of the fuel (Kristensen and Mosgaard 2020).

Challenges Faced by Emirates Airlines

The global recession is one of the major issues that impacts the business of Emirates. The pandemic has created a situation of global economic break down. Companies are finding too difficult to make profit in between the social distancing and international border restrictions. The airlines services like Emirates are deeply affected by this economic issue.

The next is the price difference of fuels in the international markets. The Emirates profit margins are influenced by the fuel prices. The big leap in the fuel prices in the intentional market’s has created a problem in the case of Emirates. The profit margins are dropping in the countries that does not have substantial fuel pricing standards.

Socio- cultural factors are the major influences in the customer decision making and service strategies. The social standards of the customers are decided by the economic conditions, education, cultural aspects and other belief systems (Alfaro 2017). The lack of understanding of these factors actually creates problems in the business opportunity grabbing. It is necessary for the airlines companies to work in understanding the demand of services and rise in economic status.

The Emirates has to faced issues in the developing countries regarding the low spending power of the customers. This has led to design low cost services for a certain section of the consumers and service receivers. The profit margins also decrease because of this lower spending power of the target audiences.

The next socio- cultural aspect is the cultural taste gaps. The business designs for the consumers of western country needs to be different than the Asian customers. The airlines have to make some difference in their services in order to maintain the cultural preferences of all these country consumers.

The problems in the technological infrastructure could cause stress for the airlines to be operated. In the airlines sectors, the two sub factors of the technological factors, that can influence the business the most are- innovative approaches for better business scope and the negative impact of the data breaches of company reputation (Baveye et al. 2018).

Emirates Airlines has to work with their technological improvements and implementations so that they can increase their productivity. The technologies like automation, virtual reality and the workforce management websites helps the company to reduce their working hassles, costs and waiting time. Availability of these technologies are necessary for providing effective services to the customers.

The negative aspects of the technological implementation lie in the data security, cybercrime and data breach aspects. The Emirates Airlines could find it difficult to maintain their service quality without addressing the security issues in the digital mediums.

The legal factors important for the operations of Emirates are Consumer service laws and the foreign trade opportunities. The consumers laws are stricter in the countries like UAA and UK than the Asian countries (Cortellazzo, Bruni and Zampieri 2019). The airlines have to comply with different consumers laws according to the country needs.

The challenges in the critical and complicated foreign trading aspects and laws can reduce the productivity of the airlines. The instructions and guidelines for the foreign country airlines operations are set according to the foreign trade policies. Understanding these laws are crucial for the Emirates airlines in their performance management.

Business Environment Analysis

The environmental factors that can impact Emirates Airways are the sustainability issues and the CSR strategies of the company. Emirates in working for developing sustainable business practices at their exposure. The recycled products for waste reduction and controlling environmental impacts for better planet is the part of the environmental factor of the organisation.

The Emirates Airlines has started investing in the conservation and eco- tourism projects. These are the parts of the CSR strategies of the company. Investing in the sustainable and long-term business aspects the company is trying to achieve higher environmental goals in future times.

The micro environment analysis could be done using the tools like SWOT and COSMIC.

COSMIC Analysis

The customers in the service sector plays the most crucial role in the business environment setting. The companies that take care of the expectation of their target customers tend to achieve higher profits and competitive edge (Kohtamäki et al. 2019). Emirates has a satisfied customer base in UAE. Along with that in the Asian market, the company has their customers in the European markets as well. The target customers of the airlines are the business travellers, tourists, budget conscious travellers, travellers living in foreign lands and also the travellers with special needs. The customers are apparently less in the USA. The airline target customers are socially middle to high class people with steady income, who would travel to different places with minimum time and want to have a premium, personalised and customised services during the air travel. The business travellers are the most frequent customers, while the people travelling for family vacation or the tourists are comparatively less in their travel frequency. The business travellers prefer to get discounts in most of the cases as they travel more. While, the other high -end segments contribute in company profit by spending more to get hassle free premium airway experiences.

The internal environment analysis of the organisation is needed to understand the potential of the brand to operate in the target markets. The study of Kramer and Kramer, (2020), suggests that the organisations must understand their resources, internal structure and strength and weakness. In order to understand that the company must analyse its power equations, employee strengths and overall administrative structures. The Emirates has a sorted organisational structure that is based on the hierarchical structure. At the same time, this airline has one of the largest employee numbers in the UAE airlines industry. These are the strengths of the company that contributes in its long-term success.

Market is the scope and opportunity provider for a company and effects the growth of the company. The size of the market demand, customers buying behaviours, potential for company growth and present trends- all of these influences the cost structures, price sensitivity and distribution system. Emirates Airlines has proved its efficiency in market penetration for the UAE markets. There are scopes for better market understanding in the countries like USA and other Western countries. The UAE markets contributes positively as they the company is culturally akin and well versed in their strategies there. The western market has a negative impact on the company business as the cultural gap creates problems.

PESTLE Analysis

The intermediaries in the case of airlines are the facilitators that contributes in the effective purchase process. The intermediaries in the modern times are the companies who sell tickets to the customers and make profit for the company. The agencies contribute positively in the company business by increasing their sales. At the same time, if the partnerships do not work well, the company might suffer as the customers assignments will be passed to the competitors. The partnerships with the local agencies and airlines can also impact the business of Emirates. The airlines need to develop strategies that would help them to perform better in the intermediary aspects in the countries having scope for expansion.

The main competitors of Emirates the big names in the airlines industry like Etihad Airways, British Airways, Singapore Airlines, Qatar Airways and Qantas Airways. The Emirates need to be aware of the performance, strategies and position of its competitors. Increased competition decreases the chance to growth through market share. If the competitors are strong in a specific place or aspect, it becomes hard for Emirates to enter that market or business unit. This has negative effect on the Emirates business.

The long- term relations with the suppliers needed for the company success in the airlines industry. The products and supplies needed for the aircraft maintenance are high end. Quality of these equipment could not be compromised for the safety of the consumers. The suppliers of the airways are the wide- body aircraft manufacturers, the food suppliers, logistics suppliers and many more. The company has been able to establish their long-term relationship with some of the popular suppliers in the different countries to maintain the balance between the supply cost and quality. These suppliers contribute a major share in company reputation by ensuring quality services, lower the risks and glitch free airway operations.

Strengths · Strong Brand equity · Effective support from the Government to the airline · Hugh customer satisfaction · Expert and huge workforce	Weaknesses · Intense competitive markets · Difficulty is operating in foreign markets like USA · Lower target customer base · Accidents and negative incidents
Opportunities · International markets are ready to be explored · The company can attempt for joint ventures to reduce risks and increase outcomes · Market opportunities for the middle-class customers.	Threats · Foreign country regulations are getting stricter · The fuel costs have increased · The market competition has increased

Table 1: SWOT Analysis of Emirates

(Source: Created by the author)

Reviewing business resources and external factors and trends to identify where business performances could be positively or negatively affected

Financial Resources

 

Figure2: Financial Overview of Emirates

(Source: Annual report, Emirates)

As seen in the above figure, the assets and financial resources of Emirates are one of the major strengths of the company. The world-wide business of the company has helped the company to develop a sustainable financial resource base. The investors of the company are big names of UAE as well as the company gets huge amount of financial help from the government of UAE. The company also gets financial rebates in their business activities from the UAE government.

The strong financial resources of the company influence the positive outcome for the company operations. This helps the company to grab the opportunities of the market without much problems. The support that the airlines gets from the government also boosts the possibility of getting required investors for the company. The use of the financial resources in international growth and technological implementation can increase its potentiality in the global markets (Baveye et al. 2018). If the company plans to increase their ventures through introducing services for the middle -class passengers, the revenue streams can be extended and diversified. The financial resources of the airline can be used for coping up with the weakness like less target market and operations. Through the effective planning of the financial resources the airline can expand their ventures in the countries which it has not explored yet.

The Emirates is known for their skilled and trained human resources that contributes significantly in their business development. As per the company report, total number of employees of the company in the year 2019-20 was 105,730 (cdn.ek.aero 2020). The Emirates Airlines employees are trained for serving their customers with full satisfaction. They have direct interaction with the customers and their behavioural aspects creates the brand impression in the travellers. Also, the employees are strength of the airways as the operations are hugely depended on the performance of the employees. The company takes special care for their employees in the company. The COVID 19 has created the situation in which the employees were going through stress and uncertain times.

The Human resources can have both the positive and negative impact on the company performances as per their skill sets and capabilities. Firstly, the Emirates employees are chosen from the finest talents who have the capability of learning and applying knowledge to the airline’s operations. They are one of the importance resources of the company who contribute positively in different functional and operational units of the company.

At the same time, lack of skills, long term relations and employee- employers communication can have a negative impact on the company. For example, as the Emirates employees are not satisfied with the wage and benefits, they are receiving and this has created negative impact on the business reputation (businessinsider.com 2018). Again, the stress and uncertainty of the employees are causing employee burnout in recent Emirates condition. This reduced the performance capability of the airline.

The Emirates maintain their patent and intellectual properties effectively to avoid any unwanted interference of the competition. The legalities associated with the assets and patents of technological inventions are well saved through the intellectual property laws of UAE.

The intellectual property preservation is necessary for the company welfare. Emirates gets to be known for turning their intangible knowledge base into tangible ones. This creates the opportunity for the airlines to perform with better scope in the industry without much negative interference.

The protection of the IP rights can be instrumental in attracting the investors (Belas et al. 2018). Emirates is well- aware about the advantages they can get through innovation and IP rights preservation. The company invests in maintaining their intangible resources along with the tangible ones.

Political Factors

According to the study of Gao et al. (2017), the political factors have a direct influence on the company performance that might not be easily visible all the time. It is seen that Emirates has a better business in countries of UAE than the other countries it operates. One of the explanations for such performance is that the political agencies of the UAE are favourable for the operations of Emirates more than any other country political parties. The political upheaval has negative impact on the airlines as the policy making process gets complicated with it (Hrechyshkina and Samakhavets 2019). The political stability contributes in overall development of the companies in a long-term basis.

Emirates enjoys the benefit of political stability in the countries like UAE or USA. But the political environment of the developing countries can cause substantial loss and add to the risk factors. For example, the changes in the regulations for the international flights can impact the company negatively.

The taxation process of some countries is complicated and are not quite favourable for the foreign country investors. The higher taxes of the country effect the profit margins and overhead margin of Emirates. Other than that, the regulations regarding environment sustainability, social responsibilities and social laws impacts the business outcome and conditions in a country.

 

Figure 3: global economy impacted by the pandemic

(Source: reuters.com, 2021)

The above figures show how the global economy has been impacted by the pandemic in recent times. The fall in the economy has a negative influence in the performance of the Emirates Airlines. The recessions cause low per capita income and therefore, less spending power of the customers. Hence, the economic growth is essential for the airlines industry to grow.

The Emirates has not been able to manage their economic resources effectively. Therefore, it has affected the company business negatively. At the time of pandemic, the company faced challenges to explore the opportunities in international airways. The various countries economy has collapsed and the restrictions in the country border has reduced the number of flights in the international airways. The financial resources of Emirates can be used to increase the public awareness about the safety measures so that they feel safe in using company services (Blain 2017).

The socio- cultural factors like belief systems, values and customer preferences play crucial role in the product development and marketing aspects.  The understanding of socio- cultural contexts helps a company to overcome their challenges in people management. As well as customer management aspects are also managed through the socio- cultural understanding.

The customers spending power has increased in last few decades. Therefore, the airlines industry is being able to introduce new services and increase their profits from a varied socio- cultural customers group.

Changes in socio- economic aspects impacts the company performance in both positive or negative manner. The changes in the spending capabilities has influenced the Emirates positively as the company could now design the services that are costly and for the premium customers. This section is profitable for the company and their future ventures.

Emirates has to develop their business marketing in a way that compliments the socio- cultural aspects understanding helps the company to perform in favour of market trends and customer demands (Yun and Liu 2019). Hence, it has a positive impact on the company performance.

Technological factors concern with the technological innovation that influences the business outcomes. The research and development are at the base of the technological innovations. Application of these technologies in Emirates are done in their operations automation, performance enhancement and customers services. Lack of technological implementation in the airlines can increase the threat of competitive disadvantages.

Technological innovations instigate the possibilities for the airlines to grab the opportunities and overcome their market risks. The automation, AI, workforce management software and IT caters the need of business communication and performance enhancement (Belas et al. 2017). The innovative technological advancement in a country can impact positively in the fast and effective service delivery in competitive markets.

Technological applications through digitization and automation works positively for the company’s competitive status. For example, in Emirates, the technological innovations in AI has helped it to become the highest grossing airlines in UAE. This has enhanced the efficiency of the Emirates operations and reduced the threats of substitution by the new entrants (Cherunilam 2021).

Legal factors associated with Emirates are the Taxation process and the foreign trade regulations in the different countries. The pandemic has influenced the legal aspects as well. The COVID 19 situation has definitely impacted the business negatively. Most of the countries in the world has more or less same guidelines for the COVID 19 safety services. In order to manage this crisis, the company has taken care of the safety guidelines and this is the cause that they get the permit to operate in the international markets as soon as the pandemic restrictions were reduced.

The legal restrictions can decrease the company sales and therefore has a negative impact on business growth. On the other hand, favourable legal conditions can improve the company performance by giving necessary protection from fraud or security issues. The international border seal after the pandemic has caused complications in the flying conditions. Emirates like all other airways has to suffer the negative impact of the pandemic legal restrictions.

On the other hand, laws like consumers laws, employment laws, and trade laws helps the company to get the guideline for their business performance (Cortellazzo, Bruni and Zampieri 2019). As Emirates operates in international markets. Hence, these laws cast a deep impact in the policy making of the company and its success in different countries.

People all over the world are aware of the climate change and environmental impact of the business world. The ideas of sustainability are gaining popularity among common population and they are showing ineptest in choosing the brand that are sustainable.

The business sustainability is the process of making the environmental impact limited caused by a company. Airways industry worldwide has moderate impact on environment and therefore, it is necessary to improve the condition even more through new strategies.

The corporate social responsibilities of a company create the opportunity for the long-term business, growth in market share as well as welfare of the community and people. Therefore, the impact of the sustainability and CSR strategies that the Emirates has adopted, is positive on their business performance (Cooper et al. 2017). The Emirates Airline Foundation is a non- profit organisation that works for community welfare. Communicating these activities with the target audience, the company has used its resources to increase brand equity, popularity and competitive aspects.

Frictionless Travelling

People are attracted to the new things more than the traditional ones. The use of bio metrics in passenger services and airlines processing is becoming popular in the industry. The use of finger prints, retina scanning and facial recognition are in trend in the airlines industry (Cunningham and O’Reilly 2018). The impact of this trend could have positive impact on the business of Emirates as this will reduce the manual labour costs in the process of security, check ins and boarding.

This trend of frictionless travelling has caused the airlines with extra costs to maintain. But long run, the steps are gong to be proved profitable for the company. For example, as the company implemented the technology for automation of customers experiences, tis will cut the employee costs of the company. Again, people will choose this airline over the competitors who are not equipped with these travelling tools.

The airlines in USA and UK has started to invest in re- defining the customer experiences. The use of the modern technology is customer experience building is immense. The Emirates is facing competition from the new airlines in the market who are adopting personalised navigation at the airports. At the same time, the customers are conscious about their safety and hygiene matters while travelling through the air flights.

Internet of Things could be used for the tracking of the baggage, increasing process transparency and reliability factors. Companies that do not have the capability to implement customer-based services could have a negative outcome in coming years (Dijkstra 2017). Emirates has implemented the changes that are in trends for their customers, therefore have been positively influenced. The financial strength of the company and reputational aspects has helped the company to perform well after the pandemic safety regulations.

The airlines sector has witnessed the change in strategies in the company operations for coping with the pandemic situations many companies has adopted new work cultures, trained their employees and started a new business unit that would ensure their profit-making aspects in the pandemic situation (Cherunilam 2021). The airlines that work in the passenger flights has tried to shift in the cargo freight section. Emirates is no exception in these matters they have increased their cargo operations after the pandemic hit the world.

The shift to the cargo operations the major business unit has helped the airline to fight the odds of pandemic to certain extend. Emirates was able to deliver some of their services effectively through the pandemic-based changes in the operations. Along with that the company was able to explore the opportunities that it has in the differentiated business unit. The only weakness in this context was the lack of skill among the employees. The company has to train their employees to cope with the cargo operations as all of them were not skilled for the cargo operations.

Recommended Responses to External Factors and Trends 

Expanding business for the middle-class sectors is the need for the company to avoid their market competitions. As the core competition has increased in recent years many companies will try to capture the market share through customer diversification. In this aspect, the company needs to expand their ventures in the countries that have political stability and less legal complications. The diversity of the market could be explored by the company through entering the new markets. The legal restrictions and responsibilities needed to be evaluated before entering these markets. Overall, these evaluations will help Emirates to overcome the external environmental challenges.

As in the technological factor issues, the company has to implement the new technologies like AI, virtual reality and augmented reality. For example, Qatar Airways has introduced zero- touch technology in their flight Entertainment Technology that has attracted the customers rapidly after the pandemic. This will add to the customer experiences. The Emirates Airways has faced loss recently because of the pandemic. Therefore, they can use the technological innovations to cut the cost and increase the profit margins.

This is major external environmental economic impact causing loss for the company. This is the case for all the major airways in UAE, and most of these airways has extended their customers base with diversified segments. It is recommended for the company to understand the economic conditions of the target customers and position their services accordingly. The changes in the positioning strategy will improve the customer market possibilities. Along with the premium customers, the company must try to enter in the economic class consumers.

While social and cultural factors can have positive impact on the company performances, the understanding of these factors can also increase their internal strength. The company must try to improve their employee’s satisfaction level through analysis of their social and economic needs. Wage controversy of the company has been degrading for their reputation (businessinsider.com 2018). The company must try to evaluate the needs of the employees as the part of the social construct. Most of the employees are stressed for the inconvenience of the sector performance.

Environmental sustainability is going to be a major influencer for the investors. In present times, the investors are putting their money on the companies that have higher environmental score. Emirates has the scope for improving their environmental scores through the research and development for sustainable operations. Use of the bio- diesel fuels could be an effective way to do the same. The company could highlight the social responsibility to the customers. The responsible resourcing practices could decrease the company costs as well as the increase their environment score.

Application of automation technology is one of the major requirements for the company to keep with the trends. The Emirates Airlines would get better results in their data analysis and business strategy building aspects if they use AI technology in their business. The monitoring of the competitors’ strategy, employee performance and customer behavioural patterns could be done through these technological implementations.

The company must try to increase the personalised services for the customers. In order to implement customer experiences, the automation, biometrics and robotics could be applied. The personalised services need to be evaluated on the basis of the individual need of the customer. The company can conduct regular feedback survey among their users about what new they want in their flights and what they think of the new changes. The scope for giving their own opinion will not only increase the customer engagement but also help the company develop the services that are time effective for the modern times.

Pandemic based changes in the operations are implemented, but the company must improve their service in the customers sections. After the pandemic it is recommended to the company to concentrate on the leisure travellers. As most of the organisations has introduced the work from home structure and online meetings for their deals, the business travellers will be limited in next few years. The concentration of the leisure travellers will outpace the recovery of the company profits.

Identifying and Prioritising organisational changes to business that would counteract negative or support positive business environmental factors and trends

Change 1: COVID 19 Management Changes

 

Emirates Airlines has taken the impact of COVID 19 on their business quite seriously. The pandemic has the impact on the service industry in all over the world. In response to the pandemic situation, the airlines first made sure that the customers rights and satisfaction is maintained (Zhang 2021). After the outbreak of the pandemic, the company developed their ticket refund policies for their customers who were unable to travel due to the border restrictions. This has a positive impact on the customers as the integrity and ethical aspect of the company was apparent in this process. The external environmental factors of political and environment factor, along with the legal factors impacted the change in the Emirates.

On the other hand, the refunding of a huge amount of tickets for the customers has caused loss in business. The negative impact on the financial aspects were seen as the company revenue fall rapidly during the pandemic times.

The changes that the company made after the pandemic impact was reduced caused positive outcome in their business trends (Blain 2017.). One site rapid test, automation, biometrics, social distancing policies- all of these are the part of the present airlines service trends after the pandemic. Therefore, the rapid response of the company to the safety protocols has impacted positively to the existing industry trends.

Most of the people in the world are in favour of the sustainability trends. The organisations that have adopted effective CSR and sustainable business practices. This was necessary to cope with the changes that was apparent in the extremal environment. The socio- cultural aspects of the customers influence their decision making (Dijkstra 2017). At the same time, the environmental issues are causing problems for the human civilisation. The company took decision of operating their flights powered by the SAF or the sustainable aviation fuel. Another critical step of the company was to develop the polices for managing the food waste. The CSR factors of the company got a boost through the support they provided in wild life conservation.

The change has a positive impact in the company image building. Other than that, using the SAF caters the sustainability goals of the company. The environmental factors that can impact the resources for the company was well maintained and managed through this process. There are no apparent negative impact of the sustainable measures and changes that the company has taken. In the market trends, the Emirates’ strategies for sustainable business operations and fulfilling their corporate responsibilities has positive outcomes. People of the company are being trained regarding the importance of sustainability in business. The brand image is rectified and the sustainability aspects improves the performance of the company.

Change 3: Scaling Up the Cargo Services

 

The pandemic situation has almost stopped the passenger services in the Emirates after the pandemic scenarios. The organisation the decided to shift their business ventures to the cargo services. During the year 202- 2021, the company rapidly built their cargo services and operations. They built the networks for the cargo services so that the loss faced in the passenger fleet section could be managed to some extent. The SkyCargo of Emirates added 19 mini freights using the 777-300ER (emirates.com, 2021). They have also changed their cargo shipping and operational strategies so that the safety protocols are maintained.

The environmental factors that was involved in the decision was economic factors and the market demands. The customers base of the cargo freights is different than the passenger freights. The micro environmental factors relevant for this change were the customers and supplier’s base (Yang et al.2017). The company focused on the pharma transport as the market demand for the medicines were high. This change has a positive impact on the economic factors effecting the business at this time.

The challenges that the company faced during the change application in their system was the lack of human resources and higher cost for the buying of equipment and supplies. The negative impact of the change was that, the company has to invest in the modification of the passenger freights in to cargo fights. At the time of pandemic when the company revenues were running low, the most of these costs were quite problematic for the company. At the same time, the company has to do some terminations in their organisation to maintain their business operational costs.

As the pandemic situation needed a rapid and effective solution for the profit making, the decision of the Emirates to scale up their cargo services was quite reasonable. The trend of coping with changed market condition was apparent in the airlines along with all other sectors. The change in the business focus has helped the company to carry on their business operations. Hence, it can be said that the shift to the cargo operations has a positive impact in the trends of the industry.

The business environmental factors and trends are the major influencers in the business performance and decision making. The organisations make their plans to sustain the market challenges and grab the opportunities with their full potential. Using the resources in effective manner, managing the issues in external world and creating opportunities for the future business scopes- all these can be possible through the competent response to the business environment (Cortellazzo, Bruniand Zampieri2019). The macro and micro business analysis for the Emirates shows that both internal and external factors are working behind the market trends and demands. The pandemic has reduced the demand of the passenger flights and increased the demand for the cargo supplies. At the same time, the context of sustainability has increased after the pandemic. People has become more aware of the need of environmental positive business, community building and wildlife reservations. The airlines industry has become more technologically equipped. The companies that develop the customer based personalise service tend to survive the industry competitions.

The pandemic has created an unavoidable situation for the airlines and other hospitality sectors. The influence of the COVID 19 could be seen in the economic, socio- cultural and political factors of the business market (Foo et al. 2020). The countries in which Emirates operates have their set of guidelines and regulations for managing pandemic situations. After the airlines was operational, the Emirates started developing their COVID 19 policies to manage the political and economic aspects. The changes in the operations that are made during the pandemic contributes positively in these two factors. The international flights are bound to comply with the COVID 19 protocols. The company response was to train their employees and revise the behavioural guidelines for both the customers and the employees. In order to increase the positive impact, the company has started to use the automation technology in their boarding, check ins and security aspects. Along with that the community welfare services for COVID 19 support building trends has been the part of Emirates positive response to the CSR needs.

The sustainable business measures have impacted positively to the business. The outcome of the sustainable measures will be long term. The eco- friendly business model that the Emirates has adopted in the resource usage and wild life preservation actions, created positive brand image for the airlines. Due to respond to the environmental needs the company has also developed the recycling process for their flight seats and other aspects. The consumers who are aware of the sustainability needs likes to put their money in a company that is environmentally conscious. They prefer Emirates as a sustainable option while travelling over other competitors. This has contributed in the positive impacts on company performance regarding the environmental factors.

The scaling up of the cargo services is the part of the adoptive measures taken by the company to cope up with market challenges. The macro analysis of the company shows that the pandemic has impacted airlines profit making. The company has faced loss for the first time in the financial year 2020- 2021. In order to manage the economic environmental factors, the decision of increasing cargo services was effective. The demand of the cargo services caused positive outcomes in the financial aspects for the company. At the same time, the technological implementation in the management of inventories and workforce management shows the positive management of the market trends. The technology has increased the efficiency of the service and decreased the waiting time and service costs.

Evaluation of the role of management in responding to a changing business environment

Emirates Airlines has a hierarchical structure for their business operations. The prime minister of the UAE, Sheikh Mohammad Bin Raashid Al Maktoum is the vice president of the airlines. The president of the airlines is Sir Tim Clark. The departments in the organisation are divided in different units. The main managerial tasks are divided between the leaders having post of Chief Operating Officer, Chief Commercial Officer, executive vice president of human resources, facilities and Project Management Officer and executive Vice president. These people are also in the board of directors for Emirates (cdn.ek.aero 2020). The airline follows the centralised power structure where most of the important decisions are taken by the higher authority. The CEO and board of directors have measured the need of different stages in managing the pandemic.

How the Company management Implemented the Change

The management of the Emirates Airlines is hugely depended on the CEO of the company. The managers have a significant role in managing the change and working for effective outcomes. The leaders have the responsibility to provide positive environment to the employees in order to cope up with the change (RIZAN et al. 2020). In the time of pandemic, the CEO of the company took the critical decision for managing the impact of pandemic. This does not only concern with the post lockdown phase, but the pre- lockdown and present times is also included.

The change implementation was done in three stages- market research, change implementation and evaluation. The change in the external environment caused by the pandemic directed in overall behavioural change requirement for the employee of the organisation. The changes in the polices reading the pandemic is also include in the process.

The forces of change in this project was the COVID situation, lack of consumers, governmental restrictions, border restrictions and customer awareness building.

The first is the policy development for the employees and the customers. The second execution of the policy guidelines. Third is the feedbacks and outcome evaluation in respect to the objectives. On the other hand, in order to control the change, the company leaders have regularly communicated with the employees and managers regarding the positive outcomes.

The changes company policies were communicated with the stakeholders. Again, charge of the successful pandemic policy development was given to the operations manager under the supervisions of executive vice president of the service department.

The responsibility of the change was assigned to the managers in each departmental segment. The pandemic management plan was mostly executed by the finance, operations and marketing department. While the budgeting of the operations was the responsibility of the finance department, the operations leaders managed to have an effective plan. The marketing manager of the company worked for developing the content that will attract the attention of the customers (cdn.ek.aero 2020). Gaining back the trust of the consumers after pandemic was the primary aim of this department management.

Emirates has worked in their management decision making effectively to overcome the pandemic crisis. The below mentioned strategies has been taken by the company to overcome the challenges in this change.

The airline was well aware of the changes and the trends that the aviation industry is going to face after the pandemic. The company has organised the training sessions for the employees regarding the new challenges in the services and how they need to improve their behavioural aspects on the basis of the pandemic regulations. the training and support system were established with the organisational set up to improve the internal strength. The management focused on the levelling up their internal resources so that they can stand strong to the inevitable external influences of COVID 19.

The understanding of the reason of conflict prepares the individual for the challenges that the conflict might raise (Suau-Sanchez, Voltes-Dorta and Cugueró-Escofet 2020). The roadblocks in the management of this change are the lack of knowledge and execution experiences. The mangers of the company have certain autonomy to decide what is good for the company needs (Varma 2021). The analysis of the market has been done from the pandemic perspectives. The change was implemented with the help of the three-step process. The gradual development and effective communication with the teams has enabled the company to overcome the obstacles.

Therefore, this can be stated that the company management has been more or less successful in managing the pandemic aftermaths. Though there are scopes for improvement in the operations and functioning in this aspect. The company management has invested less time in the technology improvement for the internal strength development. Communication between the departments could be improved.

The pros of the change strategy taken by the management is that it contributed in enhancing the company profit margins. The management of Emirates has been able to manage the pandemic issues through shifting their concentration on the cargo flights. The cons of the management action are that the cost for employee training and operational changes. At the time of financial crisis caused by the pandemic, the changes in the company operations has been an extra burden for the company. It is expected that the actions of the management would bring success in long term for Emirates.

How Company Management Implemented the Change

The management is responsible for any critical decision making. Changes in the sustainability measures is influenced by the decisions of the managers. The employees get require support from the managers in order to invest in the company sustainability issues (Karim et al. 2020). CEO of the company is at the heart of the operations. In order to increase the sustainability measures, the leaders of the organisation trained the new employees. This has contributed in interpersonal relation building. The planning for the SAF aircrafts started after the pandemic situation, other than that the company has been the part of wild life conservation for long years. The managers are the support developers for the company.

The sustainability measures that the company takes are associated with company reputation and well -being. Emirates has been associated with recycling, resource management and wild life preservation. The changes in the business environment is apparent in all sectors and industries. Therefore, it is necessary for the organisations to analyse the changing aspects of the business environment to establish a successful business venture.

The forces to change in this aspect are the enhancement of brand reputation, organisational needs, stakeholder management and corporate social responsibility. The fall in company sells also directed to the change in sustainability context.

The plan for sustainability was to concentrate on the environmental well- being, the recycling process, wild life preservation projects.

The CEO is at the highest positive of the hierarchy. The board of directors has passed the plan for sustainability and managers and leaders of the organisation has executed the change in the process. The communication within the company is done using the online channels as well as offline mediums.

Effectiveness of the Change Management

The steps taken by company management is using SAF or the sustainable aviation fuel. Another critical step of the company was to develop the polices for managing the food waste. The CSR factors of the company got a boost through the support they provided in wild life conservation. In order to avoid the roadblocks, the managers have worked on the accountability allocations. The Emirates management realised that the sustainability requirements are to be communicated among the employees so that they do not feel challenged for the new policies Suau-Sanchez, Voltes-Dorta and Cugueró-Escofet 2020.

The company has not been able to completely succeed in their sustainability plan. The wild life preservation and food waste management are the long- term process. In order to attend the sustainability changes in the organisation, the management have to arrange more work shops to let the employees and departmental units know about the importance of sustainability. Therefore, tis can be concluded that there are more chances for the managers to improve their change management process in sustainability.

Sustainability implementation for company well and social welfare is a crucial decision taken by the company management. With these long -term plans for developing better community, environment and workplace environment, the company leaders has certainly done a good job in past few years.

The change management in the sustainability aspects has been done effectively by the leaders. It is because of the sustainable developmental plans that the company leaders have been able to be recognised as the environment friendly entity. The responsible business practice of the company leaders has added to the process of effective sustainability in the organisation. The management decision of sustainability also adds to the reputation enhancement.

The only problem with the action of the management is this aspect is that there is lack of alignment of the company objective with the sustainability measures. The company has to work with their strategy integration in implementing sustainable practices more effectively.

Changes made:

The decision for the scaling up the cargo services has been taken by the Chief commercial officer. The management has communicated the change in the passenger flights to the internal channels in most of the cases (El Haddad 2019).

How company management implemented the change 

Understanding the process of change

The case of Emirates, the human resource executive had the responsibility to communicate the change and execute it in the organisation operations. The CEO has been the part of the venture as the huge financial aspects are associated with it. The leaders trained the employees regarding the COVID 19 protocols and other important aspects. The change process was not smooth for the organisation as they have to recruit people with different skill set in distribution, cargo services and management.

The main force behind this required change was the pandemic and lack of travellers in the passenger aircrafts. The airlines needed to increase their profits through the expansion of the cargo services so that they can make profit at the time of social distancing and lock down.

The planning for the cargo services has been done in three stages- identifying the demands, creating resources and finalising the strategic activities. The management has worked with the respective team to identify the demands in the cargo section. As the company has limited activities in this section, the introduction of new strategies has been done to increase the activities.

The plan needs to be communicated so that there are less obstacles in its fulfilment. Like the other change activities, the company has used their internal communication channels for executing the change plan.

Emirates follows the centralise hierarchical structure. The decisions are taken by the CEO and the board of directors. The individual unit managers have the responsibility to integrate the change in the system. The Human resource department played a crucial role in giving training and managing the employees (Cortellazzo et al. 2019). As the company shifted for the cargo operations more than the passenger flights, the overall training needs increased. The company operational managers also contributed in the change management process.

Effective leadership and management

Managing the roadblocks or the obstacles has been done through efficient leadership and management capabilities. The information about the Cargo services has been delivered among the employees. Along with that, the company has initiated necessary structural changes in their business plan for eliminating the risk factors.

Training for the employees were arranged by the management to make them efficient in the new job roles. The management has made sure that the employees are being communicated about the change requirement, their job roles and responsibilities and the support team they can rely on. The training for the employees cleared up the queries of the employees and shunned their skills in the cargo flights management. The air logistics training was a crucial part that the management decided to invest upon.  

The advantages of the management action were the increase in sales through the service diversification. As the communication among the employees and leaders were transparent and effective, the outcome of the change was quite positive for the company.

On the other hand, the issue with this action of management was that the employees find it difficult to cope with the change in such a short time. In spite of giving necessary support for the change, the short time for all the cargo functions management was a big problem in the management decisions.

To conclude, it can be stated that the company leaders were strategic in their approach to bring the change in the organisation. As the pandemic has caused heavy loss in the organisational profit. The decision of employee benefits, safety and security after they join back the organisation is integral to the organisational objectives. The decisions of the managers have ensured that important aspects of the company have been addressed.

Reference List

Akpoviroro, K.S. and Owotutu, S.O., 2018. Impact of external business environment on organizational Performance. IJARIIE, 4(3), pp.498-506.

Alfaro, L., 2017. Gains from foreign direct investment: Macro and micro approaches. The World Bank Economic Review, 30(Supplement_1), pp.S2-S15.

Baveye, P.C., Otten, W., Kravchenko, A., Balseiro-Romero, M., Beckers, É., Chalhoub, M., Darnault, C., Eickhorst, T., Garnier, P., Hapca, S. and Kiranyaz, S., 2018. Emergent properties of microbial activity in heterogeneous soil microenvironments: different research approaches are slowly converging, yet major challenges remain. Frontiers in Microbiology, 9, p.1929.

Belas, J., Belás, ?., ?epel, M. and Rozsa, Z., 2019. The impact of the public sector on the quality of the business environment in the SME segment. Administratie si Management Public.

Blain, A.N.J., 2017. Pilots and management: Industrial relations in the UK Airlines. Routledge.

businessinsider.com 2018. Flight attendants at one of the biggest airlines in the world are demanding better benefits and work conditions. Available at: https://www.businessinsider.com/r-exclusive-emirates-cabin-pressure-rises-as-crews-feel-global-airline-upturn-2018-2?IR=T

cdn.ek.aero,2020. The Emirates Group Annual Report. Available at: https://cdn.ek.aero/downloads/ek/pdfs/report/annual_report_2020.pdf

Cherunilam, F., 2021. Business environment. Himalaya Publishing House Pvt. Ltd.

Cooper, S.C.L., Stokes, P., Liu, Y. and Tarba, S.Y., 2017. Sustainability and organizational behavior: A micro?foundational perspective.

Cortellazzo, L., Bruni, E. and Zampieri, R., 2019. The role of leadership in a digitalized world: A review. Frontiers in psychology, 10, p.1938.

Cunningham, J.A. and O’Reilly, P., 2018. Macro, meso and micro perspectives of technology transfer. The Journal of Technology Transfer, 43(3), pp.545-557.

Dijkstra, A., 2017. Safety management in airlines. In Resilience Engineering (pp. 183-203). CRC Press.

El Haddad, R., 2019. Exploring service quality of low cost airlines. Services Marketing Quarterly, 40(4), pp.301-315.

emirates.com, 2021, Annual Report: emirates. Available at: https://www.emirates.com/in/english/about-us/financial-transparency/annual-reports/

Foo, L.P., Chin, M.Y., Tan, K.L. and Phuah, K.T., 2020. The impact of COVID-19 on tourism industry in Malaysia. Current Issues in Tourism, pp.1-5.

Gao, Y., Shu, C., Jiang, X., Gao, S. and Page, A.L., 2017. Managerial ties and product innovation: The moderating roles of macro-and micro-institutional environments. Long Range Planning, 50(2), pp.168-183.

Hrechyshkina, O. and Samakhavets, M., 2019. Changing business environment in Belarus. Journal of Geography, Politics and Society, 9(1), pp.1-11.

Karim, W., Haque, A., Anis, Z. and Ulfy, M.A., 2020. The movement control order (mco) for covid-19 crisis and its impact on tourism and hospitality sector in malaysia. International Tourism and Hospitality Journal, 3(2), pp.1-7.

Kohtamäki, M., Parida, V., Oghazi, P., Gebauer, H., & Baines, T. (2019). Digital servitization business models in ecosystems: A theory of the firm. Journal of Business Research, 104, 380-392.

Kramer, A. and Kramer, K.Z., 2020. The potential impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on occupational status, work from home, and occupational mobility.

Kristensen, H.S. and Mosgaard, M.A., 2020. A review of micro level indicators for a circular economy–moving away from the three dimensions of sustainability?.Journal of Cleaner Production, 243, p.118531.

reuters.com, 2021. Global Economy Yearend. Available at: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-economy-yearend-graphic-idUSKBN2950GH

RIZAN, M., WAROKKA, A., WIBOWO, A. and FEBRILIA, I., 2020. Leadership Styles and Customer Loyalty: A Lesson from Emerging Southeast Asia's Airlines Industry. The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics, and Business, 7(9), pp.477-488.

Suau-Sanchez, P., Voltes-Dorta, A. and Cugueró-Escofet, N., 2020. An early assessment of the impact of COVID-19 on air transport: Just another crisis or the end of aviation as we know it?.Journal of Transport Geography, 86, p.102749.

timesaerospace.aero, 2021. Emirates Group reports first year of loss in over 30 years. Available at: https://www.timesaerospace.aero/news/business-and-finance/emirates-group-reports-first-year-of-loss-in-over-30-years

Varma, T.M., 2021. Responsible leadership and reputation management during a crisis: The cases of Delta and United Airlines. Journal of Business Ethics, 173(1), pp.29-45.

Vlados, C. and Chatzinikolaou, D., 2019. Methodological redirections for an evolutionary approach of the external business environment. J. Mgmt. & Sustainability, 9, p.25.

Wilson, N., 2018. The impact of service quality and brand image toward customer loyalty in the Indonesian airlines industry. Jurnal Manajemen Indonesia, 18(3), pp.222-234.

Wirtz, B. and Daiser, P., 2017. Business model innovation: An integrative conceptual framework. Journal of Business Models, 5(1).

Yang, F.J., Shih, K.H., Nha, D.T. and Wang, Y.H., 2017. Low-fare airlines service quality, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. Journal of Accounting, Finance & Management Strategy, 12(2), pp.97-122.

Yun, J.J. and Liu, Z., 2019. Micro-and macro-dynamics of open innovation with a quadruple-helix model.

Zhang, X., 2021. Communicating social responsibilities through CSR reports: Comparative study of top European and Asia-Pacific airlines. Plos one, 16(10), p.e0258687.