Case Study Analysis: U.S. Airline Industry

Details of the coursework assessment

• Details of the coursework assessment

• Guidelines to assist you in answering the questions

• The assessment marking criteria

• Information on presentation and the submission date

To demonstrate your understanding of a competitive environment, - capabilities and core competencies -and strategic choices at business and corporate level -conduct a detailed analysis of the following case study and article:

Assessment is based on your ability to analyse the case information provided.

Q1 - Five Forces analysis.

From the information provided from the case study, analyse the competitive environment in the U.S. Airline industry. Utilising the five forces model give a detailed assessment of this using the timeline of the case study.

Review Porter’s Five Forces model) and apply it to the US airline industry. This is an industry-level analysis of the competitive environment – part of external environment analysis. At this stage do not focus too much on how Southwest Airlines managed to overcome the forces and successfully compete in the industry, as this is the basis for the analysis of its internal capabilities in question 2.

The purpose of the Five Forces Model is to gain a deeper understanding of the intensity of competition in the industry and which forces are the key influencers.

• Is this an attractive/unattractive industry (high/low/average profit margins) as result of the intensity of the competitive forces?

• What are the most significant forces facing the US airline industry in the future that all competitors should take into account in their strategy formulation?

The more intense the competition, the less attractive the industry, the lower the average level of industry profitability. The reverse applies to less intense levels of competition. You must analyse each force individually through an examination of the structural factors which determine the impact of this force. The discussion of how these factors influence each force means that your answer will go beyond the description of each force. For each force arguments should be presented as to whether the force’s influence is high, medium or low. Your arguments should reach formal conclusions.

Q2 - Core competencies

Conduct a focussed analysis (Value chain analysis) of Southwest Airlines to identify and evaluate its core competencies. Use identifiable resources and capabilities to underpin arguments and include detailed analysis of critical linkages/processes in the Value Chain as the basis for your choice of core competencies (CCs) and argue how these core competencies underpin its choice of generic competitive strategy.

Guidelines to assist you in answering the questions

To use the Value Chain framework to analyse Southwest Airlines’ capabilities. you must go further than describing what it does in each activity through a discussion of what it does well (strengths) and what areas it needs to improve (weaknesses to address).

To identify Southwest Airlines’ core competencies, you need to analyse critical linkages/processes in the Value Chain, some of which should be the basis for your choice of core competencies (CCs). The explanation of Value Chain linkages is an intermediary stage to identifying CCs. When assessing which linkages are “core” apply either Barney’s or Grant’s criteria.

The final part of the question requires you to identify its choice of generic competitive strategy – differentiation, cost leadership or hybrid. Your choice must be supported by the capabilities and CCs you have derived from your preceding value chain analysis.

Presentation Information

As you prepare your case analysis there are a few other points to take into account: A case analysis is not a conceptual explanation or discussion so do not spend too much time on conceptual explanation; instead your focus should be on how the concepts are used to analyse the case events and reach evaluative judgments. It is not necessary to include a history of Southwest Airlines.

Always draw on evidence from the case to support your analysis and conclusions. Using evidence without analysis will amount to describing what has happened in the case and will not gain many marks.

It is critically important that if you use information from the case or theory from academic texts, you must reference it appropriately. Any direct quotations from the text should be used sparingly – these must be placed in quotation marks and referenced in the same way.

References should be in APA6 format. Notes on referencing are available on Moodle.

The case ends in 2013 and you should answer the questions in terms of the information presented in the case up to this time. You are not required to go beyond the case end date since your analysis and judgement are being assessed at this point, not in the light of subsequent events. As a result you should not include references on Southwest Airlines from the internet or from sources other than those contained in the case.

Assignments submitted after the deadline without an agreed extension will be penalised according to the University Regulations. The word limit excludes the cover sheet, figures/tables, references and appendices. Where a submission exceeds the stated word limit by more than 10%, the maximum grade awarded will be P1. Appendices can be used to provide additional raw information from your analysis, so long as the analysis itself is incorporated into the main body of the assignment. You may upload your assignment to Turnitin as many times as you wish before the deadline. It is recommended that you do so at least once in order to check your Turnitin score – this is a helpful way of making sure that you have used references appropriately. Bear in mind that during busy periods Turnitin may experience delays in generating scores.