¶ … start an analysis of Southwest Airlines and its success story is the company's mission statement. According to the company's website, the company's mission is "dedication to the highest quality of Customer Service delivered with a sense of warmth, friendliness, individual pride, and Company Spirit"
If we take a brief look at this mission statement, we may find that, differently from many of today's companies, Southwest's mission is not profit maximization, but achieving customer satisfaction through the quality of the services provided. Additionally, the mission statement refers to the joint collaboration and mixture of Company Service and Company Spirit, in the sense that one cannot truly operate and exist without the other. A friendly and efficient working environment is, in Southwest's opinion, a key towards achieving the highest level of customer satisfaction.
The generic strategy for Southwest relies on several important pillars, some of them deriving from the mission statement. The first refers to achieving the highest level of customer satisfaction. This goes from providing high quality services to granting refunds to passengers after the attacks on September 11 and to reaching an efficiency level that allows the company to practice some of the lowest tariffs in the industry.
The second pillar is the "Company Spirit." An efficient working environment is the basic key towards achieving the highest level of performance. Some of the measures that the management has taken in this sense are quite explanatory, for example, including cash grants from the federal government into the company's profit-sharing formula for employees
. Such measures boost up loyalty and morale.
The third pillar for the company's generic strategy lies in "tempering opportunism
. Everything has to be done rationally, including taking over market shares from other companies.
Even if the company is excellently placed in the airlines industry, the external environment brings forth several threats for the future. First of all, new low-cost carriers, such as JetBlue and AirTran Holdings are powerful cost-competitors. Signals are clear that these companies are aiming for higher shares of the market and Southwest is a clear target for these rivals.
Second of all, the airline industry is still recovering...
Southwest Airlines: The corporate culture of the LUV airline Southwest Airlines is known for a unique corporate culture that is particularly distinctive, in contrast to its competitors. Southwest Airlines has "a raucous corporate culture that is the exception in the grim airline industry" (Bailey 2008). From the Airline's inception, its founder and chairman, Herbert D. Kelleher ensured that there was "a startling amount of office hugging and kissing in lieu of
Southwest Airlines Effectiveness of Southwest Leadership Southwest management has defined a clear and simple business purpose. The management has also chosen the right business model that supports the business purpose. The management consistently demonstrates the core values and behaviors derived from the key business purpose (Emerald, 2005). The quality of the airline customer service is synonymous with warmth, friendliness, individual pride, and company spirit. This has kept the staff morale high. The
Southwest Airlines originally began operation in 1967, but as Air Southwest Co. In 1971 its name was changed to Southwest Air Co. The purpose behind its foundation was to provide passengers with a cheap means of air travel within Texas. Today they have a fleet of 550 Boeing 737s and 37000 employees. Although it's a relatively small, domestic airline, taking passengers to 73 American cities, but it provides remarkable customer
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Southwest Airlines Case Analysis Southwest Airlines is a company that has grown from a small regional carrier in Texas and surrounding states to the largest U.S.-based airline. The primary strategy of the company is to be the low-cost, no frills option for people wanting to travel within the United States. Recently, Southwest acquired another carrier so they will soon begin international flights to the Caribbean and Mexico. This paper discusses the
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