Strategy Implementation

Strategy Implementation

Introduction

Southwest Airlines is one of the most successful airlines in the world and fourth largest in the United States of America. The company started its operations with the philosophy of providing on time air travel to customers, in the lowest possible price with pleasant experience. The company believed that by the providing above features, the people will come back to use the service of the company. The success of their philosophy and management practices is evident from the fact that the airline flies over 64 million passengers in a single year. The company caters to 59 locations in 30 states. The company has devised its operational strategy on the bases of six columns, namely, limited service to passengers like no in flight meal, high frequency departures with dependability, point to point short routes of operations, lower ticket prices, active and lean gate and ground crews, and maximum utilization of aircraft. As the customer service is much reduced, the company explicitly explains the details of the customer service to be expected while flying with Southwest airlines to its customers in its general statement. We will be exploring the organizational structure, the systems, people and culture of Southwest Airlines.

Discussion

Structure

The company's organizational structure exhibits a reverse pyramid structure which aligns their business policy of operations (ABC, 2009). The top management directly supervises, manages and works with front line employees. More than thirty five thousand employees of the Southwest airlines are in direct communication with the top management and take part actively in the decision making of the company. They are involved in the planning and operational budgeting of the organizations and the organization carries out these processes from a bottom-up approach. The company has developed an environment in which all employees are involved in the decision making progress besides the senior executives. The organization encourages all employees to think strategically and make decisions disregarding any boundary of designations or official job description.

Systems

The Southwest Airlines is a member of Beyond Budgeting Round Table (BBRT). The BBRT has advocated 12 point guidelines of management which has revolutionized the management practices. Southwest Airlines update the forecast of its fuel consumption on weekly bases and it revenue forecast on daily bases (LAMOREAUX, 2011). Other items of the key influence are updated on different time periods (See Figure 1). The figure contains the critical items which are very dynamic.

Figure 1: Southwest Airline Forecasting Frequency, ...