Easy Jet Competitive Advantage Tourism Essay

Easy Jet Competitive Advantage Tourism Essay Easy jet which is having Mission statement as to provide our customers the safe journey,good worth,point to point air service and to offer a reliable and consistent product and fares appealing to leisure and business markets on a range of european routes and to achieve this will increase our peoples and estabilish lifelong relation ship.this mission statement is clearly saying that wat they want and we will get in to this case study and find out how easyjet get into this position and where it is now and where it is going what it should do with the following analysis given below, Is market positioning enough to achieve sustainable competitive advantage in this industry? To analyse this activities we will use Porters Five Force analysis and SWOT and PEST analysis of this industry and we will check the value chain and competitive scope of this Easy Jet. The overall analysis will give the clear conclusion that its profitable factors and to be continued in same manner and to develop to get grow in the future. Strategy: It is defined as an alternative chosen to make happen a desired future, such as achievement of a goal or solution to a problem. Art and science of planning and marshalling resources for their most efficient and effective use. The term is derived from the Greek word (Stratigos) for general ship or leading an army. (www. businessdictionary.com) Macro environment: Major external and uncontrollable factors that influence an organizations decision making, and affect its performance and strategies. These factors include the economic, demographics, legal, political, and social conditions, technological changes, and natural forces. 2. Factors that influence a companys or products development that are outside of the companys control. For example, the macro environment could include competitors, changes in interest rates, changes in cultural tastes, or government regulations. (www.businessdictionary.com) PESTLE ANALYSIS: PEST analysis is the tool to measure the marketing environment, and its looking the external factors of the airline industry. First we analysis the present situation of easy jet. Politico legal factors: Politico legal factors is The political and legal environment consists of government agencies, laws and the pressure groups which influence. In some situation the law also create new opportunities for starts the new business. The two important trends in the political-legal environment are to increase the growth of special interest groups and the business legislation (Kotler, et al., 2009, p.171). The Easy Jet had the political problem in Switzerland due to the delay of flights to the various cities. The basic problem for these incidents is given below.The EasyJet flights are flies into Basel and Geneva airports but with a dismal on-time record, according to status of the flightstats.com. The online websites that tracks that the 20 most active routes for the carrier, but the Easy Jet planes from Geneva to London to be schedule about half of the time, It is the average delay of 74 minutes. Flights from London to Geneva are mismatch in its schedule by 31% of the time, and its the average delays of 38 minutes. The worst route for being on time between Palma Mallorca to Geneva, by these 82 per cent of the flights are late, according to flight stats. At no time did the company want to have such delays, said Jean-Marc Thà ©venaz, general director. We regret the situation. To help fix the problem, Thà ©venaz said that the company had decreased the number of flights during certain periods. We are trying to create some timeslots during the day when we fly less so as to be able to juggle our planes around to minimize delays, he said. He added that the company also has an extra plane on the ground in Britain that could be assigned to stay in Geneva. European Union is enlarging in the east. Its a right time the Easy Jet will increase the new market in the Eastern Europe. UK government going to increase the tax coming year .so it will affect the low cost and no frills approach. Economy factors: The available purchasing power in an economy depends on prices, current incomes, savings, credit availabilities and debts. Marketers must pay careful attention to trends affecting purchasing power, because they can have a strong impact on business (Kotler, et al., 2009, p.163). Easy Jet shares had fell up-to 7% on the last month for the fears over crewing issues. Carolyn McCall, who joined as chief executive from Guardian Media Group at the start of this month, said Easy Jet would seek to address the staffing problems, with a focus on flight delays at Gatwick airport. Douglas McNeill, said the crewing problems were worrying and we know theyve developed a problem, But we wont know the causes and the long-term costs of fixing it until November. From the volcanic ash problem the company had paid  £36m as compensation. The company had lost their estimated sales and its cost around  £29m. Easy jet said It was disappointed with the decision by the UK government not to compensate losses related to the ash cloud, which forced Easy Jet to cancel 7,314 flights. Easy Jet revenues for last three months are 5.3% to  £759m and the seats are flown up into 1.7 %. The Easy Jet peoples said It expected to make a pre-tax profit this year of between  £100m and  £150m at current exchange rates. Share Price of Easy Jet Figure: Chart of easy jet share price for last three months http://www.lse.co.uk/SharePrice.asp?shareprice From my analysis the company must be on-time performance and its needs to be better the numbers staff can be improved. Sometimes it may spoil the good name, goodwill, reputation and the image of easyGroup. Socio-Cultural factors: Society shapes the values, beliefs and norms that largely define consumer tastes and preferences. People absorb, almost unconsciously, a worldview that defines their relationship to themselves, to others, to organisations, to society, to nature, and to the universe (Kotler, et al., 2009, p.171). Easyjet had a problem in the social and cultural factors. The company has various approaches to selling the air tickets through online and telephonic rather than agencies. German and France peoples are dont have much interested to use online and telephonic ticket booking and also they dont like to use credit cards and debit cards in internet booking. So the company is having difficulty to achieve the target of sale. Most of the people expecting to fly in cheap and friendly fare when we giving advertisement in newspaper like family package and also giving low cast fare  £10 per person. Technological factors One of the most dramatic forces shaping peoples lives in technology. Every new technology is a force for creative destruction. The number of major new technologies we discover affects the economys growth rate (Kotler, et al., 2009, p.169 ). Easy Jet had design the new devise to fix in the tail. Around 100km the device can detect the ash clouds. The cost of  £1m is spent by the company to develop and test the technology. Airbus is the leading manufacturer of aircrafts. The company hopes to fix the devise to all their aircrafts. It can be implemented by next year. The AVOID Airborne Volcanic Object Identifier and Detector technology is designed to work like the weather detection systems already in use for spotting thunderstorms. A lightweight infrared device would provide images to both the pilots and an airlines flight control centre, enabling pilots to see an ash cloud at altitudes between 5,000 feet and 50,000 feet. In the volcanic ash problem all the airline industries are lost more than one billion US dollars and the relevant business to the airline companies are lost twice the amount like tourist hotels, cabs, and airport authorities. In the volcanic eruption the flights are damaged massively. We have understood the basic problem of the aircrafts during the time of ash clouds. The companies are monitoring the problem of ash clouds through the satellites. But its not enough to prevent the aircraft at the time of eruption. So the aircraft companies are ready to spend millions and millions of amount to solving this problem. According to the statement of ESA (European Space Agency) from the period 1982 to 2000 the volcanic ash clouds can damage more than 100 aircrafts by average of 65 volcanic eruptions by each and every year. Around 250 m US dollar can be estimated as a loss for the airlines industries from last 25 years. The basic problem of the volcanic ash is that can be containing so many raw particles (eg glass, rocks and other relatively large objects) can damage the propeller of the jet. It can be easily affect the engine to stop immediately. Then it can damaged the sensitive parts of the aircrafts (eg clog its sensors, limit the view of its pilots, and severely scratch, or sandblast, cockpit windows, landing light covers and parts of the tail and wings). These damages are found by ESA through the satellites. Technologically Easy Jet is in the right place to develop the new trends but it can lacking to implement the technology in the aircraft maintenances. External environment: Conditions, entities, events and factors surrounding an organization which influence its activities and choices, and determine its opportunities and risks. Also called operating environment.(www.businessdictionary.com) Easy Jet Airline Company Limited: Strengths: Easy Jet is a leading provider of low budget, no frills air travel servicing many of the leading city destinations in the UK and across Europe, including Berlin, Amsterdam, Barcelona, and Prague. They offer a high quality service at competitive prices and offer a number of features including ticketless travel, internet booking and assisted travel services.They have a highly distinctive livery on their fleet of aircraft making them easily recognisable and distinguishing them from their competitors. They have a user friendly website which fully discloses the price breakdown of the passengers planned travel. Offering a full breakdown of the price plan prevents any hidden charges when the customer confirms there booking. Easy Jet offers an online promotion alert which is e-mailed to existing customers and contact on the companys database. It is recognised as a leading brand name in the UK travel industry. As a market leader in an industry widely seen as a leading contributor to the green house effect and global warming, Easy Jet actively embrace there environmental responsibilities and continue to keep these factors as a keep priority when developing their future strategies. Easy Jet operate a fast and efficient service with an average turnaround time of 30 minutes or below. This enables them to maintain a reliable and hassle free service to their passengers. Weaknesses: Domestic air travel is an extremely competitive industry with EasyJets main competitors being Jet2, BMI Baby, Ryan Air plus a host of smaller independent competitors. These external competitive forces can restrict and shape pricing policy on some of EasyJets less profitable routes as they seek to compete with their competitors. They do not offer a free food service on longer flights of 2 hours plus. Opportunities: It might possible for an opening of alternative routes to major cities in Europe. A key route could be from Dublin to the UK, as this has a large potential for travellers going to soccer matches in the UK plus new links into corporate flyers to and from the UK. Offering of free refreshments on flights with a travel time of over two and a half hours. This would offer an extra perk and comfort to passengers making their experience with EasyJet all the more comfortable and enjoyable. Updated versions of the fly on the wall documentaries would provide the brand with more coverage and publicity. Threats: Competitors flying the same routes compete very competitively on price forcing pressure on margin on more popular flights and time slots. External market forces can have a significant impact on Easy Jets business, e.g. the rising cost of oil can have a significant impact on running costs putting significant pressure on the profitability of less popular routes and time slots. Pressure from unions and employee relations committees can significantly impact on the day to day operations with strikes proving to be very costly to the companys image. Economic downturn may lead to a decrease in casual flyers and corporate travel as companies seek to curtail what they see as unnecessary expenditure and in turn make less business trips. Competitive advantage: Marketing mix is the most important factors in the marketing management. Every company is using the marketing mix to attract the customers and develop the company. Marketing success of a company is depends on how much marketing mix using Fairley to cover the customers. After several studies and research the classic 4ps of marketing mix has changed into 7Ps (by Booms Bitner). However the 4ps is still the most common model of the marketing mix. By the competitive advantage we analysis the Marketing mix. It contains 4Ps that Production, Price, Promotion and Place/Distribution. Easy Jet has been named the worlds best low cost airline in the annual World Airline Awards. Skytrax made a survey for 15million passengers by the period of 11 months. It is the world largest survey among the passengers. Its shown the star ranking of the airlines and quality of the airlines. Commenting on Easy Jets achievement, Skytrax CEO, Edward Plaisted, said: Low-cost does not need to, nor should it equate to, low-quality service. Easy Jet is clear testament that low-cost operations can be delivered with a good standard of customer care and passenger service quality with their level of customer loyalty clearly demonstrating a winning formula. No-Frills, point to point air services We can hire the car from the website of Easy Jet and we can access the hotels and apartments from their websites. Place / distribution: Place /distribution refers to how the product gets to the buyer; for instance, point-of-sale assignment or retailing. This third P has furthermore at times been called Place, referring to the channel by which a product or service is sold. The easy jet websites has targeted the customers those are not willing to get the tickets through agencies or third parties. The company policies are not allowed the intermediates to raise the actual price up to 20 percent to 30 percent as a commission. So the passengers do not know the actual price of the ait ticket. The company is targeted the passengers are saving the money as well as the time. The Easy Jet websites provides the customers very easy to access. Easy booking accommodation Flight schedule Cab booking And other transportation Likewise the company has provides the customers are easily book their tickets through telephone. There are unique packages for the business peoples which is having the special selection on their websites. The option is B2B-Business to Business transaction which can be indicates in the EasyJet website. Promotion: This includes advertising, sales promotion, including promotional education, publicity, and individual selling. Branding refers to the assorted strategies of promoting the product, brand, or company. Media advertising- Pulsed, pioneering, competitive or product oriented. Comparative ads disrupt consumers beliefs re competitors. Creative campaigns create controversy, shift perceptions change rules of the game. Personal selling- Although needed, is seen as less important for destabilizing in turbulent market. Public relations- Less important, but small PR activities can nudge system towards destabilization. Sales promotions- If used with price, can be effective/destabilizing. Minor, but unusual promotions/ changes lead to major impacts. More effective than adverts inturbulent markets. Word of mouth -Very important influence-the-influencer promos. Spread info re new, amazing aspects of product. Use multiplier channels like Internet, discussion groups. Aggressive use of promotions-Aggressive use enables trends to be nudged advantage to be taken of turbulence. Speed of change- To be unusual surprising, campaigns must be short-term, changed frequently. Importance -Important to manage via nudge effect, but less effective for major changes. It is a decision of how best to communicate the product to target audience and how to persuade them to buy it (Lovelock, Patterson and Walker, 1996). No marketing program can succeed without an effective communication program. This component plays three vital roles: providing needed information and advice, persuading target customers of the merits of a specific product, and encouraging them to take action at specific times (Lovelock and Wright, 2002). Easy Jet achieved the target of 500 routes in 15 years. The company crossed 300 million passengers are live in the airports in an hour. The growth ratio of the company is increased by 10 percent while compare to the previous year. The Easy Jet is the leading low-price airlines in the European airlines industries. The advertisement strap line is Size Matters!And Its slogan is The Webs favourite airline. Their approach is called No-nonsense approach like humorous. (http://business.easyjet.com/downloads/easyJet-Price-Comparison-Results.pdf) Conclusion: Easy Jet need to consider regarding responding to new entrants by the segments or considering competition based on price, services, and routes that gives an advantage to keep new entries outside the market. By considering the current market trends a perfect strategy to be planned based on the marketing mix.   To discriminate the brand sustain on development lines, the company can implement a CRM (cause related marketing) offers, manage its accessibility of being a caring airlines. And by providing travelers a sense of psychological comfort and well-being while they selecting to fly by Easy Jet. On overall, Easy Jet needs to develop the accurate and realistic to serve the passengers.