Comparing British Airways With Virgin Atlantic Airways

Marketing is everywhere.formally or informally ,people and organizations engage in a vast number of activities that we could call marketing.(Philip kotler 2009)

The assignment focuses on analyzing summarizing and comparing two companies which deals in same sector or industry with a marketing aspect. The purpose states that the study of the module Marketing Management needs to be implemented in virtual front by providing meaningful process to the company chosen and revise the value proposition. The assignment is divided into step-by-step parts towards preparing a plan for the organization under study.

Select two companies in the same sector/industry.

Answer: The requirement of the question speaks about the two companies to be selected of the same industry which can be compared on various aspects particularly marketing strategy on a global scale; I have chosen the following two companies:

British Airways

Virgin Atlantic airways

The reasons for selecting these companies are:

The value proposition of both the companies can be compared and differentiated based on their marketing assets.

Both the companies are intense competitors in the business of airlines and in providing superior quality of services to the customers .

British Airways- Company profile

British Airways is the airline company of the United Kingdom. It has its headquarter in Waterside which is near its main hub at London Heathrow Airport and it is the largest airline in UK on the basis of fleet size, international flights and international destinations. Its second hub is London Gatwick Airport. The British Airways Group was formed on 1 September 1974. BA was formed by the merger of two large London-based airlines, British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) and British European Airways Corporation (BEA), and two much smaller airlines, Cambrian Airways Cardiff and Northeast Airlines Newcastle upon Tyne. BA was one of only two airlines to operate the supersonic Aerospatiale-BAC Concorde inaugurating the world’s first supersonic passenger service in January 1976. BA became the world’s most profitable airline under the slogan “The World’s Favorite Airline”. Rather it was earlier Boeing customer.

The formation of Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic Airways in 1984 began a tense relationship with BA. The main activities of British Airways Plc and its subsidiary undertakings are the operation of international and domestic scheduled air services for the carriage of passengers, freight and mail and the provision of ancillary services.

Franchisees

Comair, based in South Africa, franchisee since 1996.

Sun Air, based in Denmark, franchisee since 1 August 1996.

http://uk.reuters.com/business/quotes/companyProfile?symbol=BAY.L

Virgin Atlantic Airways- Company Profile

Virgin Atlantic Airways Limited (operating as Virgin Atlantic) is a British airline owned by Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group (51%) and Singapore Airlines (49%). It is headquartered in Crawley, West Sussex, England, near London Gatwick Airport. It operates between the United Kingdom and North America, the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Australia from main bases at Gatwick and London Heathrow Airport, using a mixed fleet of Airbus and Boeing wide-body aircraft. The company holds a CAA Type A Operating License to carry passengers, cargo, and mail on aircraft with 20 or more seats. In the year to February 2009, Virgin Atlantic carried 5.77 million passengers and made an annual profit of £68.4 million on turnover of £2,580 million.

Question 2. Analyze, evaluate, compare and contrast their mission statements, value; comparative differentiation, position and marketing assets.

Answer: On a preliminary note it is important to understand the concepts of Mission and Vision for a particular organization.

Vision Statements and Mission Statements are the inspiring words chosen by successful leaders to clearly and concisely convey the direction of the organization. By crafting a clear mission statement and vision statement, you can powerfully communicate your intentions and motivate your team or organization to realize an attractive and inspiring common vision of the future.

According to Wikipedia- The Free Encyclopedia a Mission

Mission, which includes a statement of company values, is an important tool for managers to assert their leadership within the organization.

By authors- Mary Klemm*, Stuart Sanderson* and George Luffman*

University of Bradford Management Centre, USA

While a Vision

Vision is an independent, non-profit motive. Its main efforts are “dedicated to strategic thinking on the transformations triggered by technologies and globalisation. …

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vision_(Italian_think_tank)

Definition of Mission Statement by Alan Gleeson defines as the essence or purpose of a company – what it stands for i.e. what broad products or services it intends to offer to satisfy the customers need . The mission statement also gives readers an idea on the raison d’être of the company and was initially designed as a means by which potential shareholders and investors could understand the purpose of the company that they were considering investing in. 

A Mission Statement defines the organization’s objectives and primary motives. Its prime function is internal – to define the key measure or key to measures the organization’s success – and its prime shareholder is the leadership team as stockholders.

“Wikipedia- The Free Encyclopedia” defines Mission statement as “a formal, short, written statement of the purpose of a company or organization.” The mission statement should guide the actions of the organization, spell out its overall goal, provide a sense of direction, and guide decision-making. It provides “the framework or context within which the company’s strategies are formulated.” Historically it is associated with Christian religious groups; indeed, for many years, a missionary was assumed to be a person on a specifically religious mission. The word “mission” dates from 1598, originally of Jesuits sending (“missio”, Latin for “act of sending”) members abroad.

Definition of Vision statement by “Wikipedia- The Free Encyclopedia” outlines the organization it wants to be, or how it wants the world in which it operates to be. It focuses on the future Or a source of inspiration to the organization. It provides clear decision-making criteria to the organization.

Vision Statements also define the organizations purpose, and values are been guided in beliefs about how things should be done. The vision statement states about both the purposes and values of the organization. For employees, it states about how they are expected to behave and motivate them to give their best. Communicate with customers, it shapes customers’ understanding of why and how they should work with the organization.

The difference between Mission and Vision statement is a Mission statement contains the information of the company in a nutshell about its products and services to customers while a Vision statement offers the future perspectives of the company or organization, the purpose or broader goal for being in existence or in the business.

Mission and Vision Statements of the British Airways and Virgin Atlantic are discussed below:

Mission statement of ‘British Airways’-

There is no official mission statement from the company’s website instead the social blogs have various statements out of which the best one chosen “To be the undisputed leader in the world of airlines for the next millennium”

Vision statement of ‘British Airways’- “The World’s Favourite Airline”

Mission Statement of ‘Virgin Atlantic’-

“Safety, security and consistent delivery of the basics are the foundation of everything we do.”

Vision statement of ‘British Airways’- “To grow a profitable airline, where people love to fly and where people love to work”

Analyzing the Mission and Vision statements

The mission and vision statements of British airways seems to be in the line of business as both focus on world class operations not just local or domestic functioning, hence it is recommended that being a company which caters large scale audience/customers British Airways has to focus on its principles of functioning to achieve its vision. As far as Virgin Atlantic is concerned, nowhere it mentions about the functioning and catering the audiences of the world, it is known fact that Virgin Atlantic is more of a British nature and caters or prefers services priority to British audiences hence it needs to change its mission and vision statement which though is appealing but doesn’t come in the line of business.

Question 3: Benchmark the two companies.

Answer:

Benchmarking is the process of analyzing , summarizing and comparing one’s business processes model and performance metrics to industry bests or best practices from other industries in same sector. Dimensions are use to measure quality, time, and cost of the organization. Learning from experiences mean doing things better, faster, and cheaper.

Benchmarking involves management identifying and evaluating the best firms in their area of work or any other industry where similar processes exist and comparing the results and processes of those studied (the “targets”) to one’s own results and processes to learn how well the targets are been performed and more importantly, how they do it.

Mission and Vision Statements and the Customer (Client) Surveys are the most used (by 77% of organisations) of 20 improvement tools, followed by SWOT analysis(72%), and Informal Benchmarking (68%) for benchmarking.( www.bashares.com)

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