Tale of Two Airlines in the Network Age or Why the Spirit of King George Is Still Alive and Well

Executive Summary

Information technology is a very important tool in a business in order to integrate the systems that might be apart from each other, most businesses in the modern days make use of this tool as it results on high cost saving and to the maximum customer satisfaction if utilised in a right way, in this case of Tale of two airline in the network age or why the spirit of king George III is alive and well, the case will be interrogated from the information technology point of view and topics like: the assumptions and expectations, information technology support, alternative approaches and advantages, value chain, business models, environments and strategy will be addressed. An appropriate recommendation and conclusion will also be provided according to the findings.

Some of the findings on the case will include the lack of utilising the information technology to the maximum customer satisfaction, neglect of information technology by the airline company and lack of willingness to rectify the problem, the recommendations will also include, beefing up the information technology system, gathering the individual trips trend so as the airline company will be able to know its customers individually and how many times they make use of their service on order to determine the correct discounts and to notify them should there be any specials that the airline is running.

Contents Page

Introduction 3

Assumption and expectation 4 - 5

Information technology support. 6

Alternative approach and advantages. 7 - 8

 Approach 1 7

 Approach 2 7

 Approach 3 7 - 8

Value Chain 8 - 9

 Creating a Profit 8 - 9

 Return on investment 9

Business models. 9 - 11

Environments 11 - 13

Strategy 13

Conclusion 14

Recommendation 14

Bibliography 15 - 17

Introduction

The following is a "Tale of two airlines in the network age or why the spirit of King George is still alive and well" case study where students are to research the case and report in a management style reporting. Customer expectation is defined as the perceived-value customers seek from the purchase of a good or service, this will be addressed in detail in the case, the importance of information technology support, alternative approaches and advantages, value chain which is the full range of activities that firms and workers do to bring a product from its conception to its end use and beyond (Value chain, 2006). Business models which are defined as the formula to use to outsmart your competitors (Business model, 2012) will also be addressed; environments and strategy will also be tackled.

Assumption and expectation

According to (Customer expectations, 2012) customer expectation is defined as the perceived-value customers seek from the purchase of a good or service. The major six customer expectations are: customers expect solid information, customers expect options, customers expect superior communication, customers expect consulting, and customers expect a seamless relationship. Meeting these expectations will cement the relationships, increase their satisfaction, help to gain customer loyalty, and which intern retains the business.

From the "Tale of two airlines in the network age" case study, Professor MacPherson had several expectations regarding the level of service from the airline. Professor MacPherson expected the airline to know that he is a on a connecting flight, these would have been done by the interconnection of two computer reservation system that will show his data when he books the ticket, it will also show the landing and departure of the plane, these could only make it simpler for the customers if the airline company had this in place. In the information age it very reasonable and understandable for the airline customers to have these kinds of expectations. Although he is a regular customer, the airline company seems to know very little about his need. The consequence for the airline to the customer not to have this information readily available is inconveniencing to the customers.

Another expectation by Professor McPherson was that since he is a gold card member, the airline will have his gold card data should be available by the reservation system, which again was not the case with these airline company, this again was a reasonable expectation and assumption from a regular customer who is even a gold card member. According to (Gold benefits, 2012) As a Flying Blue Gold member, one can rely on the best in comfort, wherever one is can also enjoy exclusive preferential treatment and services offered by SkyTeam partners, and by both their other airline and non-airline partners, hence professor McPherson did not have out of spec expectations about these.

Out of all the expectations that the professor had, he also had the expectation of arriving wherever he was going in due time, from the supplied case study, we find professor McPherson being delayed several times on his way to important meetings one of which is the meeting with the power company executives that was planned three month ago, for a gold card member who is a regular customer it is again one of the reasonable expectations to have by professor McPherson, everyone in his position would never expect to be running late for a serious meeting as that one. According to (Punctuality, 2001) Punctuality is one of the key performance indicators in the airline industry and an important service differentiator especially for valuable high-yield customers. In addition, improved on-time performance can help achieve significant cost savings: Airlines report delay costs from 0.6 to up to as much as 2.9% of their operating revenues. Consequently many carriers have started initiatives and set up special teams or organizational units to achieve these potential cost savings and service improvements.