Executive Summary
This is an analysis report of Qantas Airways Limited (Qantas Group) basis on the 2011 annual report. For the auditing purpose, the report will mainly focus on auditing perspectives. First of all, an overview of the company and industry, it gives an idea of what the business conditions in which they face with. By using the SWOT tool, we ensure the analysis is matched with the real business situations. Moreover, the report will discuss different categories of laws which would be applicable the Qantas Group and also the potential level of the reliance that placed on the control environment of the Qantas Group. Furthermore, the report will briefly give a planning materiality bases and percentage regarding to our analysis.
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Threat of Substitute Products – Moderate: Air transport provides a fast, efficient and convenient travel system. Even though people might choice high-speed railway, vehicle for their short-distance trip, air transport might be the first choice for their long-distance trip, they could also choose the cruise which is slowly instead.
Bargaining Powers of Suppliers—High: The aircraft is the basic equipment for the operation of an Airline Company. But there are only a few aircraft manufacturers in the world, for example, Boeing and Airbus. These aircraft manufacturers have a strong bargaining power for both the purchase and maintenance of aircrafts. At the same time, as the fuel is another basic material for the operation of an Airline Company, the fuel price has an enormously influence on the airline business. Because the fuel price is out of control by the airline industry, so the fuel providers also have a strong bargaining power as well.
Bargaining Powers of Buyers – High: The buyers have a strong bargaining power because of the low switching cost and the development of the web booking system. Through the web booking system and some ticket agencies, customer can compare the prices of each airline company then choose the lowest price.
1.4. SWOT Analysis of Qantas Group
Strengths
Excellent and globally brand name and logo awareness;
Two brands (Qantas and Jetstar) provide different services that satisfy the different demand of customers;
As
Bargaining Power of Buyers: The bargaining power of buyers is high in the department store retail industry. The volume of buyers is high, and buyers are very price sensitive in this industry. The products are not highly differentiated, and there are numerous stores that offer the same, or similar, products, giving buyers the opportunity to search for the lowest prices and information. The industry has substitutes available in the form of specialty, differentiated products and stores. This increases the power of buyers,
Qantas is Australia’s largest domestic and international airline. Although Qantas is primarily a passenger airline, air freight is also an integral part of its core business. Other Qantas operations include catering, tourism and E-commerce devoted to transport and travel. In order to have an effective business and operations process, a company, like Qantas must be aware of the influences that can affect it. By being aware of the influences it enables the business to make decision and choices that can get the most out of each influence, by doing this it can assist the business in its endeavours for success.
Bargaining power of supplier: High levels of competition among suppliers act to reduce prices to producers. This is a positive for Ford Motor Company. Standardization of parts allowed Ford to reduce dependency on fixed supplier/vendor which goes into producer’s favor.
As the nature of the good is a seat on a plane, clearly capacity constraints are present in the form of the limited seating on aircraft, as well as the inability to in the short run increase output beyond full capacity. During the setting of price, clear communication will most likely result in a non-static equilibrium. As well as this, the symmetry in terms of the market and cost structures has played a part in creating a successful cartel. Each firm produces a relatively homogenous good in terms of economy, business or first class, with a limited amount of features it can differentiate itself from its competitors. As well as this, using Figure 1, which will be discussed later on, demonstrates that the main costs to an airline are those which cannot be easily reduced or offset, most notably the cost of fuel and aircraft maintenance. Therefore both firms have near perfect knowledge of the cost structure and revenue through observing prices, and will aid in choosing a certain pricing strategy.
Provide full value of money for customers through reduce cost and enhance level of quality (Qantas Airways Limited, 2014).
Bargaining power of buyers: Businesses and individuals all fall under the customer's category for this industry. Big customers do get volume discounts and can negotiate prices with sales representatives. However smaller customers have to take what is being offered to them. The only say they have is that they can switch between the players, but due to intense competition, the prices offered are generally the same across the service band.
The main focus of this report is to identify the legal classification, the characteristics, the life cycle stage of Qantas and one internal and external stakeholder that is affected by the activates of Qantas. The legal classification describes that Qantas is a public company and has changed its legal classification in the growth and maturity stages of the business life cycle. The characteristics of Qantas talks about the company's industrial classification and sector classification. The business life cycle is explained and gives reason why Qantas is in the renewal stage of post maturity. There is also description of one internal and external
Suppliers generally have a moderate to high bargaining power within the industry due to the limited number of suppliers which forces aviation companies to choose from the number available and accordingly to accept their prices. In fact, fuel is the second highest cost for aviation companies. There are highly depended on supplier’s prices and the availability which indicates on a relatively high bargaining power of suppliers. In addition, there are high switching costs which are strongly in favor of the suppliers and means that the company experiences an increase in operating costs when switching to another supplier as flying another type of aircraft leads to additional costs (maintenance, training etc.).Aircrafts are vulnerable to delays due to the location of gate locations which leads to a decrease in utilization and therefore to an increase in costs.
Bargaining power of customers: In airline industry the bargaining power of the customers is low to medium, because the buyers are not concentrated; there is no threat of backward integration.
The supplier power in airlines is dominated by the world’s two largest aircraft manufacturers are Airbus and Boeing. The competition between the two manufacturers is neck to neck but that would prove to be a boon for Emirates as the prices would not rocket through the ceiling. A study shows that Emirates holds 93 Boeing aircrafts and 83 Airbus units (Planespotters, 2009). In 2007, Emirates purchased 81 Airbus flights, to extend it services- however, they chose Airbus over Boeing as the latter failed to deliver its latest aircrafts on time and moreover, Airbus had quoted a good price (Barryl, 2007). The changing oil prices also have an adverse effect on the aviation industry. In a nutshell, the bargaining power of suppliers is high.
Buyers are usually customers and customers if powerful have the ability to reduce prices, ask for high quality products and services. In the Indian airline industry, the bargaining power of buyers is high and is increasing as there are lots of airlines to choose from and there are hardly any switching costs. Moreover, there are lots of travel agents and customers can now buy ticket online from even intermediaries. Therefore, they do not really have to stick to one airline and this increases the power of the customers.
The priority of landing slots is given to historic rights of existing users and the airport has only one supplier of fuel. The company's employees, through trade unions, engage in collective bargaining and since the company has two main aircraft manufacturers, it has high bargaining power in this respect. With respect to the bargaining power of suppliers, British Airways is in good strength. British Airways has medium strength in the bargaining power of buyers force as a result of a low concentration of purchasers to suppliers and increased consumer awareness due to the widespread use of the internet.
Bargaining power of suppliers is low due to large number of suppliers of raw materials, low switching cost and availability of attractive substitutes. (Jim Wilkinson, 2013) Therefore, we could control the price of raw materials because we can easily switch to different suppliers with lower price and higher quality, increasing our profit consequently.
Owned by parent company Qantas, the Jetstar Group is comprised of a network of value-based air carriers that deliver passenger services across Australia, New Zealand and the Asia Pacific region (About Jetstar, 2012). The Jetstar Group's most recent five-year strategy has been to "turn the international business around [by] reducing investment in underperforming business areas and directing capital towards growth opportunities" (Qantas Reports Strong Full-Year Profit in Challenging Conditions, 2011). In addition, the Jetstar Group intends to "focus on improving the customer experience, develop a stronger and broader alliance
Powerful customer-the flip side of powerful suppliers-can capture more value by forcing down prices, demanding better quality or more service, and generally playing industry participants off against one another at the expense of industry profitability. Buyers are powerful if they have negotiating leverage relative to industry participants, especially if they are price sensitive, using their clout primarily to pressure price reduction. The bargaining power of the buyers is very high as now a day’s tickets can be booked online and if they can go for the cheapest fares and there is not much cost involved in it.