Outsourcing Is Becoming A Norm

The United States carries over one third of the globe’s total traffic, where Over 1.5 billion passengers fly annually. Over the past 20 years, air travel has grown at an average of about 5% per year, the reason for annual change is usually differences in economic growth, and of course other environmental factors, such as the current war. As a rule, the annual growth in air travel has been about twice the annual growth in GDP. Deregulation, liberalization, and competition have essentially altered the management strategies and practices of airlines. Productivity improvements and cost management have been two of the greatest concerns for US airlines for the past twenty years. As a whole, the airline industry must continue to improve their specialization in terms of fleet utilization, pricing and revenue management, and schedule optimization.

The Airline industry is a large and constantly growing industry. It facilitates economic growth, international investment and world trade and is therefore central to other industries as well for globalisation. There are various forces which lead to globalisation in airline industry. Key drivers of change are forces likely to affect the structure of an industry; sector or market. (1).

Seventy percent of the aircraft’s production and designing was outsourced to over fifty Tier 1 suppliers compared with only thirty-five to fifty percent that was traditionally outsourced in the production of other aircrafts (S. Tang and D.Zimmerman, 2009: 77). In late 2008, over twenty-seven thousand Boeing employees went on strike due to the company’s outsourcing policies and what its effects on job security (Doornbos n.d.). The strike lasted for fifty-seven days and it would cost Boeing a total of three months in production time, an estimated $100 million a day in revenue, and approximately $7 million a day in net income (Isidore

By outsourcing, Qantas is able to significantly reduce costs and maintain it’s competitive advantage. However this advantage also has a draw back, hundreds of engineers have also been cut from their jobs and have had their jobs given to people overseas. This puts a bad reputation on the name of the business as an Australian business will cut jobs from Australian workers and supple foreign workers with jobs. Families and friends of these workers may feel resentment towards Qantas and choose to travel with another airline instead resulting in a loss of customers. This strategy has been effective in reducing cost but has resulted in a reduction of quality and safety and led to a decreased business reputation resulting in a loss of customers and stakeholders.

While outsourcing may be beneficial to some of the companies partaking in it, the general consensus is that it ultimately proves to be harmful to the American workforce. The act of outsourcing and shifting many company call centers and technical support teams, or “low skill service jobs,” to foreign countries reduces jobs for those that could truly benefit from them within our own country. The unemployment rate has dramatically increased, and continues to rise, compared to what it has been in years past; yet there are numerous companies which still insist on handing over these “low skill service jobs” to people in other countries such as India. The most obvious and logical reason for outsourcing is reducing costs; people are working for

Outsourcing is a method used by many corporations in which their products are manufactured in foreign countries often for cheaper labor.This method method of productions has it’s pros and cons.

The purpose of the paper is to research and understand how the changes of globalization and technology have impacted the Airline industry. This paper will also apply the industrial organization model and the resource-based model to determine how the Airline industry earn above-average returns. This paper will explain how the Airline industry’s success is through its mission and vision statements with Southwest Airlines as an example. Finally, this paper will evaluate how the importance each category of the stakeholder impacts are to the overall success of the Airline industry.

The airline business is an industry that is competitive and unique, focussing on consumer choice and the responsiveness of airlines to changes in the external business environment. For any airline, this environment can be very complex as it is ‘hard for them to fully understand and impossible for them to fully control’ (The Times, n.d. p1). Virgin Atlantic is an international airline that is based in the UK. It was started by the entrepreneur Richard Branson in 1982 and now flies to 30 destinations around the world (Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd, 2011). By looking at

Outsourcing can be a means to perform the core functions of an organization effectively by having more time focused on the activities critical to the delivery of services to customer. The non-core activities are performed by the leaders in that area which will help to achieve better efficiencies. Outsourcing can substantially lower costs, help to access better technology and use innovative ideas etc.(Robert,2001). The advantages of outsourcing are: Cost savings:

Office Supply Incorporated (OSI) is a company in crisis, with challenges in its cost structure and poor IT performance. Outsourcing to Technology Infrastructure Solutions (TIS) is an opportunity to both reduce costs and complexity for the firm, but first must consider whether outsourcing is a good strategic fit for OSI. Outsourcing is known as the practice of turning over responsibility of some or all of organizations information systems to a foreign firm in order to stay competitive. Outsourcing is not new to the business world, as it dominated the manufacturing sector the past couple of decades. There are various advantages and disadvantages. Advantages include lower costs, better quality, and downsizing to focus on the

The company's internal strategies stand in response to the conditions of the external environment. The airline industry in the United States is a difficult one in which to operate. Fixed costs associated with

The Airline industry has experienced continual problems with rising costs with both fuel and maintenance which has caused them to increase their fees to the consumers to pay for those rising costs. This paper will help explain what an airline such as Delta does to help alleviate such costs without forcing its consumers to flip the bill through high fees that consist of tickets, baggage fees and food. The costs of doing business in aviation today have spiraled out of control making it very expensive for both airlines and the

There have been few inventions to change how people live and experience the world considerably as the creation of the airplane. Today, traveling by air has become the norm and it would be difficult to imagine life without it. Air travel has improved the way people are able to conduct business by shortening travel time and changing their thought of distance. The companies within the airline industry exist in a very competitive market. One of those companies, Southwest Airlines, features low-fare, no-frills air service with frequent flights of mostly short routes. Costs are kept down by the exclusive use of Boeing 737 aircraft, which allows for low maintenance costs and quicker turnaround times for flights, and by an emphasis on ticketless travel (Encyclopedia Britannica). This paper will address two segments of the general environment and how they affect Southwest and the airline industry; evaluate how Southwest has addressed two forces of competition; predict what Southwest might do to improve its ability to addresses these forces; assess the external threats affecting Southwest; discuss Southwest’s greatest strengths and most significant weaknesses; determine Southwest’s resources, capabilities, and core competencies; and analyze their value chain.

first it should be underlined, that in the airline industry, there are two types of buyers (Hartley, 2013). The first type is the individual buyers, who buy tickets for personal or business reasons, related to their own individual well beings. This type of buyers is extremely diverse and there is barely someone who had never bought a ticket, especially in the developed countries. A plane ticked could be purchased directly from the airline company’s ticket offices or from the second group of buyers, e.g. travel agencies and online portals. This buyer group works as a middle man between airlines and flyers. They work with many airline companies to give consumers the best possible flight. Between these two groups there is definitely a large amount of buyers compared to the number of firms. There is low cost shifting between companies because many people choose flights based on where they are going and costs at the time. This is a loyalty to the companies, but not enough high switching costs. Each client needs a lot of important information. They need

Cathay Pacific (CP) is an interesting case because it is an example of a company attempting to work in isolation, vertically integrated and developing all their needs themselves. Truth is however; in today’s interconnected economy a company working independently simply can not compete. The world has become too dynamic and contains too many other companies developing better solutions to rely solely on one’s internal organization. Cathay eventually recognized this fact and turned to outsourcing to focus on its core competency, customer service and transportation.