Essay about Southwest Airlines

Southwest Airlines Co., established in 1971 by Rollin King and Herb Kelleher, began its operations with only three Boeing 737 aircrafts. It is headquartered in Dallas, Texas(Hawkins, Misra, & Tang, 2012). Southwest is well known as one of the largest low-cost carriers. With this strategy, the company has dramatically grown up and deeply rooted in the US airline industry. Now, Southwest Airlines Co. operates 633 aircrafts to 93 domestic cities and the highest number of passengers used Southwest Airlines to fly around U.S in Jan 2014 (Hawkins, Misra, & Tang, 2012). To accomplish more than 40th consecutive years of both profitability and competitiveness, Southwest Airlines Company is constantly trying to find the routes to differentiate itself from other domestic carriers (Hawkins, Misra, & Tang, 2012).

Southwest Airlines is a major US airline established in 1967 that services a multitude of cities in all 50 states and beyond. The company is known for its outstanding quality in providing services and it 's cost effective ticket prices to its many passengers throughout the nation. This airline is based in the southwestern United States, in the city of Dallas Texas, and due to the tremendous number of airplanes that it has and the timely service that it provides to its passengers, this airline services more US passengers than any other airline. This airline also has the largest fleet of planes of any economical or low-cost airline service in the world and employees more than 45,000.

Southwest Airlines (SWA) maintained a low-cost, low-price and no frills strategy. The small Texas carrier began as a concept, its business plan detailed on a cocktail napkin in 1971 and grew into the nation’s fourth largest airline. Known as an innovator with low operating costs, dominating smaller airports, with a humorous customer service, SWA saw its 40th profitable year in 2013. Like all companies, SWA underwent leadership changes in 2001, and said goodbye to the company’s founder in 2008. Unfortunately, the changes in leadership were not the only changes; the organization proceeded to alter their beliefs and activities.

University of Phoenix. (2013). Harvard business publishing: Working capital simulation: Managing growth assignment [Multimedia]. Retrieved from University of Phoenix, FIN571 website.

Analyze the fundamental differences between the working capital structures and components for each chosen company, and speculate upon the main reasons why such differences exist.

Southwest Airlines Co. began its operations in 1971 and has been serving the industry for the past 43 years now (Southwest Airlines, n.d.). It is the major domestic airline, and ranked number one in 2014 by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (United States Department of Transportation, 2014). Back in 1971 the airline began its services in Texas in the cities of Houston, San Antonio, and Dallas. The company has been ranked as the nation's largest low cost carrier (Mergent, 2012). It offers the lowest fares, and has the lowest cost structure in the industry.

The Corporate Finance course has helped me, as a student, gain intelligence to make informed decisions upon analyzing the details for Sunflower Nutraceuticals (SNC). These decisions will influence the company’s overall growth annually. In addition to various details of the SNC Company I have also made various decisions in each of the phases of SNC’s simulation which has an estimated values to figure out the results. This paper also explains how SNC’s decisions are influenced with regards to the working capital followed with the final step of evaluating the general affects associated with the limited

At the onset of the airline industry in the United States, major network airlines were the sole providers of air travel. This multifaceted industry was a difficult industry to break into as a consequence of “sophisticated customer segmentation, hub-and spoke models and costly information systems for reservations, fare wars and intense competition” (Thompson 2008). Shrinkage in airline ticket prices augmented the demand for airline travel. Many markets were simply deserted or over-looked by major network airlines; this is a region a fresh “second tier of service providers” could enter into. This endeavor proved to provide a consumer savings of billions per year. Thus in June of 1971, after a tumultuous battle with other Texas-based

Working Capital is defined as “a measure of both a company 's efficiency and its short-term financial health. (Investopedia, 2016.)” Having an efficient working capital can make or break a business’s success. To expand on our experience with working capital, we ran the Harvard Business Publication Working Capital Simulation. In our simulation, we are co-owners of Sunflower Nutraceuticals (SNC), “an internet-based, direct-to-consumer distributor and retailer of dietary supplements, including vitamins, minerals, and herbs for women (Harvard Business Publication, 2014.)”, looking to create more working capital for the company so Sunflower Nutraceuticals can expand. We were told that SNC is breaking even with a flat annual sales growth on total revenues of $10 million. The company has struggled to finance the payroll, and more than once overdrawn on the line of credit in the past. SNC keeps the minimum amount of cash on hand ($300,000) to meet its operational needs. A national bank, Miami Dade Merchant 's Bank (MDM), has issued a line of credit with restrictive covenants; credit limit of $3,200,000, and rate of 8%. We were also provided with a forecast of the global nutraceuticals market. In 2010 the market worth was approximately $128.6 billion and forecasted to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 4.9% and reach $180.1 billion by 2017 (Harvard Business Publication, 2014.). After being given all of this information, it was up to us to make

The Harvard Business Simulation asked that one act as the C.E.O. of Sunflower Nutraceuticals (which will be referred to as SNC throughout this paper). Within the simulation there were phase in which decisions were made to help SNC with the growth of the company. This paper will explain the decisions made will influence SNC to estimate the value of the company, the working capital of the company, and evaluate the general affects associated with the limited access of financial mix.

The goal of this paper is to explain the prominent success of Southwest Airline in the United States through a single case study analysis making use of the McKinsey’s 7-S framework. Developed in the early 1980s at the McKinsey & Company consulting firm by Tom Peters and Robert Waterman, this framework looks at 7 internal factors (Structure, Strategy, Systems, Style, Staff, Skills, Super-ordinate goals) which, according to its authors, need to be aligned for an organization to be successful. In this paper, we will analyse each of its internal elements through the case study “Southwest Airlines in 2008, Culture, Values, and Operating Practices”.

Southwest Airlines was originally named Air Southwest. It was started on March 15, 1967, by Rollin King and Herb Kelleher. Southwest Airlines is an American low fare airline based in Dallas, Texas. It is also the largest airline in the United States by number of passengers carried domestically in a year and the third largest airline in the world by number of passengers carried. Southwest is also one the most profitable airlines in the world posting a profit for 34 consecutive years.

Analysing the historical values of the operating margins from the Income Statement, we forecast values for the 2007-2009 period. The executives of BKI expect the firm to achieve operating margins at least as high as the historical ones. Thus, we took averages and slightly adjusted them toward higher values. Since the declining tendency in the last three years was cause by integration costs and inventory write-downs associated with acquisitions, which already have been completed. To the EBIT, estimated by using those margins, subtract the taxes, Capex, adjust for Depreciation, Amortization and change in Working capital. The capital expenditures were just over $10m on average per year. The company is expecting the Capex remain modest. Thus, we assumed a Capex of $10m for the next three years. We estimated Net Working Capital by using the average ratio of NWC/Net income of the last three years.

Southwest Airlines was created in the late 1960’s by a businessperson Rolling King, and law school graduate Herb Kelleher, who sought a faster travel time between Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio, Texas (Dess, et al., 2014, p. C137). After overcoming all of the antagonism and legal problems of many major airlines, Southwest was able to take its first flight in 1971 (Dess, et al., 2014, p.C137). With a dedication and will power to grow the company, King and Kelleher sought out ways to increase growth.

In this paper I’ll analyze the fundamental differences between the working capital structures and components for Google and Oracle, and speculate upon the main reasons why such differences exist; how each company could improve its working capital positions. As a Wall Street Analyst who has to recommend one of the companies as an investment to a company’s clients; based solely on that company’s working capital; as an Investment Banker who has to recommend loaning a substantial amount of capital to one company based solely on that company’s working capital.