Westjet Airline: Strategy And Competitive Strategy

In modern society, IT (information technology) governance plays an important role in business development. Therefore a good IT organization is which match all the business need and also performance well to get lead in the industry. This report will analyze four sections related to WestJet Airlines case. First of all, the five specific areas in IT governance will be considered. Second, AS8015 model for IT governance will be defined, and a strong example will be discussed. The third part is about risk identification and control for WestJet Airlines’ IT operations. The last section will discuss how Smith manage the transformation propose.

Air Canada has been in the business of air transport for an extended period of time. Due to the experience and the exposure of the carrier in the field, it has made a commendable progress through many strategies as well as customer proximity. One of the approaches taken by the airline involves the identification as well as an implementation of cost reduction initiatives in a bid to increase revenue from its operations (Air Canada, 2016). It is also attempting to connect with the existing carriers across the world to connect the current customers to the international world. This approach has been adopted to increase its competitive advantage over other existing airlines.

Truth is, there will never be a perfect company. With great success, there’s always turbulence along the way, WestJet is far from the perfect company. WestJet’s main concern is expanding and if they don’t expand, it will give other airlines a chance to enter the market that could hurt the carrier’s low-cost, low-fare, short-haul, point-to-point services of Western Canada. Additionally, the expansion project will make it difficult to keep WestJet’s famous culture alive as the company grows on a global scale. Remember, WestJet’s strong and outstanding culture was the root of the growing company. WestJet emphasis on the commitment to maintaining the culture, stating “a vibrant corporate culture was so central to WestJet’s success that preserving it was Bell’s and Beddoe’s main obsession”.

WestJet’s strategic plan and the organizational structure, both are driven by technology but like any other organization there are loop holes. The integration with Sabre, a flight reservation

I enjoy and agree with your post, its true that collaboration is important when an organization wants to make chance for positive advances. But you what I think is the best is to know and have a vision of success. Its important to understand that you would have challenges to start and at the end of the project that will make the organization stronger. Ms. Smith realize that have a collaboration IT business will help her to rearrange WestJet to become successful in the market.

It’s not uncommon to see Gregg Saretsky, President and CEO of WestJet Airlines Ltd., handing out cupcakes to employees. It’s a company known for its culture of creative engagement.“Leading doesn’t always mean that the decisions come from the top. At WestJet, the learning for me was that a lot of the good stuff comes from the bottom.Pugliese said WestJet’s focus on building relationships with employees is one of its competitive

In order to incorporate transformational changes, the aspect of core competency must be kept in mind. WestJet’s core values are that it is a cost-effective airline and aims at providing excellent guest service. The airline has faced many problems related to business-IT alignment and its governance structure in spite having a bunch of exceptionally talented and technically sound employees. There are managerial issues in the organization which has led to slow growth of the organization. Recommendations and suggestions on what could be done to counteract the identified issues and how to gloss the change management process to the employees is also showcased in the report. Benefits can be derived if the recommendations offered as a part of this

As stated before, WestJet’s culture and their employees are one of their main reasons for their great success. If not careful, this could be the cause of their downfall. WestJet Airlines seem to connect their culture with their hiring process. West Jet is known as a fun, enthusiastic, and playful environment. During the hiring process, they look for employees who have a great sense of humor and are new to the airline field. Often employees play jokes on passengers and amongst each other. As WestJet continues to expand, they will not be able to keep their culture as is.

“Other airlines were becoming more sophisticated with the integration of IT and guest experience, and WestJet was not keeping pace.” Munro and Kahn, (2013). P.1 realizing the situation, the CEO Saretsky seeks advice from an outside source, Cheryl Smith. He was concerned about whether or not the company had an adequate IT infrastructure. Upon her arrival at WestJet, prior to giving a response to the CEO, Smith did her research and brought in experts to do a comparison study between similar companies in the transportation industry. She wanted to compare WestJet’s IT budget, resources and cost to the standards of the other industries. After the studies were completed, the results showed that WestJet IT technicians were skilled only in WestJet

At the end of 2014, the aircrafts in possess are 109 Boeing 737 NG, and 19 Bombardier Q400, which are all short and medium-range narrow-bodied airliners. We assume that majority of WestJet customers are travelling for leisure, and the determinant of which airline to choose is the price.

The critical factors in the successful transformation of British Airways were changing the culture of the organization for the employees and the consumers. British Airways embarked on an aggressive media campaign that helped change the “face” of the airline. Their new tag line was “The worlds favourite airline”. Customer service became the number one priority for all employees. Lead by Colin Marshall, “an enabling culture (was put) in place to allow customer service to come out, where rather than people waiting to be told what to do to do things better, it’s an environment where people feel they can actually come out with ideas, that they will be listened to, and feel they are much more a part of the success of the company” Jick (2011)(p.30). A “Putting People First” (PFF) program was instituted for all front line employees. This helped to unify the employees with the new vision of customer service first for the company. During these two day mandatory meetings, all front line staff interacted with all levels of managers and leaders on an even playing

Argyres, N. & McGahan, M. A., 2002. Introduction: Michael Porter's "Competitive Strategy". The Academy of Management executive, 16(2), pp. 41-42.

WestJet have two major problems lead them crash down, which is transfer the files from old reservation system to new system without backing up the data and the second one is did not have enough staff to response customers complained. According to Laudon and Laudon (2014), both JetBlue and WestJet are using the same business strategy which is low cost and good service to achieve the goal. And also both of them are used to a small company. WestJet only have three planes and 40 staffs at the beginning, but now it has about 7800 staffs and 420 flights every day to 71 places among the USA, Canada and Mexico and Caribbean (Laudon & Laudon 2014). In 2010, there was approximately 40% of

The Customer Service Experience plays a key role in communicating the culture of your business and services. Customer service is communicated to customers through employee’s appearance, their interaction, knowledge, skill, and attitude. Managers, supervisors, and/or team leader are to provide the information, skills, and support to provide quality service to customers, “In other words, for customer service to be successful it must be managed successfully” (Martin, 2011, pg. 1). Customers want is value for the money along with effective, efficient service. This paper will discuss the

According to Collins, (2012) report that Air Canada’s goal was highly develop as a leading global airline to be among these with the highest levels of customer satisfaction, employee engagement and value setting for shareholders and other stakeholders. This is following four key strategies: