Westjet Case Summary

r market by entering into strategic code-sharing agreements with international carriers, such as Cathay Pacific , and American Airlines

This report was made up for the purposes for pursuing our client and make him understand why he should invest in our company. This report will contain a swat analysis, strengths and weakness, vision statement, mission statement. These are going to a sure that we has a company aren’t only advertising our strengths but we will also show our weakness and things that need to be improved. The history of WestJet and the current points will also be shown, from when WestJet was founded and too, what’s WestJet’s main focus now will be shown in this analysis for our client. Another thing west jet wants to represent is all of the financial resources and the finical information for our client and of course a company overview will be provided has well.

“Customer care” is what WestJet Airlines says in their ads. WestJet entire corporate culture has been built around caring for their customers, by providing a great

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.

Westjet came into the air travel business in 1996, offering fares up to 50% cheaper than there competition. They strived for an excellent relationship between the employee and the employer by creating an ecstatic, friendly work environment. Westjet is one of the most successful airlines as it did start out with the most start up capital any airline has ever experienced, as well as keeping their debt to a minimum. With such commercial success, Westjet was questioned with their actions towards Air Canada as one of the founders employed a travel agent to find out certain information about Air Canada which gave them a competitive advantage so they knew exactly what price would be a noticeable difference, which would attract

• WestJet views its employees as its most valuable asset. Therefore, it aims to ensure that employees’ work experience is fun, challenging and rewarding. Encourages employees to interact positively with customers to try to earn repeat customers.

In order to assess the corporate governance performance in WestJet over the long term, we are looking into three different fundamental corporate governance issues:

WestJet became one of significant air transportation companies since its birth in 1996.After conquering all Canadian destination, WestJet have chance to compete in the international scene. Today it has not that many destinations outside of North America,

WestJet develop their IT operation early and force them get the lead in the aviation businesses. However, as the global economic and the change of people’s demand, the strategic plan of WestJet need to be change to follow the change of the world. Compare with other aviation business, the IT structure of WestJet is small and keeps running on their pervious operation before Smith join into the organization. There are some risks coming out if WestJet continue these IT operations.

For instance, Canada's federal government has delegated the responsibility for airports to local authorities. As a result, many Canadian airports have transformed into brighter, cleaner, and more modern facilities that have become more expensive to operate 3. Canada’s airports have spent more than $9.5 billion on improvements since 19922. According to the CEO of Transat A.T. Inc, “it costs three times as much for an airline to land in Pearson Airport in Toronto as at Charles-de-Gaulle in Paris” 2. Such high landing fees have made Pearson and other major Canadian airports less desirable landing destinations; increasing costs for airlines, and as a result, often increasing prices for consumers. Pearson Airport is West Jet’s “second-largest hub and main connection point in Eastern Canada” and almost half of its destinations are to Canadian airports2, Such high costs of landing in major Canadian cities require that WestJet finds more ways to cut costs and remain the cost leader in its industry.

WestJet is also facing a strategic problem, the longer term impact that growth is having on WestJet’s culture. WestJet’s success and competitive advantage have been a direct result

This was evident with the purchase of Canadian Airlines, in 1999 (The National, 2003). With the purchase of this airline, Air Canada also inherited their estimated eight billion dollar debt (The National, 2003). Also inherited from the merger, were underappreciated employees and under trained employees who lacked morale (The National, 2003). In 2003, Air Canada filed for bankruptcy (The National, 2003), this was due to the large financial deficit, the economy and the underappreciated/paid employees. Although, this was a difficult time for the airline, this truly marked the change in how the airline is structured. In 2005, it marked the true return of Air Canada, they reached record breaking revenues and far exceeded anyone’s expectation, including their own. Currently Air Canada, is the largest Canadian Airline, which has a lot to do with their change in business strategy.

Westjet Airlines has achieved considerable success in the past few years, winning estimable rewards related to its service, gaining loyal customers and, of course, increasing market shares. It devotes to a “high-value, low-fare airline” which provides humanized services to customers. Another pride of Westjet is its IT, which designs all systems in-house and is operated based on the business demands.

The major strength of this assessment is that Cheryl was able to identify the issues that are key for WestJet to maximize and align IT with the business strategy as well as to add value to the company. Furthermore, Cheryl has started to act and take wise decisions without letting herself to feel overwhelm by the situation or by other person’s decision so she can have a clear picture of the business as well as the impact of its actions. A clear example of this situation was her decision to stop the PMO recommended by IBM. Also, she has focus on managing and improving current IT processes performances, adding tangible value to the organization Additionally, the actions proposed by Cheryl have the goal to update and upgrade IT according to the challenges of the industry in order to take WestJet into a higher level, moving people out of their comfort zone so they can increase their contribution to the company’s strategy. Besides, she found out that the IT group has excellent technical

WM shows a steady increase in the amount of cash generated by operating activities in the last three years, while SRC shows a negative operating cash flow in 1997. During this last year, WM used its operating cash flow to finance both new expansion activities and financing activities (mainly a stock repurchase plan). SRC, on the other hand, had to take new