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An Analysis Of People Express Airlines: Rise And Decline

An Analysis of People Express Airlines: Rise and Decline

Group Project

Strategy is defined as the process of positioning the organization in the competitive environment and implementing actions to compete successfully. The premise behind the strategy of People Express was to focus on the people, both the customers as well as the employees. Employees were referred to as “People”, and the passengers were referred to as “Customers”. Examples of strategies implemented by People Express early in the process include:

• Create an exciting and rewarding place to work. Donald C. Burr, founder and CEO, believed that this strategy would produce high quality employees who would perform at a level above their competitors. For example, the case states that:
o “The competitive business strategy was to provide outstanding service by highly motivated people…(p.2)
o Burr believed in allowing his employees the freedom to make decisions and implement programs, without supervision, as long as they fell in line with the established precepts. “…if they are internally motivated, they understand the objectives, they understand where they are headed, then they can create the environment, they can manipulate the environment in the best possible sense and therefore serve our customers in the best possible way.” (p. 3)
o “Giving people freedom and trusting them to act consistently with the philosophy led to PE’s practice of naming all its people “managers”. (p. 3) This was Burr’s way of getting his employees to be more committed in the company’s success and think of it as more than a job.
o “Therefore PE’s recruiters (mostly experienced CSMs) looked for people who were bright, educated, well-groomed, mature, articulate, assertive, creative, energetic, conscientious, and hard working. They had to be good team players, willing to do different things, and ambitious in achieving personal development. (p. 7)
o People Express...