Southwest Airlines
Southwest Case
Southwest is an airline built off of its founding strategies and maintains management philosophies from the top down. Based around low cost and customer service, Southwest created a niche market for itself and a reputation that outperformed its competitors. The strategic issues dealt with in this case study revolve around their level of service, management, growth strategy and maintaining these in a changing environment. After the events of 9/11 Southwest was faced with government security policies that directly conflicted with their core strategies that allowed them to be successful. To remain profitable and maintain their reputation, adjustments had to be made in the short term followed by long-term strategies for a continued 14% growth target. The main idea is how to survive and succeed in a changing environment, especially when the changing environment goes directly against what you do.
As related to topics studied in class, this case involves SWOT analysis, the value chain, marketing, sales, resources, service, and human resource management and general administration. SWOT analysis applies to Southwest as from the start they looked at their competition and competitive environment and aimed to differentiate the company in order to create a niche market. There is also analysis of the value chain, as they created a strategic plan for what they wanted to accomplish, and how they would carry them out, through primary and support activities. Such as maintaining low cost and on-time performance, they accomplished these things by setting competitive rates and focusing on corporate culture (customer service) to gain and retain customers. This case study also involves resources, what Southwest views as resources and how they use them. In this case Southwest primarily views its workers as its primary resources and utilizes them. Using a team approach, hiring based on personality and having the mentality “what ever it...
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