Evaluating Ryanair Holdings Plc Funding Strategies From The View Of Shareholder Interests, Dividend Policy, Corporate Governance,

Generally speaking, the launch strategy of Ryanair was not the best one for that moment in time. They began operations between Dublin and London, in a very saturated market, which was already served by two competing and very experienced companies owned by the governments:

Ryanair, originally an Irish low-cost airline and established by the Ryan family in the year of 1984 starting off with only 25 members of staff. Replicating the American Southwest airline business model and then officially relaunched in the year 1990. It has vastly grown from being a single-aircraft family operation into one of the world’s top leading airlines. Now Ryanair has reached 11,458 employees. The airline carries over 131 million passengers per annum on over 2,000 flights daily, from 86 different routes, flying to more than 205 destinations in 33 countries.

The airline industry has always been a fiercely competitive sector. Since the invention of low-cost carriers, also known as no-frills or

Cathal Ryan and Declan Ryan have started Ryanair since 1985. For nearly a year, Ryanair had operated a 14-seat turboprop between Waterford and Gatwick Airport on the outskirts of London. The airline targeted low-fare segment market. It initiated service from London’s secondary airports. In terms of competition, Waterford and Gatwick didn’t pose any challenges.

Set up in the year 1985 at a capital of 1 pound with a staff strength of 25, Ryanair is today the World’s favourite and most commonly used airline which operates more than 1,400 flights per day from 44 bases and 1100+ low fare routes across 27 countries, connecting 160 destinations. Ryanair operates a fleet of 250 new Boeing 737-800 aircraft and is expected to increase it by another 64 in 2 years. Ryanair currently has staff strength of more than 8,000 people. Its passenger base has been increasing

The aim of this report is to carry out a strategic analysis of Ryanair. This will involve investigating the organisation’s external environment, to identify opportunities and threats it might face, and its strategic capability, to isolate key strengths and any weaknesses that need dealing with. Finally, a SWOT analysis will be carried out to assess the extent to which Ryanair’s strategies are suitable to what is happening in its task environment.

The purpose of this report is to comment at the first part how Ryanair achieve its competitive advantage through the RBV analysis (Barney,1991), the second part will assess its approach to the diversification through the Ansoff matrix , the third part will discuss the company’s organisational culture using the cultural web modeland last part its internationalization strategy.

Michael O Leary uses a centralized management style in the company which is also used a functional structure. The organisation structure of Ryanair is tall. As illustrated in my diagram Michael O Leary is the CEO of Ryanair and he deals directly with the chief financial officer, head of marketing, head of customer service, head of pilots union and all the other departments displayed in the structure. A functional structure is a structure that groups people in different departments or functions because they all share common skills or they can make use of the same resources. The members of these teams working in these different departments become very skilled and become more specialized within each function. My reason for choosing functional structure for Ryanair is that there no real hierarchy in the organisation, this improves the channels of communication and ensure there is no confusion. Michael O Leary makes the decisions in the firm and uses a very hands on approach in the business by dealing with other managers in the business on a day to day basis. If any problems are ever encountered Michael O Leary would deal with the problems internally. Staff within the company are also matched with their expertise and assigned to a certain group such as marketing, finance etc. A functional structure helps organisations to group tasks into functions to increase their effectiveness in which the company will be allowed to reach their company goals such as providing customers with cheap flights with excellent customer service. As Ryanair grows in size there may well be more departments added to the structure as there will be more employees and more roles and responsibilities to be

1. In-depth environmental analysis of the European Airline industry and discuss the implications for the budget sector and especially for Ryanair. 2. An integrated understanding of the functioning of a company – its human and technical operations, leadership, customer relationships and financial structure. 3. Implications of the internal functioning to create viable strategic positioning and discuss any changes to Ryanair’s approach to ensure an improved sustainability 4. Evaluate the strategic leadership style of Michael O’Leary

A unique cost cutting policy would be the main core competence of Ryanair. It refuses to provide any meal vouchers or hotel accommodation for flights which are delayed or cancelled for reasons beyong Ryanair’s control in order to reduce the operating cost. (Ryanair, 2011) Meanwhile, Ryanair is using LFA business model to design the size of its

The strategic plan of Ryanair has been to establish itself as Europe’s leading low-fares airline.” Ryanair aims to offer low fares that generate increased passenger traffic while maintaining a continuous focus on cost-containment and operating efficiencies.” (www.ryanair.com)

Ryanair is an Irish based airline company, headquartered in Dublin airport, Ireland. It was established in 1985, and since Ryanair has expanded from a small airline to serving 90.6 million passengers. It operates 1,800 flights a day connecting 200 destinations. (Ryanair Annual Report, 2015; (Ryanair)).

Ryanair was established in the year 1985 by the RYAN family and has grown from a small airline flying a short hop from Waterford to London, into one of the Europe’s largest carriers. The company expanded and within 4 years it had 350 employees, 14 aircraft, and carried 600,000 passengers a year. It is currently serving to 26 European Countries with 148 destinations. It operates on 794 different routes daily serving by more than 1050 flights in a day. It has totally 169 aircrafts running for different routes with 5986number of employees working in it However, Ryanair’s costs rose drastically and it recorded losses of £20 Million sover four years despite its growth. Although consumers were continuing to fly Ryanair

Second, I will discuss any issues involved related to raising capital in the global market. When a company decides to enter the global market, it is up to management to ensure that the company is ready for such move. When raising capital in the global market, companies may have to deal with global credit facilities. Before global credit facilities decide to do business with a company, the company must first prove that the standing of the company is healthy. The company must be able to show the global credit facilities that the company’s overall financial performance is healthy and in some instances that the financial strength of the parent company is healthy as well. A common issue that a lot of companies wishing to raise capital in the global market may come across is the preparation of financial statements. Financial statements preparation varies from country to country and can be very difficult for some countries to understand or read

The objective of this report is to appraise and evaluate the external environment, internal capabilities of Ryanair and assess the competitive environment. This project report also evaluates the marketing focus deployed by Ryanair in the year 2009 when the airline achieved a benchmark by being Europe’s largest carrier by passenger numbers and market capitalisation.