External and Internal Environmental Analysis
STR/581
JetBlue Environmental Analysis External and internal environmental analysis is a critical component for an organization seeking to achieve its goals. The follow information within this paper presents a complete external environmental and an internal competitive environmental scan for JetBlue Airways. The information provided identifies and analyzes the most important external environmental factor in the remote, industry, and external operating environments. When addressing external environment it speaks to a set of forces and conditions outside the organization that can influence its performance. The most common forces include political, economic, social,
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Governmental regulations and legalities are another key threat for JetBlue. Airline regulations can increase expenses and potentially create inefficiency in operations in order to meet regulation requirements. Additionally, restrictions related to international trade, tax policy, and competition can thwart expansion efforts.
Internal Strengths and Weaknesses JetBlue is a pro at utilizing its resources and structure. As such, JetBlue has proven to be efficient in its internal environment. Out of the physical and human aspects of the internal environment JetBlue focuses on human as the key factor. JetBlue views its employees and their skills as the key to a successful structure by emphasizing elements of loyalty, satisfaction, service quality, productivity, capability, and output quality. JetBlue reflects a culture of employees that understand how to retain customers and can perform under various situations with an equally varied consumer base. In addition to human capital, JetBlue uses physical assets to set them apart from the rest. The airline fleet of JetBlue is very precisely selected. From its new Airbus A321 to its Airbus 320, JetBlue prides itself on comfort and luxury. Other perks offered by JetBlue include lower priced airfare compared to that of its competitors and in-flight entertainment options that succeed its competition. Internal weaknesses include a
Its dependence on the geographical regions it travels to makes it vulnerable to the changes that the country faces economically and politically. Because most of JetBlue’s dependence is on the U.S market, this exposes them to the risks of the economies conditions.
JetBlue Airways, the latest entrant in the airlines industry has gone through the initial stages (entrepreneurial and collectivity) of the organizational life cycle rapidly under the successful leadership of David Neelman. JetBlue Airways is currently in the formalization stage of the life cycle where in it needs to create procedures and control systems to effectively manage its growth. Also as it proceeds to grow further to reach the elaboration stage, JetBlue needs to continue to align itself with the environment in order to maintain its sustained growth.
When manipulating a business’s strategy, it is important to focus on the external factors in the environment. An external analysis is where a business conducts environmental scanning that present a company with the key external forces influencing the organization. The facets of external forces examined are the business environment, remote environment, or the competitive environment. A business environment is all of the external factors in the general environment that a firm cannot control, but can affect their strategy. The remote environment is the forces that affect most firms. Lastly, a competitive environment is the firm’s specific industry and its entirety. The external analysis is pertinent to a company called Dick’s Drive- In; without it, Dick’s would not be a thriving popular business today.
JetBlue Airways has been affected by key external factors. The political factor that has affected JetBlue is the resentment towards union formation. Currently, JetBlue is a non-union company. This helps it keep its fixed costs low. Further, there are positive
JetBlue has been one of the most successful airlines since it first entered the industry in December of 1999. Founder, David Neeleman, set out to succeed by offering low-cost air travel in hopes of perpetuating his services to as many people as he could across the US. He was very adamant about having a very customer oriented business that catered to the needs of all. In doing so he wanted to emphatically promote his obligation to safety, caring, integrity, passion, while allowing the customers to have fun while traveling. There motto helps portray Neeleman’s belief stating “You Above All”. His primary goals had been to follow Southwest’s objectives of offering low rates to customers, focusing on customer’s needs and comforts while distinguishing itself with their amenities. Neeleman’s other goal was to establish his low-cost leadership strategy by concentrating his airline in a large popular metropolitan area that already is already correlated with high airfare (Peterson, 2004). He then began operating based out of the New York metropolitan area at John F. Kennedy International airport with his secondary locations in Washington D.C., Boston and Los Angeles.
1. JetBlue's strategy for success in the marketplace is based on the cost leadership strategy, as outlined by Michael Porter (QuickMBA, 2010). This strategy relies on delivering products or services at a lower price than competitors, and using that cost leadership as the basis by which to attract customers. JetBlue essentially built their business model after Southwest Airlines, and the company's founders had experience with Southwest that helped them learn about the business. The JetBlue approach to cost leadership is focused on the mass market.
Jet-blue Airways is American low cost airline head quartered near New-York city. It’s foundedin August 1998 by David Neeleman with Joel Peterson as a chairman and David Barger as apresident and CEO. By late 2006,like some other airlines, JetBlue faced some softening demand and high cost due to the increase in fuel prices. Barger realizes that JetBlue needs to take further steps to slow its rate of growth. Barger was not sure about the reductions across E190 and A320. The E190 showedpromising growth opportunities and challenges for JetBlue. At the same time, the A320 wasconsidered as proven plane that had succeededover past 6 years. Most of the airline industries were using hub-and-spoke system and point-to-point services. Due to this service, South West Airlines showed consistent profits. After September 11th, the airline industry experienced trouble due to attack. Looking at the history of Jet-blue, it started with just 10airplanes in 2000 and by 2011 the company planned to have 290 planes in service. To support customers, Jet Blueprovided
Another strength that JetBlue has is that they have newer planes, advanced technological aspects that are more cost efficient. However, JetBlue’s weakness includes high debt due to the cost jets and high dependence on the metro area. JetBlue’s opportunity in the industry includes the industry growth and JetBlue’s commitment in partnering with other companies to draw in more customers. Some threats to JetBlue is an over competitive market, raising fuel costs and constant increase in stricter government restrictions ("Blue Airways Corporation SWOT Analysis," 2014).
There are two major strategic issues facing JetBlue. The first is that the company is growing very rapidly. This brings with it a number of critical challenges, such as recruitment and selection, maintaining the corporate culture, and maintaining high service levels. Secondary goals associated with this are maintaining safety standards, finding profitable routes to occupy and avoiding a unionization drive. Growing a company this rapidly is possible given the strong initial financing that the company has, but challenging in that the faster the airline grows, the more difficult it will be to find the right people and the right routes. The company can grow rapidly while plucking the low-hanging fruit but these tasks become more difficult over time.
New technology: Internet (60% of seats were booked on-line), paperless operation, computerized, Reservation operation (not using call center)
The general environment is composed of segments that are external to the firm. Although the degree of impact varies, these environmental segments affect all industries and firms competing in them. The
Founded by the discount airline veteran David Neeleman in 2000, JetBlue Airways has quickly become one of the largest discount airlines in the United States. Starting primarily by serving the East Coast, the airline has since expanded throughout the country and entered the international market. The reasons for its early success are numerous: JetBlue entered the market with one of the largest levels of liquidity of any start-up airline; it met the needs of customers’ whose primary concerns are price and route; and it successfully defined its brand and differentiated itself
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the business strategy of JetBlue Airways. JetBlue was founded by David Neeleman in 2000 and quickly became one of the largest discount airlines in the United States. It was started in the east coast primarily and expanded throughout the country and entered the international market soon after that. JetBlue received the “#1 Airline Brand” rating10 even while keeping its advertising costs significantly lower than Southwest Airlines. Jet Blue’s talent in formulating and executing effective strategies has enabled the company to rapidly grow in the domestic and international market base.
1. What forces from the natural physical environmental are currently affecting the corporation and the industries in which it competes? Which present current or future threats? Opportunities?
To assure the success of a business over a long period of time the business must be able to conduct regular analysis of their success. They must be able to determine where they are today and have a goal of where they would like to see themselves 5-10 years down the road. In order to conduct a true analysis of the company, one must complete an environmental scan of their organization. Thus scanning for events, trends, issues and expectations that they may be faced with in the future. Furthermore, examining all internal and external environment challenges. Internal environmental challenges may be with employees, shareholders or board of directors or the overall culture of the organization. External environmental