SWOT ANALYSIS

This week, we learnt SWOT analysis. SWOT analysis is about the strength, weakness, opportunity and threat. I think that is pretty interesting. And i would love to apply SWOT analysis to easy jet case study.

Speaking to the strength, i think easy jet has many strengths which can make it become one of the biggest budge airlines in the UK. Firstly, easy jet has a strong reputation and brand awareness. This is because that easy jet has been fruitful as it enjoys broad recognition around Europe ane especially in UK. Secondly, easy jet has low cost and low fares as well. Easy jet always keeps costs low by eliminating the unnecessary costs and 'frills' which characterise 'traditional' airlines. For instance, they will provide online booking to reduce distribution costs. Moreover, they will maximise the utilisation of airport and aircraft. Furthermore, they will not provide the free lunch as well in order to lower their fares,  Thirdly, easy jet has a wide range of destinations in Europe. Lastly, they provide speedy and flexible operations as well.

Talking about the weakness, i think easy jet has limited departure airports which means that the main airport for easy jet is Luton airport. Although easy jet flights to any Europe big cities such as Paris, Rome, Milan, it still misses some important airports to stay just like London Heathrow airport. For most people who live in London, this is a very inconvenient point. That will cost more money for the customers. However, the flight fees are cheaper than other airlines, they need to pay extra money to go to Luton airport.  Moreover, they provide the online booking service, but for some elder people or the people who do not use the internet, it is inconvenient to book on line.  Therefore, they should better to add some telephone line services to give more help to some people who need help.

And the opportunity for easy jet, i think they have a large market to expand. For example, European deregulation 'open skies' has transformed the industry restructuring of major airlines frees slots in airports and resource, which makes easy jet more easily to expand their business bases more throughout UK and mainland Europe.  And as the new markets, besides in Europe, easy jet could find out more potential markets, such as Asia. This is because Asia is becoming a flourishing travel place, there must be more and more tourists and residents want to travel around by air. This is a big potential market for easy jet. Moreover, the internet revolution will also helps easy jet as more and more people are using the internet service, the booking system of easy jet is more accessible to the customers.

When talking about the threat, easy jet is facing the increasing competition as well. There are more and more competitions bring saturated market and more low-fare new entrants are affecting easy jet. On the other hand, the developing IT will affect easy jet too as the new technology on telecommunication will possibility lead to the decline of frequency on business trip, more and more companies are using long distance meetings. Therefore, it will influence the business flight for easy jet.  Furthermore, the increasing fuel price will also influence easy jet as the group fuel risk management policy aims to provide protection against sudden and significant increases in jet fuel price while ensuring easy jet may also benefit from price reductions. Lastly, the high bargaining power of suppliers will also affect easy jet.

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Final blog ---Globalisation & CSR

Time is elapsing so fast, our first term is almost finish. During these two months, I gained a lot in different aspects.  Not only in my study, but also in my personal developing.

In the business and management lessons, we learnt something about globalisation and CSR. I found that very interesting as it is very close to our daily life. It is already be a trend and is going to invade all over the world. 

This is a funny but meaningful video that i want to share with you: 

For the globalisation, it is no longer be the new topic anymore as economic globalisation is everywhere nowadays. No matter the food, service, products, information, technology or labour are already become almost the same. There are serval reasons that make this happen includes political, technological, market and costs, rising real living standards and competitive.

Globalisation can be seen as a positive, negative or even marginal process. However, some may argue that globalisation is not a positive tendency as it will lead to the problem of lack of characteristic which means that everywhere will be the same. I agree with this opinion as I think that globalisation is a good thing somehow, but if over-globalisation it will become negative in contrast. For instance, whenever and wherever we go to any country or city, from China to Africa, we can find a McDonald's or Starbucks very easily as they are already spread throughout the rest of the world. When we go shopping in a shopping mall, we can always see the same brands such as TOP-SHOP, LV, PRADA, GAP everywhere includes in Asian counties like singapore, Japan or Thailand, in Western countries like Sweden, France or Spain. 

shopping centre in Lyon France 

 shopping centre in Bangkok

I think this is not a healthy situation as the brands are slowly to monopolise our world. The problem of globalisation is that we are losing some special and featured local boutiques because they cannot competitive with the commercial companies. I had read an article which is about the globalisation of economic and I think that is very interesting, the book called Jonathan Perraton, David Goldblatt , David Held & Anthony Mcgrew (1997) The globalisation of economic activity, New Political Economy, 2:2, 257-277.

Talking about CSR which means that corporate social responsibility, it divided to two parts internal and external responsibilities. In the internal responsibilities, it's about the business itself should bear the responsibility to make sure pay equally and fair to the every employee and do not use child labour. But nowadays, still have some companies are using child labour which is really unethical and inhumanity. For instance, NIKE is one of the companies who using the child labour. Nike is using child labour in the production of its soccer balls in Pakistan. But with the problem of child labour, did we really look into the matter of this problem? No, we didn't! Even the government in Pakistan, they didn't take enough actions to combat this serious situation. And other organisations such as WTO, did they do enough to solve this problem? Yes, but it's really inadequate. They do try to boycott NIKE, but it does not helpful. I think that we should really aware of the problem that child labour and cheap labour. 

http://www1.american.edu/TED/nike.htm

When talking about the external responsibilities, we should bear the responsibility on protect the environment and avoid animal cruelty. But tracing back to the reality, did we really do that? The answer is obviously----NO! Most of the people are just care about the profits but not the environment! Therefore, we should really support the company who will protect the environment. For example, Rockwood Lithium company which is doing some special metals, they will use anhydrous lithium hydroxide which can remove carbon dioxide from closed air circulating systems. Other examples are Oxsilan, Gardobond and Naftoseal. These companies will aware about the importance of protect the environment. We should give more support to those companies who will support the environment. I think that is not only the government's responsibilities, but also everyone's responsibility as we all living in the same globe, that is our collective responsibilities.  

http://www.rockwoodspecialties.com/rock_english/she/she_companies.asp

PESTLE anaylis

Last week, we learnt the micro environment in the business and management lessons. It's about Porter's five forces including the threat of new entry, the threat of substitution, buyer power, supplier power and competitive rivalry. And this week, we learnt the macro environment which including political, socio-cultural, economic, legal, technological and environmental. Micro and Macro analysis are both in order to identify whether new products, service or business have the potential to be profitable or not. But the fundamental difference between them is that we cannot do much to change the macro environment except to develop the strategy. In contrast, micro environment is much easier to change and control the situation. But we should both look into the matter when we decide to do business.

I would like to use the example of HSBC bank to discuss about how the macro environment affect the hospital organisation. 

In the political factors, there are many situations will affect the bank. For instance, the government changes its legislations like increasing the taxation. It will directly influent the bank as they might need to hand in more taxes. Therefore, their profits will be decreasing. Moreover, government stability will also affect the bank as if the political situation is not stable, citizens will lose their confidence to invest and it will also stop the potential investors to invest the UK market. 

In the socio-cultural aspect, people's changes in lifestyle and their attitudes to work can also affect the bank. For example, people are having more free time and leisure time in the UK nowadays, they might have more time to study the finance and do some investments. Furthermore, the distribution of income will also affect the bank. According to The Economic Times news on 7th November, it shows that the UK proposes reduced protections for final-salary pension schemes which means that they might decline the pensions in the coming future. It will affect the bank as people will be more conservative on spending money. Therefore, less people will do the investments. 

http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-11-07/news/43776303_1_new-pension-schemes-inflation-protection-retirement

In the economic aspect, consumer activity, confidence, spending patterns will also affect the bank. If the consumer have more confident and willing to spend money on investment, it can helps the bank a lot. For instance, there was a piece of news from BBC News on 4th November 2013 which is talking about how the profit surge 30% because of the strong performance in the UK and Hong Kong.  And it can also shows that the importance of the economic relationship with the potential markets as Hong Kong continues to benefit from its close economic relationship with mainland china. 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-2480079

And the variable business costs will also affect the business. For example, according to the BBC News on the 29th August 2013, HSBC increased its charges for 700,000 small business customers, many of them losing their free banking service. It will also affect the HSBC Bank.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23890694

In the legal aspect, changes in law will affect the bank as well. As the example above (HSBC increased its charges for 700,000 small business customers, many of them losing their free banking service), it will be a reason that affect the business. Besides, the employment and safety law will also affect the business. The video in the following ground is talking about the HSBC bank plans to cut 14,000 jobs in order to reduce the costs.

In the environmental aspect, green issues, energy consumption, renewable or green energy will affect the organisation as well.  

http://youtu.be/hvtB2459kRw This video is talking about how to building a Low Carbon Britain and the policy to attract green investment to the UK.