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British Airways Case Study

Decent Essays

Introduction
In this individual assignment, reading material including the different ways companies innovate, re-energize a mature organization, and change corporate culture provide the basis for analyzing British Airways’ (BA) transformation and the difficulties encountered in making an organizational change. Identification of critical factors leading to British Airways successful transformation as well as steps, sequence, and risks taken to transform the organization and personal assessment is provided for this case study.
Connection of British Airways case to re-energizing the mature organization
How was the accompanying reading, “Re-Energizing the Mature Organization,” germane to the case on British Airways?
The re-energizing the …show more content…

Through bureaucracy bashing, the company focused on removing work that added little value to customer satisfaction. This was accomplished through establishment of the Putting People First (PPF) program that also resulted in employee empowerment as the program was aimed to benefit employees as individuals first leading to a feeling of respect and belief they were part of the change moving forward. The focus on continuous improvement included creative financing, marketing, and a movement towards privatization and globalization. Lastly, addressing organizational cultural was one of BA’s biggest challenges in re-energizing through change.
British Airways challenges to making change
What was life like at the “old” British airways? What was difficult about making change?
Prior to the marketing campaign touting BA as “The World’s Favorite Airline,” BA was often referred to as “bloody awful.” The company suffered from poor performance, inefficiencies, an older fleet, and substantial financial losses. Following passage of the Civil Aviation Act in 1971, BA assumed control of two state-run airlines, British European Airlines (BEA) and British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC), under the name British Airways. However, BEA and BOAC operated autonomously with separate boards, chairman, and chief executive officer that provided a challenge in making change. The level of

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