Executive Summary
Exploring business operations is a critical analytical process that entails understanding methods that govern revenue streams. The transportation industry gives a clear perspective on the complexities of running an international company. Virgin Atlantic is one of the most successful organizations among airline firms, yet it has to face numerous challenges.
The company creates and maintains a vast network of airports and fleets that transport people across the Earth. Virgin Atlantic transforms people’s locations through its network while also creating positive experiences. 4Vs of Virgin Atlantic reveal that top firms in the transportation industry rely on the number of travelers and variety of destinations to gain a competitive advantage, although they are susceptible to sudden changes in the market.
Aside from order-qualifying aspects, such as airport accessibility and a high level of comfort, Virgin Atlantic successfully leverages its ethics and values to promote the use of its services. It is possible for Virgin Atlantic to improve the quality and flexibility of its services by differentiating its options for better inclusivity of socioeconomic groups across the world. Customer-employee interactions must remain a priority regardless of the location.
In conclusion, Virgin Atlantic has numerous positive qualities that attract new customers, as it is able to satisfy the majority of its client base. The firm operates on a solid ethical foundation, which links all its parts together in a desire to provide the best possible transportation service. However, the airline industry is a challenging environment, which is shaken by the recent disruption from COVID-19 (Adrienne, Budd, and Ison, 2020). Despite the losses, Virgin Atlantic continues to manage a vast fleet of planes that reach the farthest destinations.
Introduction
One’s comprehension of business operations can give an immense boost to one’s professional growth and improve their entrepreneurial skills. Managing a firm requires one to grasp concepts of resource transformation and utilization, an in-depth knowledge of a chosen industry, and a comprehension of how to derive value from services or products efficiently (Slack and Brandon-Jones, 2018). It is also necessary to assess the specifics of operations for each company, as each function may appear differently depending on an organization. People can affect organizational performance only by an understanding of the factors behind processes.
For this paper, a British company from the transportation industry is selected. Airline companies operate in a highly challenging market that is filled with multinational corporations. Virgin Atlantic is one of the most successful airline carriers in the world, with 39 planes and thousands of customers transported daily (Virgin Atlantic Fleet, no date). The firm has operated in the market for decades and has a solid reputation for the quality of its services. Despite the recent disruption, Virgin Atlantic presents an inspiring case of outstanding entrepreneurship, which can be seen in the efficiency of its functions and the connection it has with its customer base.
There are numerous resources that Virgin Atlantic has to incorporate into its operations in order to provide its high-quality services. First, it is possible to consider airplanes to be the material that the company transforms. There is a need to possess a significant fleet that can cover a vast array of destinations, which requires constant maintenance and upgrades in order for the firm to remain competitive. Information plays a major part in Virgin Atlantic’s operations as well, as synchronization of such a complex network of vehicles and airports is highly demanding. However, the dominant transformed resource for the transportation industry is customers, specifically their locations.
The transformation processes within the airline industry take a form of transportation, which is facilitated by employees and aircraft. Virgin Atlantic possesses 39 planes that are operated by over 800 professional pilots (Breaking Barriers, no date; Virgin Atlantic Fleet, no date). These transforming resources are used to relocate thousands of passengers daily across the globe, as the firm has numerous destinations in popular cities.
Both front- and back-office activities enable Virgin Atlantic to achieve its goals, as processes are both visible and invisible to end-users (Slack and Brandon-Jones, 2019). There are auxiliary operations that support this transformation, such as maintenance sites, complex electronic equipment for navigation and flight control, plane mechanics, and airport staff. As a result, people are able to enjoy comfortable flights within reasonable timeframes. The output of Virgin Atlantic consists of the relocation of employees, passengers, and aircraft across the globe.
The surrounding environment of Virgin Atlantic consists of numerous other modes of transportation available to the public, although the firm does not appear to struggle for space among its competitors. Virgin’s ethics enable it to follow a strict code of conduct that prioritizes benefitting society and the environment, which creates a solid foundation for rampant growth (Yilmaz, 2022). The societal level of Virgin’s operations lies in the company’s facilitation of human connection regardless of distance.
This business covers a wide variety of customers. Two major categories of clients consist of travelers who use Virgin’s services for business and relocations and those who use them for tourism. Domestic and international trips play a vital part in this differentiation, as there are group preferences that stem from travel intentions (Woo, 2019). Due to this notion, the company has to present multiple choices of comfort, ticket prices, destinations, and schedules for its clients.
Volume
The volume of operations for such a major airline company as Virgin Atlantic is immense. Firms that expand to such a level become cost-intensive, which implies the possibility of a collapse due to sudden market changes (Slack and Brandon-Jones, 2019). This British carrier has to satisfy a wide variety of tastes and preferences. The annual volume of transportation for Virgin Atlantic exceeds four million customers (Statista Research Department, 2021). Therefore, only several routes can be active simultaneously to avoid confusion and unnecessary expenses.
Variety
This business operates in a high-variety industry, as it is expected for Virgin Atlantic to reach numerous destinations to satisfy its customers. This notion has several implications: Virgin Atlantic maintains many airports and partners with local facilities, obtains licenses and permissions necessary to operate within a country, and has to announce its presence through advertisements (Our routes | Virgin Atlantic, no date). There is a need to remain efficient throughout this process, which implies that high operations costs must be diminished through other means, such as fleet optimization and good relationships with airports. However, Virgin Atlantic also limits its expansion to remain within the boundaries that allow it to create routine travel paths by selecting several of the most popular destinations.
Variation
The use of Virgin Atlantic’s services varies greatly depending on a multitude of outside factors, including seasonal flights, geopolitical events, and public health concerns. For example,the variation can be perceived in the fact that the firm took a significant hit during the COVID-19 outbreak, which reduced its volume of operations by a large margin, which was not an expected turn of events (Adrienne, Budd, and Ison, 2020). Therefore, anticipating changes in demand is an important goal for Virgin Atlantic. The company’s operations must remain efficient by using as many passenger seats as possible, as the capacity is challenging to scale in the airline industry.
Visibility
As a service provider, Virgin Atlantic possesses a high level of visibility, as customer interactions lie in the foundation of many of its operations. On average, the firm transports over four million people annually, which puts a significant strain on its employees. There is an extensive network of managers and workers that is focused solely on servicing visitors’ needs and demands. For example, Virgin’s client-employee relations serve as the basis for most job requirements (Our Culture | Virgin Atlantic Careers, no date). Customers for companies in this industry can be considered to possess short waiting tolerance, although the production processes take time between one’s booking of a ticket and an actual flight. However, contact skills are paramount for aircraft carriers, as people must be kept updated on their service purchases at all times.
The 4V diagram shows that Virgin Atlantic is able to balance between high volume and visibility through the excellence of its operations. Expenses stemming from the fact that customers are involved in many of the firm’s processes are balanced by the volume of transportation. Moreover, Virgin Atlantic remains in a perfect spot between flexible and responsive functions and routine flights.
There is a need for the organization to anticipate customer trends, which Virgin accomplishes successfully. Virgin Atlantic understands its obstacles clearly since it resolves issues with insufficient supply through partnerships to avoid raising its operation costs (Baxter, 2019). Fast response times, which can be seen in the company’s reactions to market fluctuations, highlight how the management is able to incorporate new designs into standardized procedures.
Order-Winning and Order-Qualifying Aspects
Airline companies continue to upgrade their operations and invent new ways to add benefits for their customers, which eventually become a new standard for the industry. Order-winning aspects enable firm to gain a competitive advantage, while order-qualifiers serve as prerequisites (Slack and Brandon-Jones, 2019). For example, nowadays, an airline company needs to possess a variety of seating options.Flights are the standard mode of transportation for different socioeconomic groups, which implies the need to cater to a broad audience (Albers et al., 2020).
An extensive list of possible routes is also a must, as people seek to connect with new destinations on a large scale. It is necessary to provide as many opportunities for travelers as their experiences drive a company’s brand forward. Simultaneously, customers expect a high level of comfort and accessibility when choosing their airline company, which requires as few cancellations, delays, or any other types of disruption as possible. Due to a short span of patience, clients within this market expect to be able to book their flights effortlessly and travel to their desired destinations without any issues.
The ethics and values of the company give it a significant boost and can be considered one of the primary order-winner aspects. Business and customer relations of Virgin Atlantic focus on passengers’ preferences, clients’ retention, and a robust organizational identity (Yilmaz, 2022). The power of the brand behind Virgin Atlantic gives it a solid boost of reputation. This notion even led to a smear campaign against Virgin Atlantic, which British Airways conducted due to the inferiority of its service qualities in comparison with its competitor (Yilmaz, 2022).
Another vital source of the competitive advantage for Virgin Atlantic is its innovative capability. The company responds quickly to shifts in customer trends by brainstorming the best possible solutions, which can be seen in the addition of medical coverage during the pandemic (Amankwah-Amoah, 2021). Timely updates of the fleet, pilot qualifications, and airport agreements enable Virgin Atlantic to remain a safe choice for travelers, giving it an edge over competitors.
Recommendations
One of the performance objectives that Virgin Atlantic is able to improve in a short time is the quality that its customers are met with when using the company’s services. Currently, clients of Virgin Atlantic report having poor experiences linked to low reliability, delays, visitor-employee interactions, and ticket booth queues (Wojuade and Onatade, 2020). A feasible recommendation in such a situation would be to listen to customer feedback, which provides significant insight into the company’s problems. Depending on the location, there are different expectations that shape clients’ vision of the quality of services, which may fail to reach the satisfactory mark. Virgin Atlantic can fix its reputation by actively making changes based on issues reported by its users. For example, since there are places that report having trouble with flights, it is possible to focus the attention on these underperforming facilities and place professional managers in each of them temporarily.
The market situation also puts a strain on Virgin Atlantic’s operations, which can be alleviated through differentiation. The industry has been under pressure due to COVID-19, during which many transportation companies suffered severe financial losses (Adrienne, Budd, and Ison, 2020). This notion reveals that the size of an organization can turn against it when put under the conditions experienced by organizations in the past two years. Due to the size of its operations, Virgin Atlantic can not survive a prolonged period of downturn, which makes such situations highly detrimental to this business.
Therefore, it is necessary for the firm to come up with a solution to the number of its services and improve the performance objective of flexibility. Virgin Atlantic can compete with low-cost carriers by transforming its business strategies depending on the location. A less strict direction for an airline company can bring a new stream of revenue that may remain active during high-strain situations (Tavalaei and Santalo, 2019). Through such an approach, Virgin Atlantic can also follow its code of ethics and promote the value of accessible travel among customers, gaining an additional competitive advantage through better exposure.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Virgin Atlantic possesses many positive qualities that stem from its experience in this industry, which allow the firm to predict and alleviate many adverse factors that affect this market. Virgin Atlantic uses its network of ships, airports, and experienced pilots to transform customers’ locations with great success. 4Vs of Virgin Atlantic reveal the source of its current struggles, as the company has to balance between high variation, volume, visibility, and low variety. The demand for such services comes from both businesspeople and tourists alike, who require different approaches.
In addition, the damage done by COVID-19 continues to weigh on many transportation firms. Being in the airline market for over thirty years, Virgin Atlantic is able to accommodate many order-qualifying aspects in its operations, such as long-distance flights, affordable economy and premium tickets, and efficient airport management. The company has several order-winning qualities that ensure its long-term success, such as its ethics and innovative design that accommodates new customer trends. Virgin Atlantic can cement its position as a top-notch multinational carrier by acting on customer feedback and differentiating its services depending on the location.
Reference List
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